It’s not the first time Spotify has tried to enter this niche, but it may be the right one this time. Spotify partners with Bandsintown to promote live music. How does this partnership take shape? What are its features? We explain everything in this new article dedicated to news from the streaming world.
Live music: more critical than ever
We know it, and we’ve talked about it several times in some of our articles: remuneration from streaming is not enough to support artists and enable them to continue producing songs and albums. Unless you generate tens of millions of streams, that’s the prerogative of the headliners, who ultimately represent only a tiny fraction of the mass of artists on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, YouTube Music, and all the other streaming services.
In this context, it’s essential to find ways of making money. Concerts are one of the primary sources of revenue. They also enable direct contact with listeners and, not least, the sale of merchandising. Over the past five years, merchandising has returned to the spotlight after many years of neglect. Some artists are increasingly emphasizing merchandising, as is the physical sale of CDs and vinyl, much of which occurs in concert halls or festivals.
Festivals: one of the reasons why Spotify partners with Bandsintown to promote live music
Festivals worldwide play an increasingly important role in the music industry every year. They are an essential part of a summer for the biggest headliners and more confidential artists. Every year, festival programming gets more ambitious.
According to Bandsintown, 150,000 more concerts were staged in 2023 than in 2022, figures that are set to rise further in the years ahead. It proves the value of physical events for artists and their audiences.
In short, concerts bring together several essential components for artists. But competition is fierce. What’s more, the snake is biting its tail. Concerts are an excellent solution to compensate for the lack of remuneration from streaming. However, streaming is necessary to show promoters that artists have an audience that will travel to see them live. A venue manager will likely program an artist with a tiny audience and/or social network following.
Similarly, a label manager will be skeptical if an artist lacks touring experience or doesn’t present interesting statistics on streaming platforms. It’s a pity that artists must often manage everything to overcome these difficulties. Once set up, they must transfer virtual listeners to physical venues and concert halls.
And that’s where Spotify and Bandsintown come in.
What is Bandsintown?
The story of Bandsintown began with Facebook in 2007, which laid the first foundations for the application. In 2011, two Frenchmen, Julien Mitelberg and Fabrice Sergent, became involved in the project, taking it further. Fabrice Sergent was involved in creating Club Internet, one of France’s oldest Internet service providers. Bandsintown works on a simple principle. Artists sign up to promote their concerts, fans can access all possible dates, and Bandsintown takes a commission on ticket sales generated on the application. Bandsintown also distinguishes itself by offering recommendations of artists close to their tastes, enabling users to go and see concerts they might not otherwise have been to.
Over 500,000 artists use Bandsintown to promote their concerts. The Musicbusinessworldwide website reveals that “Bandsintown.com lists over 1.5 million shows hosted by 600,000 artists from 150+ countries. Catering to an extensive user base of 84 million, it delivers 3.7 billion personalized concert recommendations each year”.
Over the years, Bandsintown has succeeded in federating a loyal community, as well as being acclaimed by the artists themselves. All elements have inevitably attracted Spotify’s attention.
Spotify partners with Bandsintown to promote live music: why?
Spotify had been offering a similar service to Bandsintown for many years via their association with the Songkick service. Songkick, co-owned by Warner Music Group, has tried to encourage the discovery of new concerts for thirteen years. But Spotify has decided to go one step further with Bandsintown. The aim is to minimize the distance between artists and listeners, and maximize their exposure. And, of course, to take streaming out of a strictly virtual environment.
Fabrice Sergent sums up the collaboration: “Bandsintown is on a mission to help artists get discovered and sell out shows. With Spotify on board, we are bringing artists and fans closer in a world where every show counts, and every fan matters,”
This partnership is entirely in line with Spotify’s strategic objectives. To be ever closer to artists and provide them with a 360° solution, multiplying initiatives are boosting their audiences and careers. In this article, we take a closer look at the many possibilities the “Spotify For Artists” service offers.
This partnership with Bandsintown is another step in a well-oiled expansion strategy. For Bandsintown, access to Spotify’s massive database of several hundred million users is a significant opportunity and should enable the application to reach a new milestone.
Jon Ostrow, Associate Director of Growth & Discovery, Live Events at Spotify, adds: “Our partnership with Bandsintown reinforces our commitment to helping artists connect with and monetize their fan bases,” He continues: “With more concert listings and data directly sourced from artists, this integration gives artists more control to update their tour schedules on Spotify and ultimately improves the fan experience of discovering and purchasing tickets.”
Which features?
Artists can now link their Spotify profile to their Bandsintown profile to create synergies between the platforms. On their Spotify page, the world’s most popular streaming service, fans can access a list of concerts nearby.
On the “Live Events” feed, Spotify users will also find a list of upcoming concerts. Everything has been thought out to ensure that the integration of Bandsintown is manageable in terms of navigation.
All this is made possible by using each user’s data. Coupled with the power of Spotify’s recommendation algorithm, one of the best in the world, Bandsintown and the Swedish streaming service are betting everything on personalization that’s as precise as possible.
With the aim, of course, of making their respective services as attractive as possible.
How can Soundiiz play its part in bringing live music to the fore?
Soundiiz has formed no partnerships with Spotify or Bandsintown. Moreover, we don’t offer concert recommendations, so we have little involvement in discovering new events to suit your tastes.
On the other hand, based on many years of experience, we can transfer all your data from one platform to another.
You may well want to try out what Bandsintown has to offer. But the problem could be that you’re an Apple Music, TIDAL, Deezer, or YouTube Music user. No problem: using our Transfer function, you can migrate all your data from Apple Music to Spotify, from Deezer to Spotify, from TIDAL to Spotify, or from YouTube to Spotify.
And by “all,” we mean your likes, playlists, the artists you follow, and the albums you’ve saved. Everything can be found directly on Spotify using our Transfer function. You’ll see all the details in this article, so you’ll understand what it’s all about.
And it works with any other streaming platform.
And yes, in case you were wondering, our services are 100% legal because we don’t download or retrieve any audio files.
Once all your data has been transferred to Spotify, all that’s left to do is enjoy Bandsintown’s new Spotify integration! To test Soundiiz’s services, it’s right here!
