expectations, which was great to see. Maybe sort of to start off, could you talk about some of the key trends that you are seeing across the live event space? And how should we think about the potential impact of softer consumer spend, especially given that resilience, sort of, the resilience that we've seen from consumers over the past several years? Yeah, look, you know, I think certainly, you know, proud of the team. Great, great results for the quarter, as you said. You know, I think in underpinning that strong investments that have continued to yield fruit across the revenue and certainly the profitability line. You know, when we look at the industry, as we've talked about, this, this category has remained one that is just resilient, right? Definitionally, certainly discretionary income, but that FOMO aspect of it, I think, has consumers look at this a little bit differently than they would, you know, perhaps a TV purchase. Right. That being said, I think we are certainly paying attention and watching the macro trends on this, and by no means would we ever purport that we would, that, you know, the category would be immune. And so certainly, I think we continue to look at what we see, which has been that resiliency relative to others, but that, you know, should there be an impact here, I think we'd more likely see it in our average order size as an indication of that demand and supply out balance, versus call it, volumes, which I think have traditionally always held up. Got it. So you also saw nice momentum in some sort of more nascent categories like women's sports and soccer. What's driving that, and how sustainable do you think that can be going forward? Yeah, look, I think it's been really exciting, right? I think when new categories come up and, you know, you have the right catalyst to bring that to light, and both of those categories did, right? I mean, if you start with soccer, I think the Messi effect is real and pronounced across everything we saw this year, whether it was his introduction into MLS, or Copa América being here in North America, I think also, or a lot in the United States, was a great kind of catalyst behind that, and we hope that there is a lot of lasting power there with MLS. Women's sports, you know, an amazing year, right? I think with, you know, Caitlin Clark, everything she's done, but not just her, right? I think Angel Reese and all these stars who, you know, I think took the college excitement and immediately funneled that into the WNBA. And so I think we're certainly excited. These are unprecedented levels of interest that we've seen across both of those categories this year, and we certainly hope that they're here to stay. If I could just- Mm-hmm. . add on, on the soccer side of things in particular. If you look at the, call it, secular demographic trends in terms of kids playing soccer, it's been one of the fastest growing sports, but the viewership didn't always follow, right? Right. So I think Messi could really be a nice push in the right direction. Stan mentioned Copa América, which is a once every four-year event this year, so you might be worried about that rolling over next year. Mm-hmm. But the FIFA Club World Cup is in the U.S. next summer. That should be a monster, and then the World Cup is in the U.S. in 2026. So specific to soccer, I think there's some really nice fundamental tailwinds alongside idiosyncratic tailwinds that should persist. Great. So before we jump into the business, I wanted to ask about your thoughts on the DOJ investigation into Live Nation. How likely do you think it is that, the DOJ would force, Live Nation and Ticketmaster to split up? And, if that were to occur, what does that mean for your business and the industry overall? Yeah, look, I think it's just like everybody else. I think probably really hard. Wish we had the crystal ball to know what was happening there, but we don't. You know, I think how we look at that space is, you know, as Ticketmaster competes with us, certainly for consumers, you know, I think in the event of a split up of the entities, I think the assumption would be that that would be a slightly weaker Ticketmaster. And so I think when we look at that, having a distracted and/or weakened competitor is certainly a beneficial thing for us. Great. So let's talk about Vivid's recent acquisitions next, and let's start with Vegas.com. How have the integration efforts been progressing, and how has the business been performing this year relative to your expectations? Yeah, I think we've been really excited about that. You know, if, if anything, even more excited about that, acquisition now than when we, when we acquired it. You know, if you start from, we thought this was a scaled, profitable platform that had a lot of tentacles out, and one of the tentacles out that we could uniquely leverage was that it is a customer acquisition vehicle for us- Mm-hmm ... for those who go to Vegas, who are not from Vegas, and as they go home to their home markets, we can introduce them to our national, soon-to-be international platform, Vivid Seats. You know, I think that's continuing to make great progress. As we talked about in earnings, you know, we've now got tens of