Live music roared back over the past quarter, driving all our business stipends to positive AOI for the first time in two years with companywide AOI of $306 million.
The 2021 summer concert season rebounded quickly, with 17 million fans attending our shows in the quarter has returned to live, reflected tremendous pent-up demand.
Festivals were large part of our return to live this summer with many of our festivals selling out in record time, and then overall ticket sales for major festivals was up 10% versus 2019.
Then we had a number of our tours are already sell over 500, 000 tickets for tours this year, including sellout tours by Harry Styles, Chris Stapleton, and others.
In addition to increasing attendance, strong demand also enabled improving pricing with average amphitheater and major festival pricing up double-digits relative to 2019, and at our shows, fans spend at record levels with onsite spending per fan up over 20% in both amphitheaters and festivals compared to 2019.
As a result, our sponsorship and advertising business delivered over $100 million in AOI for the quarter, the first time at this level since Q3 of 2019.
And through mid-October, we have already sold 22 million tickets for our shows in 2022 and demand has been stronger than ever for many of these on sales, with a million tickets sold for each of the Coldplay and Red-Hot Chili Peppers tours, and several other tours already selling over 500,000 tickets.
Ticketmaster is on sale for 2022 also reinforcing this demand, as we expect Q4 transacted fee-bearing GTV to be at record level, even after already selling 65 million fee-bearing tickets for events next year.
Ticketmaster also added clients represented in over 14 million net new fee-bearing tickets so far this year, further accelerating its growth on a global basis.
At the same time, we are continuing our cost focused deliver $200 million in structural savings from our pre -pandemic 2020 plan, making us nimbler and better positioned to invest for future growth.
These markets accounted for 95% of our fans in Q3 versus 75% in Q3 of 2019.
And they represented 90% of fee-bearing GTV in Q3 versus 80% in Q3 of 2019.
Second, our concerts activity primarily ramped up in August with 90% of our attendance for shows occurring in August and September.
With almost 1200 amphitheater shows played off, these shows give us the best data set for comparing to 2019.
On pricing, average ticket pricing at our amphitheaters was up 17% to $63.
First, ticket pricing, including more platinum and VIP tickets for shows this year, increased average ticket pricing by $7.
Secondly, our concert week promotion and other promotions were smaller-scale this year, which had an impact of $2 per ticket.
Then for onsite spending, average fan spending was up 25% to $36.
And the shift to cashless also helped as card transactions have historically been larger than cash transactions, and this has held up as we shifted to 100% cashless.
Turning now to Ticketmaster, as Michael said, Ticketmaster had a record AOI of a $172 million for the quarter, driven by its fourth highest fee-bearing GTV quarter excluding refunds, and lower cost structure from its reorganization.
Primary ticketing was driven substantially by concerts, which accounted for over 70% of fee-bearing GTV, while sports was the second largest category, and together they represented approximately 90% of all fee-bearing GTV.
Geographically, North America accounted for 80% of fee-bearing GTV as activity remained limited internationally outside the UK.
In secondary ticketing, we similarly saw concerts and sports account for over 90% of fee-bearing GTV, though in this case, sports were the primary driver with the launch of new football and basketball seasons.
Another contributor to our growth in ticketing is the continued signing of new clients with over 14 million net new fee-bearing tickets added this year through the third quarter.
These new client additions have been particularly strong internationally, accounting for 2/3 of our new client tickets.
Finally, sponsorship AOI surpassed a $100 million in the quarter for the first time in two years as it again had available ad units at scale, both on-site and online.
Like our other businesses, it was largely U.S. and UK driven together accounting for approximately 90% of total activity.
With ticketing we expect a broader recovery as most European markets put stadium and arena tours on sale in Q4, enabling GTV levels that could approach Q4 2019 levels, despite 65 million fee-bearing tickets already being sold for 2022 events.
We have free cash at $1.7 billion at the end of the quarter, which includes $450 million earmarked for the OCESA acquisition.
This was our first quarter since 2019 where our cash contribution margin was higher than our cash burn, contributing a net $166 million in free cash.
We also added $850 million in cash in the quarter through our $400 million drawdown of our Term A loan and $450 million equity raise for ASESA, mentioned previously.
We then had free cash reduced by $370 million, largely resulting from long-term deferred revenue shifting into short-term for show's next summer as we previously indicated would be happening.
This improved cash position was also helped by our ongoing cost and cash management program as this year, we expect to reduce costs by $900 million and cash spend by $1.5 billion relative to pre -pandemic plans and on the cash, side excluding ASESA.
As we prepare for 2022 plans, we remain confident that we have structurally reduced our operating costs by $200 million relative to our pre -pandemic 2020 plans.
Our deferred revenue at the end of the quarter was $1.9 billion.
This is compared to $950 million at the end of Q3 of 2019, which gives us the best like for like view of the demand pipeline already in place.

Summary:
And through mid-October, we have already sold 22 million tickets for our shows in 2022 and demand has been stronger than ever for many of these on sales, with a million tickets sold for each of the Coldplay and Red-Hot Chili Peppers tours, and several other tours already selling over 500,000 tickets.