Q4 2023 Vivid Seats Inc Earnings Call

Participants

Kate Afric; Head of IR; Vivid Seats Inc

Stan Chia; CEO; Vivid Seats Inc

Lawrence Feyo; CFO; Vivid Seats Inc

Ralph Schackart; Analyst; William Blair

Maria Ripps,; Analyst; Canaccord

Jason Bazinet; Analyst; Citi

Matt Farrell; Analyst; Piper Sandler

Cameron Mansson Perrone; Analyst; Morgan Stanley

Benjamin Black; Analyst; Deutsche Bank

Brad Erickson; Analyst; RBC Capital Markets

Ryan Sigdahl; Analyst; Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Dan Kurnos; Analyst; The Benchmark Company

Presentation

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Vivid Seats Q4 2023 Earnings Webcast and Conference Call.(Operator Instructions)
please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Kate Afric , please go ahead.

Kate Afric

Good morning and welcome to Vivid Seats Fourth Quarter 2023 earnings conference call. I'm Kate Asic, Head of Investor Relations activities. Joining me today to discuss the detailed results are Stan Chia, Chief Executive Officer; and Lawrence Feyo, Chief Financial Officer. By now everyone should have access to our fourth quarter earnings press release, which we released earlier this morning press release as well as supplemental earnings slides are available on the Investor Relations page of Vivotif website at investors dot Vivotif.com.
During the course of today's call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, including those described in our earnings press release, our most recent annual report on Form 10K and our other filings with the SEC.
On today's call, we will refer to adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin and cash generation, which are non-GAAP financial measures that provide useful information for our investors to the extent reasonably available. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their corresponding GAAP measures can be found in our earnings press release and supplemental earnings slides.
And now I would like to turn the call over to Stan.

