Joe Berchtold
President & Chief Financial Officer at Live Nation Entertainment
Thanks, Michael, and good afternoon, everyone. As with last quarter, 2019 is the best comparison for us in terms of understanding our results. So most of our discussion will be relative to Q3 of 2019. For the company, our reported revenue of $6.2 billion for the quarter was $2.4 billion better than Q3 2019 or an increase of 63%. On a constant currency basis, our revenue was $6.4 billion for the quarter. So there was roughly a 3% impact due to strengthening of the U.S. dollar. This was a record quarter for revenue for the second quarter in a row and bested our Q2 figure by 39%. And our reported AOI of $621 million for the quarter was $194 million better than 2019, up 45% and led by an improvement of over $86 million in concerts and $81 million in sponsorship. On a constant currency basis, our Q3 AOI was $645 million.
The FX impact of negative $24 million or 4% was largely driven by the devaluation of the euro and the pound. And year-to-date, we have converted roughly 76% of this AOI to adjusted free cash flow of $996 million. Let me give a bit more color on each division, then I will give you more on leading indicators. First, in concerts, our AOI was $281 million for the quarter, which compares to $194 million in Q3 of 2019, an improvement of 44%. U.S. concert's strongest quarter ever for surpassing the previous record of $200 million AOI in Q3 of 2018. It was a stellar seller season for concerts. We had over 44 million fans in the quarter, the most ever, growing 40% compared to Q3 of 2019 when we had close to 32 million fans.
Looking a bit deeper at our fan metrics, stadium attendance more than tripled to 8.7 million fans in Q3 of this year and festival attendance was 6.5 million fans in the quarter, up nearly 40% from Q3 of 2019 with premier events, including Rock in Rio, Rock Werchter, Reading and Lollapalooza. Pricing has been a key part of our strategy in 2022 and capturing market pricing for the best tickets while maintaining an affordable entry point for all fans. For tickets sold to show that our amphitheaters, arenas and stadiums globally this year, front-of-house pricing increased for each by double digits relative to 2019, while starting prices for all shows in the U.S. rose just 6% and remain under $35 on average.
And giving you more details on ancillary per fan revenue by venue type in our U.S. amphitheaters, ancillary per fan revenue was $38, an increase of $8 per fan over 2019 levels or close to 30% growth. At our major festivals globally, increased spending on concessions, camping and VIP experiences drove ancillary per fan revenue up by nearly 30%. And that our theaters and clubs in the U.S. and the U.K., ancillary per fan revenue increased by over 20%, driven by higher concession sales, fast lane entry, night of show upgrades and the move to cashless payments.
On the cost side, as indicated before, increases continue to impact as primarily in the venues we operate, amphitheaters, theaters and clubs and festivals. But in all cases, we are delivering double-digit growth in profitability per fan due to increased ticket sales and ancillary revenue. Next, ticketing had another successful quarter, delivering $163 million in AOI, nearly 30% higher than Q3 of 2019. Q3 was our top quarter ever in terms of reported ticket sales in GTV, and it was our second highest quarter ever in terms of transacted ticket sales in GTV behind only Q2 of this year.
When we look at the year-to-date performance of our ticketing business, the numbers reflect the incredible demand we've had. Through September 30, we have sold 197 million fee-bearing tickets, up 38 million tickets or 24% compared to 2019. GTV for the first nine months is $19 billion, up $6.3 billion or 49% compared to 2019. As a result, revenues are close to $1.6 billion for the first nine months of the year, which is up almost $500 million or 45% compared to 2019.
And with all this, we drove AOI to $600 million, up 71% as we deliver strong operating leverage. Across both sporting and concert events, ticket buyers continue to prioritize purchasing the best seats available, driving a 17% average price increase in the primary market year-to-date relative to 2019. Secondary pricing has risen by 10% on average with sales volume up as well. With these increases, the average secondary ticket price in the U.S. remains almost twice that of a primary ticket, demonstrating additional opportunities for market-based pricing as well as a large buffer from any demand shifts. For those of you focused on margins, as we have indicated previously, it's difficult to evaluate based on a single quarter. Q3 margins were impacted by our mix of clients and shows, along with technology investments.
All of this is as expected and in line with our full year margin expectations in the high 30s as we have been indicating over the past few quarters. Finally, growth in our high-margin Sponsorship business continued this quarter with revenue up 59% relative to Q3 2019 and now up 64% year-to-date. We once again had high growth in both on-site and online Sponsorship, driving record Q3 AOI of $226 million, 56% higher than our Q3 2019 AOI. Looking back at Sponsorship's growth through the first nine months, we have seen our festival business nearly double and our platform integrations more than double. Our strategic multiyear multi-asset sponsors now generate $0.75 billion in revenue for us.
Back in 2017, we had 56 such clients, representing approximately 2/3 of our total sponsorship revenue. Today, that number has grown to over 100 such partners that account for 80% of our revenue, growth in both the number of partners and the level of their spend, which demonstrates the value we deliver and the importance they place on our unique on-site and online scale platforms. As we look to the remainder of 2022, starting with our leading indicators through late October, all relative to 2019, concert ticket sales are over 115 million tickets for events this year, up 37% and 20% higher than our full year 2019 fan count.
Second, ticketing has sold over 200 million primary fee-bearing tickets for events this year, up 27% relative to 2019 at this point. Of these, 135 million tickets are for concert events, which is 38% higher than 2019. Related to this, we had $1.9 billion in event-related deferred revenue, consistent with our levels in Q3 of 2021, despite the deferred shows in last year's numbers. Excluding the deferred shows from last year's numbers, we would be up 35% year-on-year. A few other points on 2022. Given our presence in the U.K. and mainland Europe, we've experienced FX headwinds. And through the end of September, our AOI has been negatively impacted by $47 million.
This was almost entirely in the second and third quarters as the U.S. dollar strengthened significantly against the euro and British pound. Based on current forward rates, we expect a 4% impact to AOI in the final quarter of this year. Due to some delays in construction projects as a result of supply chain disruptions, our 2022 capital expenditures forecast is now approximately $300 million, with roughly 2/3 allocated to revenue-generating projects. We expect the key revenue-generating projects, which are delayed, will still be completed early next year. So don't anticipate any impact next year on the return from these projects. We expect free cash flow conversion from AOI to be in the mid- to high 50s for the full year.
We ended Q3 with $2.6 billion of available liquidity between free cash and untapped revolver capacity, giving us sufficient flexibility to continue investing in growth. We are comfortable with our leverage with over 85% of our debt at a fixed rate, and our average cost of debt is roughly 4.5%, positioning us well in this interest rate environment. In addition, the majority of our debt is long dated with only our 2023 convertible debt maturing within the next two years. We will continue to optimize our capital structure based on market conditions. With that, let me open the call for questions. Operator?
