On Thursday (June 23), Spotify launched a set of new features focused on making it easier for listeners to find artists’ upcoming tour dates in the app.
“Our goal is to ensure that fans are aware of all of the upcoming events by the creators they love and the creators they may come to love,” René Volker, Spotify’s senior director of live events, said in a blog post. “We believe if we get that right, then we can get more fans to more shows and help artists and venues have better-filled rooms.”
The streaming service partnered with a number of the most prominent live events companies, including Ticketmaster, AXS, DICE, See Tickets and Eventbrite, among others, to help bring their new Live Events Feed to life. Those partners’ trove of information on upcoming concerts, combined with the streaming platform’s internal listening data, allows Spotify to provide users with a personalized selection of local shows. “Spotify now has most of the world’s concerts listed on-platform in our major markets,” Volker noted.
In addition, fans will be able to see an artist’s upcoming shows in the app as they listen. “With this feature, we hope to make concert discovery much easier and more seamless for fans, making them aware of relevant shows right when they are at their most engaged,” Volker said.
On top of that, Spotify “built a new messaging tool to provide fans with personalized recommendations for upcoming live events based on their listening habits,” according to Sam Sheridan, product manager for live events discovery. Listeners have control over their own notification preferences.
While the new features are intended to help the live music industry as it roars back to life after the pandemic, they also help Spotify: A representative confirmed to Billboard that the streaming platform will receive an affiliate commission on its show recommendations. The company declined to disclose other details about partnerships related to the Live Events Feed.
In addition, at a time when everyone is fighting for users’ attention, adding the ability to locate shows within Spotify helps keep users on the platform for longer.
“One of the key behaviors we see is that fans engage with artists on-platform, but then they leave to search for listings online or to even follow artists on social media for the sole purpose of staying on top of their events,” Sheridan said in the same blog post. “We think the Live Events Feed is an opportunity to help close this loop.”