Stan Chia

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. 2023 was a transformational year for Vivid Seats, which we were pleased to wrap with a strong fourth quarter after a great years in 2021 and 2022, the North American live event market continues with robust and durable supply and demand throughout 2023, we seized upon market strength while furthering our strategic objectives that lay the foundation for our growth for years to come.
We drove innovation, launching new products for both buyers and sellers and continue to cultivate awareness and affinity for our marketplace as demonstrated by our mix of repeat orders climbing to almost 60%. Importantly, we completed two strategically and financially accretive acquisitions that drove substantial TAM expansion and unlock additional avenues for durable double digit growth. All of this was accomplished while we generated very strong cash flow, which will enable future capital deployment and value creation for shareholders.
Today, I'll walk you through our financial highlights and then discuss the progress we delivered on our long-term strategic objectives. Then Larry will walk through our financial results in more detail.
Starting with the financial highlights for 2023, we are proud to have delivered $3.9 billion of Marketplace GMV $713 million of revenues and $142 million of adjusted EBITDA, driving nearly 25% top and bottom line growth and substantially outperforming our original forecast and guidance for the year.
As we look at the live event industry, the North American market continues to hum with healthy growth and secular trends that we expect will drive growth for years to come. As we've discussed previously, consumers crave and prioritized live experiences and artists are eager to tour as their primary source of income, creating a robust environment for both demand and supply.
Our 2023 results reflect industry strength that we amplified with our strategy. Encouraging repeat behavior is fundamental to our strategy, whether that is through our loyalty program, engagement initiatives, differentiated experiences or excellent customer service as validated by Newsweek once again this year. The most telling KPI for this strategy is our mix of repeat orders versus new, which stood at 47% repeat orders in 2018 before these initiatives, after climbing to 56% in 2022, we've now reached 59% repeat mix in 2023, shifting 300 basis points towards sticky and more profitable repeat orders.
As we continue cultivating brand awareness and affinity, we expect to mix even higher into repeat orders and drive substantial marketing leverage over the next several years. Our focus on engagement initiative contributes to this shift, and we made substantial progress this year with our launch of game center within the Vivid Seats. We introduced game center at midyear and rapidly gained users who play daily games and score points towards promo codes or drawings for free tickets game center users engage frequently opening the Vivid Seats at multiple times per month on average and almost always Browse tickets before or after playing games. We are already seeing game center use translating to purchases. Game Center now has more than 260,000 users. And those users purchase tickets at a faster rate than non-game center app users, which is the exact behavior we seek to drive.
In 2023, we expanded our roster of team partnerships across multiple leagues to offer unique and exciting forms of engagement with our buyers through team partnerships, we offer premium Gameday experiences and unique opportunities like exclusive early access to pregame batting practice at stadiums, all inclusive upscale sweets, guaranteed jumbo prime time and surprise appearances from Hall of Famer is all exclusively available through Vivid Seats. Our industry-leading loyalty program, Vivid Seats rewards offers compelling value and reason to choose Vivid Seats. The message by 10 tickets Get One Free along with our excellent customer service resonates with buyers. In fact, our latest NPS data shows that an unbiased panel of consumers is substantially more likely to recommend devices than any other scaled ticketing marketplaces.
An equally important element within our broader strategy is maintaining our leading position with sellers. Skybox is the ERP of choice for the majority of professional sellers. And in 2023, we continued to improve our best in class seller product line. Skybox DRIVE is nearing the end of its beta phase during which we have continued to onboard beta users and incorporate vital feedback into the product we plan to bring to market. We are excited to fully launch Skybox drive and are on track to do so later this year with our Vivid Seats flywheel spinning in 2023, we also substantially increased our TAM and enhance the financial profile of our business with two compelling strategic acquisitions first, with our acquisition of Wave dash in Japan, we began to unlock an estimated incremental $40 billion of global ticketing TAM.
Then with our acquisition of Vegas.com, we unlocked another $6 billion of venue direct TAM in the entertainment capital of the United States. As we integrate these businesses, the pathways to driving synergistic upside from each have become even more clear and compelling. While it's still early days for Vegas.com. We see great potential and multiple avenues for synergies. We've begun optimizing inventory selection across our sites and anticipate generating revenue synergies this year.
Another exciting intermediate term opportunity is the use of Vegas.com as a profitable customer acquisition vehicle that also funnels live event enthusiasts into the Vivotif ecosystem since last quarter. We've become incrementally excited about the international opportunity ahead of us and have begun building the infrastructure to go live in new markets, secular tailwinds, driving growth in North America are going abroad. We see exciting opportunity to deliver incremental growth and profitability for years to come as we expand into additional geographies. Because of this growing excitement, we are accelerating our investment into international expansion this year and believe these investments provide additional pathways to delivering double-digit growth for years to come.
Before Larry turn to the financial results, I want to reflect on what we achieved this year and where we are going in 2024 and beyond.
In 2023, we grew top and bottom line by nearly 25%, significantly expanded our TAM and furthered our objective to be the marketplace of choice for both sellers and buyers. We also added incremental capabilities such as game center and Skybox drives continue to enhance our loyalty program and we once again recognized by Newsweek as having one of the best customer service experiences. We believe that the foundation we laid in 2023 reinforces our ability to deliver sustained double digit growth as we enter 2024 with a $63 billion global ticketing TAM and multiple levers to continue driving durable growth and long-term value. Our growth opportunity is compelling. Our value proposition is resonating and our ample cash flow affords us the ability to continue delivering value to shareholders, including through both strategic M&A and share repurchases.
With that, I will turn it over to Larry.

