Vivid Seats (SEAT) Q2 FY26 earnings call: guidance and Q&A

The FIFA World Cup generated extraordinary demand in Q2 2026, with transaction activity comparable to the entire ERA tour, largely concentrated in the quarter. Vivid Seats successfully capitalized on this opportunity, maintaining a greater than 99.7% successful fulfillment rate for World Cup orders sold through its marketplace. This achievement highlights the outstanding execution of its customer service and operations teams, especially given the operational complexity introduced by the event organizer's newly implemented ticketing system.

Vivid Seats is focused on building momentum across its core business by delivering differentiated value propositions to buyers and sellers, aiming for sustainable growth. The company deployed foundational enhancements across its app and web experiences in Q2, designed to streamline event discovery, reduce friction, and improve conversion. A robust product roadmap is in place, spanning improved personalization, event discovery, seat selection, and transactional efficiency, with execution expected to return the business to year-over-year growth in H2 2026.

Skybox remains the leading ERP for professional sellers, and Vivid Seats is actively returning to its roots of aligning with and supporting sellers. The company recently launched its Skybox broker-to-broker marketplace, designed to enable sellers to optimize inventory across the Skybox network with minimal friction and expense. The positive reception to its seamless integration with the Skybox ERP is encouraging, reinforcing the company's commitment to enhancing seller capabilities.

The competitive landscape shows some moderation from the largest competitor, but intensity remains elevated, with other players seeking to fill gaps in performance marketing channels. For large events with higher price points, such as the World Cup, there is increased pressure on take rates. While this results in a lower percentage take rate, the absolute dollar fee remains healthy, as the company strategically adjusts to compete and offer a differentiated value proposition.

Vivid Seats is actively driving app traffic by emphasizing its best-in-class value proposition, which includes generally lower prices available in the app compared to the website. The app serves as a crucial tool for ticket fulfillment and logistics, aiming to create ongoing engagement through upgraded onboarding and reasons to return. App volume growth has consistently outpaced the broader market, and continued innovation is expected to sustain this trend as the company laps prior-year changes.

The company's new private label partner has outperformed initial expectations, demonstrating the efficacy of Vivid Seats' platform. With incremental upgrades and having now lapped a significant customer loss from the prior year, the private label business is anticipated to transition from a substantial headwind to a growth driver. Internationally, the company sees untapped potential and plans to re-accelerate growth in 2027 by pushing targeted upgrades specific to those markets by the end of 2026, building on its already contribution margin positive international operations.

Industry volumes in Q2 outside the World Cup were softer, potentially due to the World Cup siphoning demand from other events. The theater vertical, in particular, experienced softness driven by increased competitive intensity and a decline in Vegas leisure travel, especially among lower-end consumers. Average Order Values (AOVs) are difficult to predict^📌 due to episodic events, but are expected to be up year-over-year in Q3 due to the World Cup's residual impact, with Q4 trends remaining speculative based on new concert sales and World Series matchups.