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Eventbrite CEO hopes to grow company into 'a cash generator' brand

Entertainment reporter Allie Canal highlights her interview with Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz and how the event managing-ticketing website plans to achieve growth amid a stock slump.

Video Transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Meanwhile, shares of self-service ticketing platform Eventbrite have been pummeled this year, as the company struggles to recover from the pandemic. Yahoo Finance senior reporter Alexandra Canal recently spoke with Eventbrite's CEO about her plans to get the stock moving higher again. So Allie, what did she tell you?

ALEXANDRA CANAL: Well, obviously, we have seen unprecedented demand when we think about live events. Eventbrite is certainly one of the companies at the forefront of this. They focus on smaller, more intimate events. But CEO Julia Hartz said that the demand for in-person has never been better. If we take a look at the second quarter, you'll see that Eventbrite transacted nearly 73 million free and paid tickets across 1.5 million events, serving over 370,000 creators around the world.

Now, that's led to increased top line growth for the company, but still, as you mentioned, this stock down about 65% year to date. It's struggled to turn a profit. When I spoke with Julia, she defended the company's position as a growth stock. Here's a little bit more of what she had to say.

JULIA HARTZ: We're a company that wants to be-- A, is a growth company. We grew 43% in the second quarter. But B, wants to be a cash generator. And so we're going to be incredibly focused on top line growth, but also living within our means, which we've already shown for, I think, five quarters straight, we've printed adjusted EBITDA positive results.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: And with that positive adjusted EBITDA, Julia told me that the goalpost has moved. They want to reach true profitability. And an interesting story about this company is that over COVID, they went through some major restructuring, laying off half their staff. Julia herself took a pretty significant pay cut. And when we think about Eventbrite versus some of those other competitors, like a Live Nation, for example, their focus on smaller events has actually allowed them to keep ticket prices low.

The average ticket price on Eventbrite is $40 or less. If you think about some of those stadium tours, those concert tours that you're been paying with, that's a lot of money that you're working with. So Julia said, moving forward, that she doesn't expect demand to dip at all because, historically, during economic downturns, people still want to spend money and go out. And I think after COVID, that couldn't be more true.

*Eventbrite generated positive adjusted EBITDA for four straight quarters.

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