Lawrence Feyo

Thanks. Then I'm pleased to share our financial results for an outstanding 2023, which we closed out with a great fourth quarter for full year 2023. Our Marketplace GMV of $3.9 billion increased 23% year over year, driven by a 19% increase and total marketplace orders robust growth in 2023 on top of 33%. Marketplace GMV growth in 2022 reflects a healthy end market and strong execution. Fourth quarter marketplace GMV of $1.1 billion increased 31% year over year, fueled by a 36% increase in total marketplace orders. Average order size was $374 in Q4 2023 versus $388 in Q4 of 2022.
With that, Delta driven by the impact of acquisitions. Excluding the impact of acquisitions, fourth quarter average order size was up 3% year over year. We expect the similar ALS dynamic to persist into 2024 due to our completed acquisitions. Excluding acquisitions, our Marketplace GMV organically grew double digits in the fourth quarter as we fully integrate Vegas.com and Wade dash standalone tracking will become impractical, and therefore, this will be our last disclosure decomposing growth with and without these acquisitions, our full year 2023 revenues of $713 million increased 19% year over year, driven by marketplace GMV growth.
Similarly, our fourth quarter revenues of $198 million increased 20% year over year. Our take rate was 15% in the fourth quarter, and we continue to expect take rates of 15.5% or higher in 2024, albeit with quarterly fluctuation to be expected. In the fourth quarter, we generated $35 million of adjusted EBITDA, bringing full year 2023 adjusted EBITDA to $142 million, which was up 25% year over year. We delivered 100 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin improvement in 2023 as we saw benefits from our increasing share of repeat orders.
Turning to cash flow, we generated over $116 million of cash in 2023, and we expect strong cash generation to continue in 2024 our model benefits from limited CapEx and negative working capital, which supports strong EBITDA cash conversion. This robust cash flow profile provides the foundation for strategic capital deployment in 2023. Our capital deployment strategy featured both strategic acquisitions and share repurchases. We deploy $213 million of cash on financially accretive acquisitions and added $46 billion of TAM in the process. In 2023, we also repurchased $3 million of our own shares. Despite these significant investments, we entered 2024 with a cash balance of $125 million and net leverage of less than one times forward adjusted EBITDA.
Today, we are pleased to announce that our Board has authorized a new $100 million share repurchase program reflecting our view that our share price, it has not matched our strong business performance.
In terms of 2024 outlook, we are maintaining our Marketplace GMV guidance of $4.2 to $4.5 billion and our revenue guidance of $810 to $840 million at 2024 concert tour announcements in late Q4 and early Q1 have been consistent with expectations. As Stan mentioned, we intend to make additional investments in 2024 in pursuit of attractive international TAM. As such, we now expect 2024 adjusted EBITDA in the range of $160 to$170 million. At the midpoint of our guidance, we expect to grow both revenues and adjusted EBITDA by 16% in 2024, with strong secular growth in North America, enhanced by international expansion and strategic M&A. We are confident in our ability to deliver sustained double-digit annual growth that extends.

Stan Chia

Thanks, Larry. 2023 was a pivotal year for Vivid Seats, and we couldn't have done it without our talented team and the high performance culture that we have built, which we are proud to say was recognized again as one of the best places to work in 2024.
Before we open it up to questions, I'd like to highlight an upcoming transition for our leadership team. After a great five-year run, our Chief Technology Officer, John Wagner, is planning to retire in the first half of this year. Accordingly, he will transition into a technical adviser role to ensure a smooth transition.
I want to sincerely thank John for his leadership and friendship and to recognize his many integral contributions to Vivid Seats. We are grateful for his commitment over the past five years and for continuing to provide his valued perspective as a technical adviser through this planned transition.
As we look forward, we are excited to welcome Stefano longer locker later this month as our new Chief Technology Officer. Stefano has extensive expertise leading technology teams for high performing consumer facing e-commerce brands joining us most recently from food supply where he served as CTO for the past six years, his experience optimizing global platforms and international tech stacks, while fostering innovation will be invaluable as we capture the international opportunity ahead of us. Stefano is a seasoned technology executive and his results-driven mindset makes him an ideal leader to drive our technology development at such a pivotal moment in our journey as a global business.
To wrap up, looking back at 2023, we are incredibly proud to have delivered nearly 25% top and bottom line growth while furthering our strategic objective that enhance our ability to deliver sustained double-digit growth, strong profitability and robust cash flow. We are excited to continue our track record of delivering shareholder value in 2024, including through strategic M&A and share repurchases.
With that, operator, let's open it up for questions.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions)Ralph Schackart, William Blair.

Ralph Schackart

A good morning and thanks for taking the question. Just in terms of some of the accelerating investments you talked about for international, maybe provide a little bit more color about that.What's attractive about it? You know why why is now the right timing? And then any more color you could add on that? And then secondly, just if you could give an update on the competitive dynamics that you've talked about on previous calls. Thank you.

Stan Chia

A rough morning. They like it as we as we look at the world, and we've always said it, and I think we we look for really attractive and accretive opportunities to invest. I think as we looked at that international land landscape and certainly others who are participating can certainly corroborate this. I think our excitement level has increased from when we first started looking at it and a couple of points like that I that I that I had. Certainly we think the international pent-up demand was after kind of a little bit later than what we saw here in the US. So I think we're certainly seeing that acceleration pickup there.
We continue to see evolution across multiple poles there as well, which I think lead us to believe that that opportunity is there. And thus we feel really excited about it, both continuing to hold our guiding top line trajectory that we put out, as well as just frankly, just increase our investment to take advantage of that opportunity. So I'm excited to do that and continue delivering, you know, even with that 16% EBITDA growth on a year-over-year basis.
And now on the competitive front, I think look, when we look at that front, I think as we've said before, there's going to be a lot of ebbs and flows of competition. I think our perspective is we continue to invest in a differentiated ecosystem, things that allow user stickiness to our platform. And I think we continue to do that and see great progress and things like our repeat order mix moving up to almost 60% and now which give us again, a lot of confidence to be able to compete and compete profitably.

