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what it is
Vivid Seats runs an online marketplace where people buy tickets to live events, plus hotel rooms and packages.
how it gets paid
Last year Vivid Seats made $451M in revenue. Primary ticket marketplace was the main engine at $345M, or 76% of sales.
why growth slowed
Revenue fell 30.5% last year. The $353M quarter matters because it is about 5.5 times the $64M market cap.
what just happened
Revenue hit $353M, while EPS landed at -$1.91.
At a glance
C++ balance sheet — some cracks in the foundation
3.3% return on capital — nothing to write home about
$1.20 fy2024 eps est
$776M fy2024 rev est
11.1% operating margin
xvary composite: 20/100 — weak
What they do
Vivid Seats runs an online marketplace where people buy tickets to live events, plus hotel rooms and packages.
Vivid Seats lives off scarcity. A concert seat is not a T-shirt, and your empty seat cannot be copied. The marketplace matches buyers and sellers, so the company can scale with 768 employees instead of building inventory.
How they make money
$451M
annual revenue · their business grew -30.5% last year
Primary ticket marketplace
$345M
Service and processing fees
$42M
Hotel packages
$22M
Partner and media revenue
$18M
Other revenue
$24M
The products that matter
ticket resale platform
Vivid Seats Marketplace
$570.8M · down 26%
this is the business that matters. it generated $570.8M in revenue last year, and the 26% drop tells you buyers, sellers, pricing, or some combination of all three moved the wrong way.
core
marketplace activity metric
Marketplace GOV
$2.7B · down 31%
gross operating value is the dollar volume flowing through the platform. in human-speak: it is the demand gauge. a drop from $3.9B to $2.7B is why the stock is being treated like a turnaround.
demand gauge
Key numbers
$451M
2024 revenue
That is the full-year sales base. It is only $50M above the $401M debt pile.
11.1%
operating margin
For every $1 of sales, the business keeps about $0.11 before interest and taxes.
$401M
long-term debt
Debt equals 86% of capital. That is a heavy backpack for a $64M stock.
3.3%
return on capital
The company earns about $0.03 on each dollar tied up in the business.
Financial health
C++
strength
- balance sheet grade C++ — below average — limited financial resources
- risk rank 5 — safer than 5% of stocks
- price stability 5 / 100
- long-term debt $401M (86% of capital)
C++ — balance sheet grade and long-term debt are flagged. this stock carries more risk than average.
Total return vs. market
Return history isn't available for SEAT right now.
source: institutional data · return history unavailable
What just happened
missed estimates
Revenue hit $353M, while EPS landed at -$1.91.
EDGAR shows latest-quarter revenue at $353M, up 237% vs. prior year. Yahoo Finance lists the last earnings print at -$1.91, and shows operating margin at 11.1%.
$353M
revenue
-$1.91
eps
11.1%
operating margin
quarter revenue
The $353M quarter matters because it is about 5.5 times the $64M market cap.
source: company earnings report, 2026
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What could go wrong
the #1 risk is another year of falling ticket marketplace volume. this is not a company-specific footnote. it is the business.
med
marketplace demand keeps sliding
Marketplace GOV fell from $3.9B to $2.7B, a 31% drop. If volume keeps moving lower, revenue pressure does not need a heroic explanation. It is just math.
A weaker GOV base directly threatens the company’s main revenue engine.
med
turnaround execution under a new CEO
Lawrence Fey took over as CEO in November 2025 after serving as CFO. You own a live turnaround, not a settled operating model, and the company has not yet shown the numbers that prove the reset is working.
Leadership change can help, but it also concentrates the thesis around execution risk.
med
leverage leaves less room for mistakes
Long-term debt is $401M, equal to 86% of capital. When the business is shrinking and the stock is near the bottom of its range, leverage stops being a background detail.
A stretched balance sheet makes any slowdown more painful and any recovery more urgent.
A company worth about $64M is trying to stabilize a marketplace that handled $2.7B of volume last year while carrying $401M of long-term debt.
source: institutional data · regulatory filings · risk analysis
Pay attention to
core metric
Marketplace GOV direction
The business ended 2025 at $2.7B of GOV after falling 31%. If that number does not flatten out first, the rest of the turnaround story is noise.
next catalyst
Q1 2026 earnings
The next report needs to show the decline is moderating. You are looking for less damage, not perfection.
balance sheet
Debt versus operating trend
$401M of long-term debt is manageable only if the business stops shrinking. If revenue keeps falling, leverage becomes the whole conversation.
management test
what the new CEO actually changes
Lawrence Fey’s first real scorecard is simple: better volume, cleaner guidance, and a more believable path than $2.2B–$2.6B of 2026 GOV.
Analyst rankings
coverage depth
thin
in human-speak, there is not enough ranking data here to lean on consensus. you should lean on the operating numbers instead.
price stability
5 / 100
This stock does not trade like a sleepy small cap. It trades like a live argument about whether the business can stabilize.
risk rank
5
The snapshot says it is safer than only 5% of stocks in this framework. That is another way of saying the risk profile is severe.
xvary composite
20 / 100
Weak overall. Cheap can be interesting. Cheap plus shrinking plus leveraged is a different category.
source: institutional data
Institutional activity
institutional ownership data for SEAT is being compiled.
source: institutional data
Price targets
3-5 year target range
n/a
n/a
$6
current price
n/a
target midpoint · n/a from current
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