Venu Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 14, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Venue now has a pipeline of 38 municipalities in talks, backed by a three-year partnership with Ryan LLC to deliver two new development agreements each quarter, each adding $150M–$300M to the balance sheet.
  • Positive Sentiment: The new triple net leaseback model for Luxe Fire Suite sales has far exceeded forecasts, and a year-end sale-leaseback deal is expected to generate $188M in proceeds and ~$35M development profit in Q4 with another $35M in 2026.
  • Negative Sentiment: Year-to-date total revenue declined 2% to $8.0M for the six months ended 06/30/2025, primarily due to lower restaurant sales, prompting management to focus on growing top-line revenue at its dining venues.
  • Positive Sentiment: Operational improvements drove an 8% increase in ticket sales, a 9% rise in food and beverage spend per head at Ford Amphitheater, and a 10% reduction in operating costs per show versus last year.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company is on track to open three new amphitheaters and one indoor entertainment campus by 2026, with guidance pointing to a development profit in Q4 2025 and operational profit in Q3 2026, and a pipeline exceeding $5B in project value over the next 36–48 months.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Venu Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

There are 3 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to Venue Holding Corporation second quarter twenty twenty five financial results and business update. Earlier today, Venue, trading under the ticker symbol, b e n u, issued a press release summarizing the company's second quarter twenty twenty five performance following the filings of its quarterly report on Form 10 Q for the period ending 06/30/2025. This conference call is being recorded and will be available online along with the earnings press release at venue.live in accordance with the company's retention policies. All participants on today's call are in listen only mode. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the line for a Q and A session.

Operator

At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Heather Atkinson, Chief Financial Officer of Venue Holding Corporation. Heather, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you all for joining Venue Holding Corporation June. On the call today, we have our senior leadership team, myself, founder, chairman and CEO, JW Roth COO and president, Will Hodgson president, Tom Ashley and President, Harry Liebler. Following the safe harbor statement, JW will begin with a review from across the business and key highlights from the quarter. I will then present a summary of our quarterly financial results. After that, Will is going to provide details and operational insights.

Speaker 1

Finally, as our operator mentioned, we'll open the call for questions. We'd like to remind everyone that various remarks about future expectations, plans and prospects constitute forward looking statements for purposes of safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Then you caution that these forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those indicated, including risks described in the company's annual report annual report on Form 10 q for the quarter ended 06/30/2025 and on our other filings with the SEC, all of which can be reviewed on the company's website at venu.live, spelledvenu.live, or on the SEC's website at sec.gov. Any forward looking statements made on this conference call speak only as of today's date, Thursday, 08/14/2025, and then you do not intend to update any of these forward looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that would occur after today's date, except as may be required by federal security laws. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our founder, chairman, and CEO, JW Robb.

Speaker 1

JW?

Speaker 2

Great. Thank you, Heather. And thanks to me and to all of you for being here. I'm going to dig into some prepared remarks, and then we'll move on to our question and answer session. As we close out this quarter, we're seeing the pieces come together for what's going to be a defining moment in our growth history.

Speaker 2

While our attention this quarter has been heavily on our balance sheet, it's all with the p and l in mind. Every decision that we make today, every ticket that we sell, every alliance that we form, and every strategic is designed to fuel long term profitability. We're building the foundation today to keep pace with and sustain our growth. Here's the deal. Our growth is guided by four clear priorities.

Speaker 2

First, expanding our markets across the nation. Second, bringing current developments over the finish line and packing their calendars with great content third, growing our fire pit suite sales with a focus on high impact triple net transactions that go straight onto our balance sheet. And finally, unlocking strategic value through high value opportunities like naming rights and sale leasebacks. Let's start with our pipeline. We've built a powerful development engine anchored by a rigorous site selection process that ensures every location we choose is backed by a strong public private partnership.

Speaker 2

Our municipal pipeline now includes 38 communities engaged in conversations about bringing venue to their area. To accelerate these agreements, we have a strong partnership with industry leader Ryan LLC. This three year partnership is tasked with delivering two new municipalities every quarter. And on average, we can expect to add between $150,000,000 to $300,000,000 to our balance sheet with each delivered development agreement. Typically, this process takes about twelve to fourteen months to break ground and then another fourteen months or so to build.

Speaker 2

Depending on market size, site selection includes amphitheaters and indoor entertainment campuses. The demand is undeniable. While not every municipality will ultimately see a world class venue within their city city limits, the sheer volume of interest speaks to scale, of our outreach. On the construction side, we have a big year ahead, currently on track to open three new amphitheaters that will host year round programming as well as one new entertainment campus in Centennial, Colorado set to open in 2026. As mentioned in previous reports, Luxfire suite sales are the backbone of everything we're building.