Lawrence Feyo

And Ralph, if I can add one thing I would just on the European or international opportunity broadly, I would say that's a reflection of the strength we've seen in North America by live events, not just North America phenomenon that growth has been global. And as you've seen, some of that very meaningful growth that we've all enjoyed in the years subsequent to the pandemic, it's created and size of opportunity that's meaningfully larger than it's ever been. And it's sort of reached that critical mass where we thought it was worthy of meaningful focus and investment. So we think it's exclusively positive. Exciting moment. Right.

Ralph Schackart

Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Mike.

Operator

Thank you. And one moment as we move on to our next call.
Maria Ripps, Canaccord. Your line is open.

Maria Ripps,

Great. Good morning and thanks for taking my questions. First, could you share maybe a little bit more color on how consumers are engaging with your loyalty program now that the new format has been in market for a couple of years and supported by brand messaging, you talked about increased sort of increase in repeat orders of 60%, but it would be great to hear a little bit more color on that.

Stan Chia

Yes, Maria? Yes, I think it starts from as you said, I think one of our key differentiators has been that loyalty program we've been out there now. You know, with this revised message, buy 10, get one free and frankly beyond that message. I think it has been surrounded, if you will find multiple things, whether how we engage with partnerships to drive really unique differentiated experiences.
If you are part of our loyalty program in our Speakeasy at the Dodger Stadium for guaranteed jumbo drawn time with with the Kings. So I think we've continued to see all of that driving one as we've talked about increasing our mix of repeat orders right up almost 1,200 to 1,300 basis points since we started the program. And as a reminder, each one of those orders significantly more profitable and sticky and then a new order when we then look across the other ecosystem investments that we make to keep them there.
Our game center program, right, where we've got that now 200, 60,000 users, almost no marketing to acquire them and also driving accelerated purchase frequency. And then frankly, when you look at the brand channels and the investments, you can certainly see the creative oriented around loyalty being a unique proposition that's differentiated, and we certainly see those campaigns performing and driving increased purchase propensity as well.

Maria Ripps,

Great. And then now that you have operated bankers.com for a few months, can you maybe just talk about your ability to cross-promote your core brand and sort of bring new customers to the Vivity platform?

Stan Chia

Yes, I think we are it's still early days. I think we are pretty excited about the opportunity to do that. I think we and we have already started with some of that cross-pollination, whether it is across the inventory that now we can surface across multiple platforms, whether that is in, I think our core thesis of Vegas.com being a profitable customer acquisition engine and that we can funnel users as they return to their homes in to the ecosystem of Vivid Seats with the rewards with Game Center and we are early days, but we are certainly quite bullish in terms of the early signs that we're seeing there.

Maria Ripps,

Got it. Thank you so much for the color.

Operator

Curt Nagle, [B&A]

Great. Thanks very much for taking the question. Yes, I guess first for Larry, just can you walk through the cadence of GMV and EBITDA for the year. Just looking like a lot of noise. Obviously, your pieces last year, right, you had the lowest GMV in 1Q but highest EBITDA margin. Presumably that's going to kind of and smooth out a little bit with the acquisitions. But if you could just wait walk through again how that sort of sequence that announced by quarter might be really helpful.

Lawrence Feyo

Yes. Thanks, Curtis. And I'd probably start by pointing to '23, as an example of some of the quarterly oscillation is why we generally focus on the annual guidance. But as you think about a prototypical year. And I would start with the volume side. I think you'll generally see any signs in 2023. The year starts slower than it finishes and Q1 is typically the lightest quarter, Q4 typically the strongest quarter. And in a normal year, I would say you'd expect operating leverage to behave in a expected fashion.
So the lowest GOV quarter, you would expect to be the lowest margin quarter just because you have some fixed costs that get leveraged over a lower volume. And so if you look at last year, roughly 22% of GMV for the year in the first quarter. If anything, the acquisitions that we've done in the meantime are more, I call it summer weighted because there primarily in concert and theater driven categories in Q1 is a relatively slower concerts and theater quarter, not a material change, but out, if anything, it's pushing the Q1 being a slightly lower percentage of the full year. As you noted last year, an outlier, we had some favorable accrual adjustments. It's some some atypical marketing cadence. And so I would expect to return to more normal flow through in Q1 this year.

