Venu Holding Corporation

This conference call is being recorded and will be made available online along with further earning 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 your prepared remarks, we will open the line for a Q&A session. 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.

Thank you all for joining Venue Holding Corporation's year-end 2024 earnings call and business update. On the call today, we have our senior leadership team, myself, founder, chairman, and CEO, JW Roth, President Will Hodson, and Chief Marketing Officer Terry Liebler. Following the Safe Harbor Statement, JW will provide a year-end review and share highlights from across the business. We will then offer an update on our current and upcoming expansion plans. Finally, I'll provide a summary of our full year financial results for 2024. After that, 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. Venue cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those indicated, including risks described in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, and our other filings with the SEC, all of which can be reviewed on the company's website at venue.live, spelled V-E-N-U dot L-I-V-E, 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, Monday, March 31, 2025, and the venue does 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 said, I'd like to turn the call over to our founder, chairman, and CEO, J.W. Roth.

Thank you very much, Heather, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. as I read our prepared remarks. For those just getting to know us, our company is completely reimagining what live entertainment can be. Here at Venue, we are a leading developer, owner, and operator of luxury music venues, from open-air amphitheaters to intimate music halls, all designed with one goal in mind, artist-centric, fan-focused, experience-driven ambiance. We're known for pushing the boundaries on ambiance, offering elevated amenities like our Lux fire suites and custom-built owners clubs, premium Aikman clubs. Our next level entertainment campuses include premium restaurants and event spaces with amphitheaters ranging from 9,500 to 20,000 seats. Before we get started into what's next, let's talk about this past year. In July of 2024, we announced $105 million ultra luxury amphitheater in El Paso, Texas. made possible through a landmark public-private partnership, marking a major milestone in our expansion across the Southwest. Just one month later, in August of 2024, we celebrated the grand opening of the 8,000-seat Ford Amphitheater in Colorado Springs. Despite launching partway through the season, the venue welcomed more than 112,000 guests from over 5,500 zip codes nationwide. and was nominated for Polestar Magazine's 2024 Best New Concert Venue of the Year. Ford Amphitheater is booked and operated through a strategic partnership with Anschutz Entertainment Group, specifically AEG Presents Rocky Mountains. It has been an exceptional collaboration, and we are thrilled to continue this journey together through the years ahead. Throughout 2024, we also established significant partnerships and sponsorships with Colorado Ford Dealers, Anheuser-Busch, Kaiser Permanente, Boingo, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, Coca-Cola, Jack Daniels, and 8 Elite Beer, further elevating our brand and fan experience. In October of 2024, we officially broke ground on our new amphitheater in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and began construction phases for five additional venues in Texas and Oklahoma, pushing the momentum on our expansion plans Our established operating campuses included Colorado Springs, Colorado, Northern Atlanta in Gainesville, Tulsa Market in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, Oklahoma City Market located in Yukon, Oklahoma, and the Dallas-Fort Worth Market located in McKinney, Texas, El Paso, Texas, and five additional markets that are currently in the pre-construction stage. According to our projections, we are tracking to welcome 3.7 million guests in 2026, and to reach the more 4 million guests annually across all of our entities by early 2027. The following month, in November of 2024, we successfully completed our initial public offering, listing on the NYSE American and raising approximately $12.3 million in net proceeds. To support this momentum, we made a key addition to our leadership team late in 2024. We welcomed Will Hodgin, our president, bringing with him more than 17 years of experience at Live Nation, most recently serving as the head of House of Blues. Shortly after, Terry Leibler joined us as Chief Marketing Officer. With three decades of experience in sports and entertainment, including the last 22 years at Live Nation, Terry brings unparalleled experience to our growing team. That same month, we launched the Venue Arts and Culture Foundation, reinforcing our long-term commitment to supporting local talent and enriching community vibrancy through the arts. Closing out 2024, Firesuite sales ended at an impressive $77.7 million. This trend has continued into the new year. We finished January at 10.4 million in sales, February at 11.2 million in sales, well on our way to our ambitious $200 million goal in Firesuite sales this year as we open new markets. Now, looking into the new year, Early in the new year, we officially closed on a 46-acre property in McKinney, Texas, the future home of our $300 million multi-seasonal Sunset Amphitheater. With a planned full capacity of 20,000, it will be the largest venue in our collection to date. Located just north of Dallas, McKinney is one of the fastest-growing cities in America, making it an ideal location for this ultra-luxe development. A few weeks later, venue took over Wall Street and rang the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange. We introduced a groundbreaking multi-configuration model across our new amphitheaters, transforming them from seasonal venues into year-round destinations. By integrating climate-controlled environments, adaptable staging, and premium guest accommodations, this innovative design is built to maximize revenue, expand margins, and drive long-term shareholder value. As mentioned earlier, we have been breaking our own records when it comes to our Lux Fire Suite sales with very strong start to year, and we're on track to reach our sales goals of $200 million in 2025. As we spent time in the market, we recognized an opportunity to broaden sales pipelines through financing. Last month, we announced our new fractional ownership financing program. designed to accelerate the expansion of our popular investment opportunity, Lux Fire Suites. It's been a massive hit. The program is already seeing results of this launch, which will be announced fully in the next coming days. We added to our portfolio of offerings and launched the Venue Income Fund, which is designed for RIAs and broker-dealers to provide the potential for consistent monthly income to its income-seeking investors through pooled ownership of Venue's Lux Fire Suites. located both in McKinney, Texas and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Finally, in 2024 and into 2025, we were fortunate to have our story featured in a number of respected media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNBC Small Market Stocks, Big Money, TMZ with Troy Aikman, The Schwab Network, Venues Now, Polestar, The New York Post, and Cheddar, just to name a few. Now we get to what's on the horizons. As we approach the second quarter and look ahead to the rest of this year, our momentum continues to build. We're gearing up for a full season of unforgettable shows at the Ford Amphitheater here in Colorado Springs. It's shaping up to be nothing short of spectacular. This year, we will also unveil our new $41 million premium event center on the perimeter of the Ford Amphitheater. This state-of-the-art facility will feature elevated owners clubs, and our year-round restaurant and bars, Ross Seafood and Shop House, all paired with breathtaking views of the stage and surrounding landscape, including the United States Air Force Academy. Meanwhile, we have broke ground in McKinney and continue to make major progress on our construction in Broken Arrow, Yukon, and El Paso, all incredible season of growth across the board. We anticipate a development profit this year as a result of the sale lease back of the Ford Amphitheater, the ground in Colorado Springs. As we know, it's taken upfront investment to get where we are. That being said, we expect to turn the corner to operational profitability in 2026, driven in part by the opening of four major venues in our portfolio, McKinney, Texas, El Paso, Texas, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and the Sunset Hospitality Collection at the Ford Amphitheater. Those entities in 2026, along with our other campuses, will drive our first year of overall operational profitability. Here's the deal. We're all in this building together, and we're building a game changer. Our team is laser focused on three things, developing the most premium live entertainment venues on earth, building a profitable, scalable business, and enhancing shareholder value at every turn. We achieve this by staying true to our vision, and continually optimizing our strategy. Every step forward is about pushing boundaries, bringing fans closer to the music, creating unforgettable moments for artists, and delivering unmatched value for our shareholders. The best is truly yet to come. With that said, I'd like to turn it over to our CFO, Heather Atkinson.