Joe Berchtold
President and Chief Financial Officer at Live Nation Entertainment
Thanks, Michael, and good afternoon, everyone. Given the uniqueness with our seasonality in 2022 after emerging from the pandemic, I will largely focus on our annual results. And as with prior quarters, 2019 is the best comparison for us in terms of understanding our results so much of our discussion will be relative to the full year 2019. For the company, our reported revenue of $16.7 billion for the year was $5.1 billion better than 2019 or an increase of 44%. On a constant currency basis, our revenue was $17.3 billion for the year. So there was roughly a 4% unfavorable impact due to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar, primarily against the euro and the pound.
Our reported AOI of $1.407 billion for the year was also a record for the company, $465 million better than 2019, up 49%, led by an improvement of $345 million in ticketing and $226 million in sponsorship. On a constant currency basis, our full year AOI was $1.464 billion. The FX impact was negative $57 million or 4%. And we have converted roughly 69% of this AOI to adjusted free cash flow of $967 million, leading to a year-end free cash balance of nearly $1.8 billion.
Net income for the year was also a record at $296 million, $226 million better than 2019, resulting in earnings per share of $0.64.
Let me give a bit more color on each division. First, in concerts, we had the most concert fans ever with 121 million fans attending our shows in 2022, up 24% compared to 2019 when we had close to 98 million fans. Show count was 43,600 events, up 8% compared to 2019, with more fans per show due to a heavier mix of stadium and festival events. As a result, our concerts revenue for the year grew by 43% to $13.5 billion, while we delivered $170 million of AOI.
Looking a bit deeper at our fan metrics. We had strong growth across the board. Stadium attendance more than doubled to 18.4 million fans this year up from 7.8 million fans in 2019. Festival attendance was 13.2 million fans for the year, up over 30% from 2019, with premier events, including Rock in Rio in Brazil, Rock Werchter in Belgium, Reading & Leeds in the UK and Lollapalooza in Chicago. Arena, amphitheater and club and theater attendance were all up double digits. And finally, our international fan count grew by nearly 50% in 2022, fueled by tremendous outdoor season in the UK and across Mainland Europe, and very strong growth in our South American markets as well as the addition of OCESA in Mexico.
Giving you more details on ancillary per fan revenue by venue type, in our North America amphitheaters ancillary per fan revenue was $37, an increase of $8 per fan over 2019 levels or over 25% growth. At our major festivals globally, increased spending on concessions, camping and DIP experiences drove ancillary per fan revenue up nearly 30%. And there are theaters and clubs in the U.S. and the UK ancillary per fan revenue increased by 20%, driven by higher concession sales, fast lane entry, night of show upgrades and the move to cashless payments.
As we have discussed in past quarters, we've had some headwinds associated with labor and supply chain cost pressures at venues we operate, notably amphitheaters and festivals as well as costs related to the reopening of our international markets during the year. Despite this, we still increased our per fan profitability, taking into account our company-wide revenue streams for fans attending shows at our venues. We have seen these pressures subside in recent months and do not expect the same level of impact in 2023. With this, along with our ongoing revenue initiatives and continued cost focus, we expect to continue to grow per fan profitability in 2023.
Next, ticketing, where our numbers reflect sustained fan demand for the live experience. In 2022, we sold $281 million fee-bearing tickets, up 28% compared to 2019. It was the first year that our fee-bearing ticket sales exceeded non-fee-bearing ticket sales as we continue to build our global non-sports client base, particularly in international markets. With this increased ticket volume, GTV for the year was $27.5 billion, up 54% compared to 2019. Ours continues to be largely a primary ticketing business with secondary ticketing accounting for only a mid-teens percent of our overall GTV.
With this activity level, revenues are over $2.2 billion for the year with AOI of $830 million. As we projected last quarter, we delivered full year margins in the high 30s, coming in at 37%.
On the pricing front, average ticket prices on primary tickets rose by 17% compared to 2019, driven by fan demand for the best seats at premier concert and sporting events. Secondary ticketing pricing also rose by 12% on average and so the average secondary ticket price in the U.S. remained more than double that of a primary ticket. This shows the extent to which concerts and other live events remain priced below market value. We also saw revenue from nonservice fees grow double digits as we further build ancillary revenue streams, including insurance, upgrades and other upsells.
Lastly, as Michael noted, we signed 23 million net new tickets and expect these client wins will help drive an increase in fee-bearing tickets sold for this year, positioning us for ongoing growth.
Before leaving ticketing, I wanted to add a few comments on the regulatory front that Michael spoke to you. There has been a lot of discussion lately about so-called junk fees. We tend to get thrown into that conversation because the compensation to venues to help run their businesses and to Ticketmaster to distribute tickets is separately called out as a service fee instead of embedded in the price of the ticket. Very few people understand that and even fewer understand that most of the money goes to the venues. They think the service charges are just some arbitrary add-on to Ticketmaster pockets, which is not the case. We agree that real junk fees, hidden charges attached the goods and services that obscure the true price should be illegal. As one of the reasons we're advocating for legislation mandating all-in pricing where the consumer first sees the total price he or she is going to pay, as well as the breakdown of any fees. There are a range of other policy points that we're advocating for because we're strong proponents of artists and content rights, but none of these have a direct material impact on our business.
Finally, it was a record year for our sponsorship business with top line revenue of $968 million, up 64%. Our AOI for this high-margin business was $592 million, up 62%. Looking back at sponsorship's growth during the year, our festival business increased by 75% and our platform integrations more than doubled. Once again, we had high growth in both on-site and online sponsorship of 61% and 64%, respectively, compared to 2019.
Our international markets had an exceptional growth rate this year with AOI increasing by over 70% compared to 2019 due to greater festival activity across Europe and our expanding business in South America and Mexico.
A few other points on 2023, while it's still very early in the year, based on current FX rates, we project very little impact on our revenue and AOI this year, less than 1%. We expect capex to be approximately $450 million this year, with two thirds on revenue-generating projects, including new venue builds and renewals and as well as other organic investments to support our growth. This is slightly higher relative to the past few years as we come out of supply chain constraints and generally tight spend controls. However, as a percentage of revenue, this is well within our historical range and consistent with our growth trajectory.
We ended the year with $2.3 billion of available liquidity between free cash an untapped revolver capacity, giving us sufficient flexibility to continue investing in growth.
As you're aware, in January, we issued $1 billion principal amount of 3.8 percent convertible senior notes due in 2029. As part of that transaction, we then developed a hedge to increase the effective convert price to $144. We used roughly half the net proceeds to repurchase the 2.5% convertible notes that were due in 2023, meaning we expect minimal dilution from this convert offering. We're comfortable with our leverage. Over 85% of our debt is at a fixed rate with an average cost of debt of roughly 4.7%, positioning us well in this interest rate environment. In addition, the majority of our debt is long dated and nothing is maturing within the next 18 months.
Given that we're at the beginning of the year, we want to provide with more guidance on a few line items below AOI, which impact our earnings per share calculation. We anticipate the noncash compensation will be largely in line with 2022 and acquisition transaction expenses will run about two thirds of last year. As we continue our global expansion, we expect depreciation and amortization to grow by approximately $50 million for the year, evenly phased amongst the quarters.
Given our recent financing, interest expense will increase to approximately $90 million per quarter. We're projecting accretion to be about 25% higher than last year, resulting from stronger forecasted future performance at a number of our joint ventures. And we anticipate that NCI and income tax expense will grow in line with AOI.
With that, let me open the call for questions. Operator?