Okay, thanks. And then maybe just one for you, Stan, just talking about Skybox in terms of beta tests, it sounds like it's doing well. And I guess what are the expectations for? I think you said a launch sometime in the back half of the year. I guess how should we think about monetization of the platform?

Stan Chia

Yes. Thank you for the question there. Look, I think we're really proud of what we're doing there. I think we've been really judicious with bringing on beta users and sharing their feedback there. And as you heard, I think the excitement that we have and adding to our already leading seller product base with Skybox, drive it and continues to mount and I'd start with the and I think we are we certainly don't have any monetization modeled into our guidance. And therefore, I think anything and everything should we go down that path will be upside. And I would also point to I think the precedent for products like that is certainly a monetizeable one. And so I think as we bring that to market, it would not be unreasonable to assume that at some point we monetize it, and none of that is baked into the guide this year.

Thanks very much.

Operator

Thank you. And one moment as we move on to our next question.
Jason Bazinet, Citi.

Jason Bazinet

I know there's some pretty big differences in the way the primary market works internationally. But are there any sort of differences as you've sort of done your due diligence internationally on the way that market works, either in terms of marketing intensity or take rates? Or do you feel like the model is pretty homogenous globally?

Stan Chia

Yes, A.J., thanks for the question. Know, I think like I think I think structurally there are some similarities. I think broadly if you were to frame international as one opportunity, I think the reality is each market or each region, if you will, has nuances to them with variability in each of the elements that you talk about. But I think when we look at them holistically, I think we're pretty excited and the ability to compete there, right, I think, is kind of how we look at this. We look at the platform that we built, the tools that we built in the ecosystem and we think moving into multiple regions internationally, we will have a strong foundation under which we will be able to compete and compete quite effectively.
I'd say though, in terms of differences, I think North America's the sports capital of the world and so soccer is popular in many countries. But if you start drawing down the list of sports that drive meaningful volume in North America, but you don't see that replicate. So I would think of the international opportunity structurally a similar, but probably more indexed to concert and theater trends. And so you can imagine part of the excitement around the growth opportunity is that those geographies are over-indexed to the segments that have been driving disproportionate growth in North America.

Jason Bazinet

And can I just ask one follow-up on the international side from I know you guys are leveraging your platform and that will that will sort of accelerate sort of the time when a dollar revenue generates $1 of EBITDA. But are there any sort of rules of thumb in terms of how long it should take given that you're going to have to sort of establish your brand and do some brand spending before before, $1 of revenue generates $1 of EBITDA.

Stan Chia

No firm commitments that we'd want to sign up for just yet. But certainly the investment that we're making this year is predicated on ensuring we have fully scalable tech and platform offerings that will and minimize kind of that. I call it operational investment beyond the marketing that you called out. So we'll certainly have some sort of learning curve. But I think the view is that the opportunities significant robust and that consumers are looking for an alternative. And so we believe that we'll be able to have a value proposition that resonates right out of the gate.
And if anything, Jason, I think we've always been really disciplined and proud. And I think in how we both manage the investments but also running, I think the segments of business that we operate with both growth and profitability. I think when we look at the international segment, I don't think we look at that any different.

Jason Bazinet

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And one moment as we move on to our next question.
Matt Farrell, Piper Sandler.

Matt Farrell

Thanks for letting me ask a question goes first following the Super Bowl, we'd just love to hear about the early takeaways on Vegas.com. What are some of the key learnings after the first few months of having it in house?

Stan Chia

Yes, hey, we're getting started with I think your first part of that, and we are excited about Las Vegas as the entertainment capital of the United States and things like Super Bowl and heading there. And we certainly see all the tailwinds there, right. This was a wonderful, Super Bowl this year with a great match-up in arguably what is a very relatively small stadium compared to the other NFL stadiums, as I mentioned earlier. And I think we we are already seeing signs of them bullishness as we think about Vegas.com as a platform, certainly really excited about the team that we've inherited there and excited about the capabilities.
And frankly, like I said, as you look at the early things we've seen, cross-pollination of inventory into the platforms has already yielded some, I would say, upside surprise to how we looked at the model and earlier than we expected as well. So I think we're very excited about that. You'll continue to see us build out on the synergies and build out on the thesis throughout the year. But certainly no two months in. We're pretty excited about what we've seen so far.