thousands of customers that we hit through our automatic, automated campaigns, and introduce them to Vivid Seats, and we see the level of engagement on that multiples higher than any other, you know, campaigns that we have to reach, consumers. Mm-hmm. So I think, excited about that track. Similarly, one of the other theses that we had on this was: how do we drive, synergized inventory across the platforms? If you'll recall, the inventory sources were mutually exclusive prior to the acquisition, with Vegas.com primarily being a direct venue, offered inventory, and Vivid Seats being a marketplace, being, resellers that were offering that. That synergized inventory, I think, has been really, encouraging and exciting as we've brought a lot of that cross-platform inventory there now. And in a summer in Vegas, for example, where you've had Treasure Island and Mirage close- Mm-hmm. as well as, you know, I think shows tied to the properties like The Beatles LOVE or Shin Lim: The Magic Show, we've still seen, you know, great results from the property, and I think that's a combination of the execution of the team, combined with the synergy that we've brought to the platform across inventory and technology. Mm-hmm. And I guess to that point, what kind of your own inventory is sort of, you're finding sort of resonates well on Vegas.com? Yeah, I think as with everything, you know, I think the complete absence of certain things there provided this opportunity, and then similar to a lot of our channels, it's a discovery-oriented channel, and so I think our ability to surface the right content to the user, depending on what they're looking for- Mm-hmm has now grown because we have content that wasn't previously available. Right. I think that's how we've targeted. That makes sense. And then, could you share an update on Wavedash? How has that platform performed sort of relative to your expectations, and what are some areas where you sort of, invest in? Maybe I'll start with the investment- Mm-hmm ... and Larry can go through, you know, how we've seen performance. You know, I think that's a, that was a great acquisition for us, that gave us insight into the markets there with the market leader in marketplace secondary ticketing in Japan. That's the number one player there. We've continued to be excited. You know, I think as we've infused certain things, we sit in a really fortuitous spot, where in the US, we happen to be the official marketplace for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who also happen to sign the number one player in baseball, Shohei Ohtani now, and as you can imagine, Japanese baseball fans are really big fans of Shohei Ohtani as well. And so I think when you look at the ability there to not only drive the platform growth in Japan, but then bring the interest and the, call it the official nature of our partnership with the Dodgers and give access to Dodgers games and drive them from Japan to the U.S. via Vivid Seats. I think you've seen, we've built out all of those integrations, we've built out all of those ways to engage users, and we've been- Mm-hmm ... quite pleased with what we've seen in that dimension as one of the elements, that we've continued to drive there. Mm-hmm. From financial performance standpoint, I'd say, on a local currency basis, it's been generally what we had expected and bargained for. We've seen nice strength in terms of the number of orders coming through, somewhat offset by slightly softer average order size, particularly led by the J-pop category over there, where there's been some specific issues relative to one of the largest promoters, but we think that's now in the rearview mirror, so expect average order size to shift into being a tailwind moving forward. And then the, you know, I wish we were better macroeconomists element, you know, we did not see FX going to all-time lows, and so we've had a little bit of a U.S. dollar equivalent headwind, but you know, again, I think as we've seen in the last month, that can reverse quickly. Yeah and it's detached from underlying fundamentals. Got it. That makes sense. So, that segues nicely into a broader discussion on your efforts to expand in more international markets. Can you maybe just spend a minute talking about sort of build versus buy approach, and sort of how you're thinking about it more broadly, and how much investment is typically required to launch a new marketplace? Yeah, if you start from maybe the build versus buy, and I think Japan was a great example. I don't, I don't think we want. I don't think we deliberately meant to start our international efforts in Japan, but we were able to find a great team, great asset, scaled, profitable, cash generating, and we're able to acquire that for a very accretive multiple to where we were trading at the time and- Mm-hmm you know, I think what we said is, look, when we can find deals like that, we will do them all the time, and so the power of our business, the balance sheet, our own cash generation affords us that ability to do that. We also thought that that would be rare, finding a local market leader of that size and scale, as we set out on our broader ambitions to, to build out an international platform, and