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Irish arm of Live Nation paid €4.5m dividend last year

Electric Picnic is the flagship event of Live Nation's main Irish subsidiary
Electric Picnic is the flagship event of Live Nation's main Irish subsidiary

The main Irish arm of live entertainment giant Live Nation paid out a dividend of €4.5m last year.

New accounts show that Live Nation Gaiety Ireland Holdings Ltd paid out of the dividend last December, after a record 70,000 music fans attended the firm's flagship Electric Picnic event.

Director at the Live Nation firm, Denis Desmond, has described this year's Electric Picnic as "the best ever".

A subsidiary of Live Nation Gaiety Ireland Holdings Ltd which operates Electric Picnic, EP Republic Ltd, paid a dividend of €7m to its parent firm on 6th December.

The €7m dividend received allowed Live Nation Gaiety Ireland Holdings Ltd in turn to pay out the €4.5m dividend on the same date.

After not taking place for two Covid-19 hit years, Electric Picnic returned last year/

Performers included Arctic Monkeys, Dermot Kennedy, Picture This and Anne-Marie; with the three day music festival selling out within an hour of going on sale.

Tickets for the 2024 event sold out earlier this month.

The new Live Nation Gaiety Ireland Holdings accounts for 2021 - signed off on 31st July last - disclose that "the company is undergoing a project to design and ultimately build a new event centre".

The location of the new event centre is not disclosed. Live Nation already operates the 3Arena in Dublin.

Live Nation Gaiety Ireland Holdings Ltd is owned by the London registered LN-Gaiety Holdings Ltd.

Promoter Denis Desmond is a co-owner in the London based joint venture with Live Nation.

A holding company, Live Nation Gaiety Ireland Holdings, recorded zero revenues in 2021 due to the shutdown of the live entertainment business arising from Covid-19 restrictions that year.

The firm recorded a modest loss of €6,156 in 2021.

The accounts show that subsidiary EP Republic Ltd had shareholder funds of €7.54m at the end of 2021 and recorded a post tax loss of €326,446 due to Electric Picnic not taking place in 2021.

At the end of December 2021 the company had accumulated losses of €2m, while its cash funds increased from €7,561 to €346,168.