Matt Farrell

And then maybe touching a little bit more on the international investments. You what has led you to sort of build for the international opportunity versus buying like you did with Wave dash? And maybe a quick follow up is what takeaways from the way that deal and have you seen that has led you to sort of lead with the build that this time around. Thanks.

Stan Chia

Yes, maybe I'd split that out. I think I'd maybe start from the tail and look, I think again, when I look at the assets that we acquired in the wave dash come came with a wonderful team, a market leading position at an accretive multiple kind of setting the stage to really help us learn and can you continue to, frankly, drive cash flow into the business as well to fund other accretive opportunities.
So excited about that and one of the biggest areas that we saw there with our Wave dash acquisition, which Larry touched on earlier, which we certainly see corroborated again by others where others in the space are certainly citing significantly higher growth in international versus North America. Is that as we see that concert landscape internationally, that is certainly outpacing our indexing, I think growth expectations and we've seen that and we have Dash and we continue to expect to see that and probably in the landscape as well.
And then on the build versus buying, I don't I don't ever think that building a platform that allows us to leverage the skills that we have would inhibit the purchase, should we find an attractive asset. And I think we've demonstrated I think with our history, again, that should the right asset become available and where we where we end up with conviction and then value strategic value and financial accretiveness, I wouldn't think we'd be opposed from accelerating anything through that. But at the same time, and I think we are bullish and believe that the product advantages that we have invested in from a technology perspective will allow us to it scale and take advantage of the international opportunity, even if we were to find an asset that we were to acquire to accelerate that that endeavor.

Matt Farrell

All right. Thank you.

Operator

We'll move on to our next question. One moment, please. Cameron Mansson Perrone, Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Cameron Mansson Perrone

Thanks, Tom, just to follow up on the international side, I would be interested in anything you're willing to say in terms of how you're thinking about that geographic opportunity and kind of which geographies, new geographies seeing I'd like more compelling opportunities to you from here.
And then, Tom, on the share repurchase program, I'd just be interested to hear a little bit more in terms of how you're thinking about that, how to deploy that and the level of the level to which you we should expect you to be leaning into it? Or that kind of the cadence of leaning into that program would be helpful. Thanks.

Stan Chia

Yes, Kevin. So I think on the international, it's giving, I think too early to point you to speak to specific regions that we'd like to talk about at this time. But I would I would think put out there that we are looking at that really excited about the broad opportunity to do to invest into that area. And I think all of those investments, I would, I'd say, really positioned us to continue with double digit growth on both the top and bottom line. And I think we remain, like I said, I think more bullish than ever that international becomes a vehicle to help us really accelerate and drive those those growth. And vector is along both top and bottom line.
And on the share repurchase, I'm we've been buyers of our shares in the past, I think we've had some competing considerations on how how much we could buy, but with some additional liquidity that's been created over the last year. I think that provides additional flexibility. If you look back, we are buying shares levels at or above where we trade today and that was a year ago and our EBITDA was $50 to $60 million less than the midpoint of our guidance currently. So I think suffice it to say, we have observed a disconnect between our share price and our underlying performance of where you can hear in our tone. I'm quite bullish on the opportunity ahead of us and so that, that disconnect, we think reveals a meaningful opportunity.

Cameron Mansson Perrone

Got it. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. And one moment as we move on to our next question.
Benjamin Black, Deutsche Bank.

Benjamin Black

Say Good morning, and thank you for the questions from customers. With an update on the broader macro environment, you know, how healthy is the demand backdrop in the US and what are you embedding in your guide in terms of sort of macro assumptions? And then secondly, I guess, you know, President Biden has obviously been talking a lot about eliminating the DRIP fees or junk fees. Could you have sort of more broadly talk about sort of the regulatory backdrop as well? Thank you.

Stan Chia

Yes, I'll take the first on the macro environment, and I'd say we've continued to see strength in all of the results to date. On the supply side, you see my nation's commentary. They remain quite bullish. We saw what I would characterize as a consistent with expectations, but expectations were fairly robust in terms of concert on sales with major artists Usher, Justin Timberlake & Co. I think continuing to demonstrate that supply, it is present and quality supplies coming in.
On the demand side, we've continued to see positive strengthen. If you look at Super Bowl college football playoffs, some of the marquee events thus far in Q1, you've seen exceptional strength partially driven by the matchups, but I think reflective that you continue to see underlying demand strength as well. And so perhaps contrasting with this time last year when there was a lot of active concern around hard landing or soft landing looming consumer softness. I think at this point, we feel that there's pretty nice stability in that front.
And then moving to the regulatory environment, look, I think I think we have always been out there and big supporters of driving a competitive and level playing field so that uniting those with the best platform and transparent platforms win for consumers. And I guess as we see the progress and on driving transparency into that, I think we are supporters, right? And I think where we've seen those and those go in at the state level, I think we've certainly been beneficiaries right.
When you look at again our our cost structure. Our ability to be lean are a little our ability to drive competitive product and drive profitability and cash flow at the same time. While doing that, I think we are seeing benefit in that landscape. And I go back to the, you know, I think as that progresses to the federal level and we see continued progress on that, I think we are bullish, I think on the prospects that brings to us as the President and his efforts there continue to move forward.