Speaker 2

And remember, these sales go directly onto our balance sheet. Until now, these opportunities have been sold through upfront cash or structured financing models. But back in May, we announced the newest way to ownership, a triple net real estate leaseback model sold both directly and through our partners at Sands Investment Group. Unlike traditional sales, triple net deals not only generate upfront cash, but also deliver lasting impact on future earnings with the retention of premium inventories. Since that announcement, we have seen an immense surge in that demand.

Speaker 2

This program is growing fast and has far exceeded early forecast. We believe that this will eventually become the new flagship program in our ecosystem here at Venue. Further, one of the most exciting milestones is a potential year end sale leaseback that is currently on the horizon. From the day we began our journey, we have been clear on how we intend to fund all of our expansion, partially through public private partnerships, partially through the sale of our fire fleet, and then toward the end of every project, the sale leaseback of the ground underneath the development. The current opportunity is intended to complete the financing of our entire project and will likely result in a development profit.

Speaker 2

We have been presented with a significant opportunity to alleviate I'm sorry, to activate sale leaseback opportunities. Once completed and accepted, the current one is expected to generate $188,000,000 in $188,000,000 and a development profit of roughly $35,000,000 in the fourth quarter of this year with another $35,000,000 expected in the 2026. If q two proved anything, it's that the foundation is set, and we are roaring ahead. The fans are getting what they've always deserved. Our model is working.

Speaker 2

Municipalities are hungry. Momentum is real, and the market is ours to take. In closing, everything that we've been working on is pointing to a development profit in the fourth quarter of this year and operationally profit in third quarter, 2026. The future we've been building for is right in front of us, and it's coming fast. We are on pace to add more than $5,000,000,000 in completed project value over the next thirty six to forty eight months.

Speaker 2

And if two is any sign, we've laid the foundation for big things to come. With this strong momentum in mind, I will now turn it over to our chief financial officer, Heather Atkinson.

Speaker 1

Great. Thank you so much, JW. Now to dig into the quarterly and year to date figures a bit more. Our total assets increased to $242,000,000, up 63,600,000.0 or 36% as of 06/30/2025. This is up a $178,400,000 from 12/31/2024.

Speaker 1

Our property and equipment increased to a $199,200,000, up $62,000,000 or 45% as of 06/30/2025 from a $137,200,000 at 12/31/2024. Our Luxe Fire Suite and Aikman club sales reached $61,300,000 through 06/30/2025, up $15,500,000 or 34% from 45,800,000.0 from 06/30/2024. This included sales of Luxe buyer suites through traditional cash sales, fractional financing, and the start of our triple net lease interest and buyer fees as well. Our total revenue at 4,500,000.0 rose 7% or 312,000 for the three months ended 06/30/2025 compared to the three months ended 06/30/2024 of 4,200,000.0. The overall increase in the three months ended 06/30/2025 was primarily attributable to Ford Amphitheater being opened in the three months ended 06/30/2025 compared to not yet being opened for the three months ended 06/30/2024.

Speaker 1

Our total revenue of 8,000,000 for the six months ended 06/30/2025 as compared to 8,100,000.0 for the six months ended 06/30/2024 was a decrease of 2% or a 128,000. This overall decrease was primarily attributable to the decrease in overall restaurant sales period over period. The company's operational management team is laser focused on growing top line revenue at the restaurants during the 2025 that Will is going to describe in greater detail in the operational update here in a few moments. Our amphitheater operations generated net revenue to venue, which is defined as profit after venue split with AEG, is the operator of Ford Amphitheater, was received from our naming rights agreements, which are outside of venue's AEG partnership agreement combined for 598,000 for the three months ended 06/30/2025 and 769,000 for the six months ended 06/30/2025. Over the start of our 2025 season at Ford Amphitheater with just 10 shows through 06/30/2025, this location generated gross receipts of 4,700,000.0.

Speaker 1

These gross receipts, which are inclusive of ticket sales, concessions, ticketing fees, premium upgrades, merchandise, as well as other receipts, are subject to the split with AEG. This concludes our review of the quarterly and year to date financial results. I will now hand it over to Will to walk us through the operational insights and key drivers from this quarter. Will?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Heather. Great to have everybody here on the call with us today. We continue to fine tune operations across the board. We're pursuing every opportunity to maximize returns and smooth out inefficiencies. Our approach is focused on operational discipline while finding creative ways to enhance the guest experience and leverage insights to improve our margins along the way.