I think so far, I think that's been true. You know, I think we've- Mm-hmm certainly got the appetite and the firepower, but have nothing to announce on the acquisition front. Right. Therefore, I think when you look at our investments, a lot of them have been really around: how do we build out an organic platform that allows us to go after the entirety of the opportunity, right? I think about that investment as it's not a country-by-country strategy, right? Mm-hmm. It's a platform strategy that says, when we're ready, we should be able to tackle multiple markets at scale and with speed and, you know, operational discipline. Mm-hmm. And, so last week you reiterated that you remain on track to go live in certain markets by the end of this year. Could you maybe spend a moment talking about how long you anticipate, sort of, it, sort of, for those markets or some of those markets to scale and to start contributing to, GOV growth? Yeah, I think it's hard, hard to put a, you know, call it really specific time frame. I think what, what we always like to point out here is, again, you know, the nature of our investments and sort of the engine and platform that we've built allow us to move with velocity as we develop traction, and also that, call it marketplace or market launches for us, are not heavy on the localized fixed cost basis, right? So we're not building, for example, retail shops that require physical investment into a country and then requires a lot of out-of-home and fixed marketing that we expect to get leverage on. Instead, I think our technology platform, which also includes MarTech, we believe scales quite well internationally, and therefore, as we enter markets in a size at a time where we think we can really launch with a comprehensive offering, we believe that it will be a fairly rapid entry, but probably a little too early still to say exactly how quick we think that'll be. And it'll probably be some variation- Mm-hmm too, market by market. Got it. Got it. That makes sense. So let's turn to your core marketplace.... first, so we've talked about this in the past, but your loyalty program appears to be a clear differentiator. For those who may be a little bit newer to your story, can you just talk about kind of your loyalty program more broadly, and how it helps to retain customers and drive engagement? Yeah, I think we've always, I think, prided ourselves on building products and services that differentiate ourselves from competitors in a way that is truly valuable to consumers, and our loyalty program, I think, is a really good example of that. Our program is centered around a buy 10 tickets, get 1 free, and I always make that distinction, tickets, because tickets is not orders. And if you think most people don't go to events by themselves, you have multiple tickets per order. The behavior that elicits, it's one of two things: bring more friends with you or go more frequently, both of which are fantastic outcomes for us. Right. As you've seen in our disclosure, we continue to see great traction with frequency, you know, on a year-over-year basis, continuing to increase. You look at the disclosure we talk about on percentage of repeat orders as a mix of the business continuing to track up or 1,300 basis points to, you know, as, as the end of last year, almost 60% of our orders now- Right repeat orders, and that mix driving great profitability, you know, through the P&L as we move into those cohorts that are there. Mm-hmm. So let's talk about Skybox, which is your point of sale platform. Could you maybe give us a quick recap of how it is differentiated from sort of other offerings out there? Yeah, I think we had the good fortune of, you know, having a really strong experience and talent base in terms of what, you know, I think professional sellers wanted. So I think when the platform was built, it was really built around things that others didn't have, right? And still to this day, to a certain extent, don't have. You know, total scalability, cloud-based, free usage, and very easy integration across the board on both the front and back end, right? APIs that allow a lot of flexibility. So regardless of the size of customer or seller that you are, you have the ability to utilize the products that we've built, you have the ability to bring in third-party tools, you also have the ability to build on top of that. A very flexible, scalable platform that has been and still remains free of use. Then I think what we've done on top of that is to build added, value-added services and products that allow you to take even deeper advantage of the Skybox product at its core, which then I think drives increased benefit to us on the marketplace side and stronger retention with the seller cohorts. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, and then sort of later this year, you're planning to launch Skybox Drive, which is an automated pricing tool for sellers. What type of impact do you expect that to have on your platform and kind of on the space overall? Yeah, I think we're excited about that. That is a... You know, when you talk to sellers, and I think where they see technology and what needs they have, you know, I think automated pricing in a very, you know, fast-paced industry, I think is something that they all use, and there are third-party solutions out there, none of which are turnkey into the marketplace, and none of which have a direct, you know, call it data feed from a marketplace of our size, for example. We did $4 billion in GOV last year, so a very- Mm-hmm sizable impact. As we bring that to market, and, you know, I think we talked about we've tripled the size of the beta and are about to come out of that as we've kind of tested and built that feedback in, are excited to launch. You know, I think sellers will now have the ability to not have to go to a third party to get pricing. It will be fully automated into their ERP, right? Mm-hmm. When you think about that, it's very powerful today. If Larry was a seller on Skybox and said: "I want to use an Auto pricer tomorrow or today," he could use that when we flip a switch, whereas the options today require integration, data transfer, a lot of things. So it's a very simple use with a very large captive audience. Mm-hmm. The second component is just more efficient pricing that relates to the market. I go back to, if you have sub-scale or not representative index points for how to price, you will always be inefficient. In our case, I think we bring a very sizable representation of the market. So I think we certainly see lots of opportunity for benefits across the industry to use, see adoption of the tool. And then as it pertains to us, we've certainly embedded nothing into our financial guidance, nor have we talked about plans to monetize the asset. But if you look again at the industry, auto pricer exist, and none of them are free. So if and when we should decide to monetize, I think the asset, it would also be very, very in line with, industry precedent. Well, that was my next question. What are your thoughts on monetizing Skybox? At some point down the road, but you, you just answered. Yeah, we're happy- If there is anything else you wanna add? No, I'd say, look, I think we're... That's a great new product that we're excited to bring to market. You know, I think we'll certainly be watching and executing as we go to market with it. And, you know, should we have an update to how we think about monetization? We'll certainly provide some thoughts and guidance on it. Got it. Got it. That makes sense. So let's talk about a couple of, sort of financial, questions here. So Larry, you reduced your 2024 GOV outlook last week, but indicated that growth should re-accelerate in Q4, and you sounded pretty upbeat about sort of concert calendar for 2025. Could you maybe spend a minute talking about what's embedded in your second half of this year outlook, and, just sort of what gives you the confidence that we could see improving Q4 and, sort of trends going into next year? Yeah. One of the somewhat unique elements of our industry is a phrase we call event mix. Sometimes that manifests in sports, when you have a great matchup in the World Series or a great matchup of rivals in a college football playoff, and then sometimes you don't. Sometimes the Diamondbacks make the World Series, and that's unfortunate. No offense to any Arizonans that are here. That actually holds also in concerts, where at any given time, there's only so many top five artists. There is only one Taylor Swift. For Taylor Swift to have the phenomenon effect that she had in this most recent tour, she can't be on tour every year indefinitely. Right. So you will have periods where Taylor and Beyoncé are out on tour, which was 2023, and then you'll have periods in 2024, where the top of the ticket's not as exciting. So that was kind of the story of 2024, where we actually have had some nice trends in sports, some favorable event mix, some secular trends, but a weak mix in concerts. Mm-hmm. Not because there's anything structurally wrong with concerts, just that natural variation from a year-to-year basis. So as you think about the rest of the year, the 2025 concerts tend to go on sale in Q4 of 2024, right? So almost think of concerts as a September year-end. Right. So we're living with the weak year that we're facing, or the weak lineup we're facing through the end of Q3. But Ticketmaster and Live Nation, who promotes and represents a significant majority of artists out there, and thus has more insight than others on what that pipeline looks like, has come out and been very bullish on the number of large stadium tours. Stadiums meaning Soldier Field in Chicago, right, where you're talking about 50-60,000-person venues. So those are, you know, triple the size of an amphitheatre, typically triple the price. Mm-hmm. So we get excited when you hear stadium tours, and they were very bullish on the 2025 stadium outlook being above the 2023 stadium outlook. So hence, that gives us, you know, good confidence heading into 2025. It's also, I think, when you look through the cycle, a nice validation that you have kind of a portfolio of different categories. Mm-hmm. where 2023 was a concert story, 2024 was a sports story, and 2025 hopefully will be a concert story, so you can get some balance. Great. So your take rate was up nicely in Q2, and you talked about a few sort of factors