Benjamin Black

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. And one more minute we move on to our next question. , RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Brad Erickson

Brad Erickson

Yes, I think just the follow up maybe to the international investments. We've talked about the M&A opportunities in Europe or Asia does tend to be like a single country multiple countries historically, as you look at marketplaces overseas, they tend to be kind of branded country-to-country, but curious if that's the right way to think about ticketing players. And just on those investments or marketing investments or maybe more just like integration costs, for example? Any color there would be great. And then I have a follow-up.

Stan Chia

Hey, Brad, delegating it. I think the probably the answer you're looking for is it really depends, right. I think as you look at the different regions polls, I think you're going to find players that compete across multiple domains are certainly going to find. I think those like we found where you've got potentially a leading player in market like wave Dash. And but I think it really is a broad. It depends and there's certainly going to be every flavor out there. And I think as we continue to organically build and assess assets that are available, should we find an accretive opportunity for us that we like I think we're certainly going to pursue that and certainly have the balance sheet and appetite to do it.

Lawrence Feyo

I think frankly, part of the opportunity is predicated on. It's a relatively short list of our competitors that scale internationally today, which provides the opportunity for a new entrant in our mind. So we're excited on that front. On the nature of the investment, I would characterize the guide reflecting what we believe to be. I call it the platform investments required to be ready to go successfully and scalably enter the market. What it does not contemplate is neither the revenue nor that call it marketing operating expense before.

Brad Erickson

Got it. That's helpful. And as a follow-up, I guess you had some pretty big pricing hail in 2023 in particular, I won't ask directly at Taylor. Swift is baked into the guide just on that kind of just curious kind of what's embedded in terms of your assumptions for pricing. And yes, just curious if after all those tailwinds last year, just '24 kind of set up organically for the industry maybe to just grow a little bit below normal that you've talked about in the past? Thanks.

Stan Chia

Yes, I think thanks for that. I'll start with idiosyncratic to us, which is both Vegas and wave dash come in at a lower average order size than than the existing business. And so you saw this in Q4 where our average order size on it on a reported basis, it was down 4% on a apples to apples basis. It was actually up. You'll see that trend continue throughout 2024. You have the reported results reflecting the combined basis of that said, I think as you called out the large Taylor Swift, the fact was almost entirely on on average order size that she was playing in the same size stadiums as other a listers. And so as you lap that kind of unique outlier event, I think you'd expect the underlying ALS to be still positive. But a little bit muted relative to what we saw this past year, but continue to see fundamental underlying strength, but for that comparison.

Brad Erickson

Got it. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. And one moment for our next question. Ryan Sigdahl, Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

Ryan Sigdahl

Good morning, Sam. Larry, not to beat a dead horse here on international, but you didn't change you'll be in revenue guidance, $10 million incremental spend, I guess, is the right assumption that you're layering in structural investment and infrastructure this year with no incremental revenue assumed in the guidance for that in international spend?

Lawrence Feyo

Yes, that's exactly right. The I think the view is to put the effectively the fixed overhead burden into the numbers. And then when when we're ready to Fresco, we'll then at both revenue and operational spend on the marketing front as we actively launch.

Ryan Sigdahl

And then just on Skybox drive, you have a new competitor with a new fan defend reselling tools, kind of similar ERP for fin sellers. But I guess any notable market share change for Skybox ERP with the professional sellers and or just the market overall?

Stan Chia

Yes. Thank you, Dan. Look, I think we're really excited. So if you take out DR for a moment and just look at Skybox, I think we continue to onboard new sellers on increasing the share that we already have and with Skybox. And I think as we look at the launch of D.R. I think that looks to really cement. I think our leading position with an adder that really provides, I think the combination of Skybox and Skybox drive, I think are really a unique offering that no one player will be able to provide with very, very unique capabilities for the professional seller. And so I think remain bullish on that given that professional sellers represent, call it about 80% of the entire secondary ecosystems.