Speaker 2

To get into some examples of that in action this quarter, Colorado transitioned one of its restaurants, Noat's Eatery, in 2025 to a weekend brunch and private events model, resulting in an overall 10% Q2 revenue decline versus last year, but ultimately delivering a profitable sale of the property and reducing overall drag on the complete portfolio. The rest of the restaurants division's direct sales, however, held steady in Q2 as we continue to position ourselves for strong growth moving forward. We are actively testing menu innovations for Bourbon Brothers properties as well as limited time offers and data driven areas of growth by daypart, meal period and even by hour to give guests more of what they love. In event operations, total tickets sold rose 8% along with two additional shows compared to the same period last year. This partially offset softness in corporate private events, leading to a marginal overall revenue decline.

Speaker 2

However, to capture more growth, we're rolling out fresh sales strategies, new collateral and targeted marketing aimed at the higher net worth event clients. Our partnerships with leading promoters and agencies and operators continue to expand, adding high caliber events deep into the touring season. Several additional long term agreements are expected in the weeks ahead, including those venues currently under construction across Texas, Oklahoma and beyond. We're really moving there. In Colorado, Fort Amphitheater concert operations didn't miss a beat from a stellar inaugural 2024 season by hosting 10 shows in Q2 generating receipts of 4,700,000.0 that Heather mentioned.

Speaker 2

Two highlights important highlights of note, food and beverage sales increased by $1.0.9 per head or 9% versus full season 2024, and operating costs were reduced by 10% per show on average versus last year. This is only the beginning. The remainder of the season will feature top touring talent such as Chicago, Miranda Lambert, the Red Clay Strays at our Polestar nominated Ford Amphitheater. Now adjacent to the venue, Ross, ski and steak is on track for its fall twenty twenty five opening. We are super excited with the team of Michelin starred kitchen and world class dining rooms.

Speaker 2

It will bring a premier fine dining experience to our campus. Now for the balance of 2025, our focus remains on testing and scaling guest spend drivers, removing friction in sales to increase transactional speed, deploying intentional pricing and offers to boost frequency, curating immersive entertainment events and deepening local connections in the communities we serve, driving both top line growth and lasting brand loyalty. Looking forward, our team is already booking into 2026, pointing to a robust outdoor concert season across all our properties, coupled with elevated food and beverage offerings, premium experiences and enhanced in venue amenities. Three new amphitheaters and an indoor venue alongside fresh strategic alliances and strengthened community engagement initiatives are all on the horizon. As JW said before, we're building the foundation today to keep pace with and sustain our growth strategy.

Speaker 2

It's a super exciting road ahead of us. And with this pipeline of growth, we are well positioned to deliver. Thanks again for spending time with us today. Appreciate it. With that, I'll turn it back to J.

Speaker 2

W. Well, thanks a million. I'm going kick it back to the operator for question and answers.

Operator

Your first question comes from Marty Calvert with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Hey, JW and team. A great quarter. It was fantastic. I just wanted to you mentioned it in your prepared remarks about momentum. And it seems like you're getting momentum in pretty much every single one of your aspects of your business.

Speaker 2

Can you talk about any of the drivers that you see going forward in that momentum? And why that momentum is increasing in partnerships and the list goes on and on? Yeah. First, Marty, just thank you for thank you for your questions. Thank you for all your support and all that you do for us.

Speaker 2

You know, honestly, we're just excited about everything. I mean, the the fractional ownership programs that we have here, they're roaring. I mean, the triple nets are coming on strong. Expect to close out the next two quarters with over $100,000,000 in new sales. New market expansion is roaring.

Speaker 2

We have 38 communities that we're engaging right now that are going to result in, you know, a couple of new deals every quarter for the next year or so. The new rental the new revenue channels and and next gen revenue channels that we're that we're working on are are hitting on all cylinders. And so, you know, it's just exciting and disruptive stuff. So I, you know, I I thank you for for for your question. But and and and at the end of the day, can just answer it by saying, you know, this team is just it's just working.

Speaker 2

And so I can't be more excited about where we're at. Thank you, JW.

Operator

With no further questions in queue, that concludes our conference call for today. Before we sign off, the company also wanted me to pass a friendly reminder. If you would like to receive alerts for news, reports, or other filings, you may subscribe to them at investors.venue.live. Thank you so much for your participation, and have a great evening.

Powered by Quartr