that contributed to that. And your guidance also implies sort of take rate staying at that elevated level for the rest of the year. Can you just talk about some of the key dynamics there, and how investors should think about that metric? Yeah, we think, you know, perhaps at times we feel like we're old school in valuing both growth and profitability. I think that's very much in vogue in this market. Mm-hmm. A couple of years ago, maybe a little more weighted towards growth, and so we're always looking at the levers we have to find the right balance between growth and profitability, both in the abstract sense, but then also reacting to what the competitive landscape is. Right is throwing at us. What we've seen, for reasons that are probably exogenous to business fundamentals, a couple of our competitors, for capital markets reasons, I think, have been leaning into volume over profitability. Mm. And so in that world, we are willing to trade off a little bit of volume, and a little bit of GOV growth in favor of protecting unit economics in the form of higher take rate, and ensuring that the profitability and flow-through remains in place. Mm-hmm. And how should investors think about sort of your margins over the next two or three years, just given your focus both on investments and sort of profitability? Yeah. So if you go back to 2019, before we had started our loyalty program, made some concerted efforts to build that real, like, longevity and lifetime relationship with customers, our EBITDA margins were 25%. Knowingly made a meaningful amount of long-term investments that have a J curve, where we knew it would hit the P and L before the benefits come. Mm-hmm. And, you know, they're probably four, five, six-year type investment curves that we're now in years two and a half, three, and you're seeing what you would expect, right? In 2022, our margins were 19%. In 2023, they were 20%. This year, if you backed out our international investment, they'd be 21%. And so you're, you're sort of methodically marching back to those 25% levels. I think structurally, as we look at what the historical trajectory and operating leverage in the business was, that got us to those 25% margins, we think 30% is very achievable over the intermediate term- Mm-hmm ... as you continue to grow and scale. Got it. That makes sense. We have a couple of minutes left here, so if anyone has any questions, please, raise your hand, and we'll take a couple of questions. All right, so, maybe, can you maybe talk about sort of the competitive landscape? Larry, you, you sort of mentioned that. Just what, what's happening now, and is there anything that you would highlight sort of for, for investors that's different now versus, let's say, six months ago? I can give high level, and then maybe Larry can certainly give some of the other points. Like I always think, you know, we focus on the things that I think we control, right? Mm-hmm. I think when you look at our investments, certainly, I would always frame it as we look to acquire customers, right, on the buy side and sell side. And I think you heard me say, like, our investments are really meant to retain our users, and by the way, beyond just the platforms that we offer for our marketplace constituents, we also have a MarTech platform, we also have a distribution platform, right? All of these platforms that continue to fuel, I think, really nice flywheel and network effects for us. So I look at it as, we are certainly in the business of winning customers that drive LTV, and that drive, you know, I think, real growth and real profitability into our stack. I think there are always going to be others out there that I think prioritize transactional volume over customers, and I think this industry is one where we're seeing that dynamic play out, where there's a lot of... looks like, at least optically, short-term interest in volume without the long-term view, and I think our view is certainly on the long term. Mm-hmm. Larry can certainly talk about how that's playing through in some of the channels that we see. Yeah, and for those of you that are following the industry, there's been plenty of rumor and innuendo around StubHub and SeatGeek trying to go public if they can. Frankly, companies with very different histories, stories, trajectories, but you know, the StubHub, to just pick on them, right, they had a large acquisition, did not go particularly smoothly coming out of COVID. They have a fair bit of leverage, and I think they have leaned into heavy marketing to try to drive some of their top-line story, as they were trying to make themselves look attractive to the public markets. From what I think the rumor mill would tell you, that may not have landed as expected. So, we'll see how folks play this out over the next few years. You know, ultimately, we are subscribers to the long-term belief that profitable growth is the right answer, and that eventually folks will come over to our side. You know, there's a few speed bumps on the way, but we believe that the horizon remains fixed, and we're gonna keep walking towards it. Great. Well, with that, we are out of time. Stan, Larry, thank you so much for joining us, and thank you all for coming.