3Arena firm expects to return to profit this year

The Live Nation firm that operates the 3Arena concert venue in Dublin expects to return to profit this year after two Covid-impacted years that decimated its box office revenues.

Robbie Williams, Bob Dylan, Sigrid and Kendrick Lamar are just four of the acts due to perform at the Dublin venue in the coming weeks as part of a packed 2022 schedule.

However, the venue was closed to fans from March 2020 to October of last year due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Accounts filed by Amphitheatre Theatre Ltd show that the company last year recorded pretax losses of €655,156 last year due to the Covid-19 impact.

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The losses would have been much higher but for the firm receiving funding of €528,920 through the Government’s Live Performance Support Scheme.

The company recorded the pretax loss as revenues decreased by 43 per cent from €8.37 million to €4.79 million.

In a note with the accounts, the directors said that there were 14 events last year at the 3Arena compared with 26 events in 2020. Just 87,408 patrons attended the venue last year compared with 236,137 in 2020.

The pretax loss of €655,156 last year follows pretax profits of €1.599 million in 2020.

The business recorded an operating loss of €1.08 million and this was reduced by interest income of €432,025.

However, sounding a more upbeat note, the note said that following the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, the company would “return to profitability in 2022″.

The 3Arena company recorded earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of €700,000 last year compared with EBITDA of €3 million in 2020.

The company’s balance sheet remains strong with shareholder funds of €58.68 million that include accumulated profits of €42.3 million.

Numbers employed by the business last year decreased by five to 30 as staff costs reduced from €1 million to €875,744.