Ryan Sigdahl

Great. Thanks, guys. Good luck.

Operator

Dan Kurnos, The Benchmark Company. Your line is open.

Dan Kurnos

Thanks. Good morning. Just a cleanup on everyone's favorite topic this morning. Stan, I guess or Larry, just in terms of the guide change, is that just the timing of announcement for you guys like you had planned this before? I mean, you guys don't do anything haphazardly. So, you know, was it a specific opportunity that sort of dictated this or you guys are just not ready to talk about it yet? And can you leverage. Obviously, you guys have a very unique corporate structure that has a lot of international relationships already. So is there a way to leverage that as you expand in the international markets then?

Stan Chia

Thanks for the question. Yes, I look, I think we are I would say, yes, we're pretty deliberate, I think and quite judicious in how we plan. And I think as we said, I think pretty transparently, I think our excitement level for the international opportunity has grown since the last time that we did this right. And when you look at it right. Like I think we've reaffirmed our top-line guidance, right? And I think still double digit on top and bottom line growth.
And despite, you know, accelerating our international investment, which again, I point to others in the industry with sizable outplacement international contribution versus domestic is certainly one of but not the only data point out there that I think fuels our excitement. And so we pulled forward a lot of that investment to make sure that we can drive the platform readiness that we'd like to take advantage of that. And in spite of that still delivering a 16% year-over-year EBITDA growth?

Lawrence Feyo

Yes, I think, Daniel, we've talked about in the past on a North America basis, we think our foundational growth will be in the double digit range over the intermediate term. I think we view it as international opportunities, just another pathway to ensure that you're hitting or exceeding that double digit top line opportunity. So when we look back on the most exciting parts of the 2023 results, expanding the TAM, we weight the way we did and now seeing that opportunity continue to reveal itself in a way that's more not less exciting to just skip incremental pathways to delivering that sustained double digit growth leads us to our statements that we do this is all exciting things.

Dan Kurnos

Yes, Larry, can I just double click on that? Because obviously, you guys have said about as many times as possible sustainable double digit growth going forward. I don't think that's lost on anyone and it's certainly above industry growth rates. You just beat your 2022 guide by 30% basically. And I guess I'm just trying to understand sort of either the level of conservatism to start here. I guess we got the international piece and just maybe some of the underpinnings understanding.
Yes, you after comp, I guess we'll call it pay on, say the summer, but that concert environments up like double digits, attendance up double digits. So just the confidence level you have in sort of underpinning that 10 plus percent, let's call it at least top line and probably bottom line growth from here as well.

Lawrence Feyo

Yes, I think as we look out over the foreseeable future, it's very high. When you start layering on the opportunities, both in North America and with the international path, you have multiple ways to get there. I think you called out right, the reality is that there there's only one Taylor Swift. And so will that be impact our average order size as your share will change our fundamental average order size trajectory?
Absolutely not. So come 2025, we'll be right back on that average order size way. And alongside that, we're just seeing really strong order growth. If you look at our Q4 numbers that you can see that right, 36%, it order growth in Q4, a call it stable underlying average order size environment. And so I think that reveals fundamentally well match supply and demand and a fundamental increase in the amount of live events consumption that you're seeing.

Dan Kurnos

Yes. Maybe bring it all home, Dan and Larry, I think the term you used was PAY. ON SE, which I was saying we might trademark, Dan, that's pretty good.

Stan Chia

It was good. But look, I do think that it comes back to when you asked like conservatism. Look, I think we've been out there now a public company for many, many quarters. And I think we've been really focused on making sure that we put numbers out there we have the ability to hit them. And I think we've delivered consistent, I think, performance against the guidance that we put out there and the ability to continue growing TAM growing top and bottom line, as you said, sustainably in the double digit range on both top and bottom.
And I think we're out there, not just saying that. But look, we believe and the confidence level is high enough that I think the Board and ourselves have authorized also $100 million share repurchase, right? So I can't think of anything and more that would overemphasize our own confidence and bullishness in the performance than our continued track record. Our continued ability to invest and frankly, putting our money where our mouths are and saying, hey, look, we believe there's opportunity in the share price and very willing to back ourselves up on that by repurchasing shares as well.

Dan Kurnos

Makes sense. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. This will now close our question and answer session. Ladies and gentlemen, this also will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.