Spotify integrates Bandsintown to boost gig discovery for artists

Spotify has announced that it has entered into a partnership with the live events platform Bandsintown.

Founded in 2007, Bandsintown is a website and app that allows users to find information about tours and concerts that are in their area, with artists having the ability to control their own listings.

Now, Spotify has confirmed that Bandsintown listings will be directly integrated onto their platform. “Bandsintown is on a mission to help artists get discovered and sell out shows,” said Fabrice Sergent, co-founder of Bandsintown. “With Spotify on board, we are bringing artists and fans closer in a world where every show counts, and every fan matters.”

“Our partnership with Bandsintown reinforces our commitment to help artists connect with and monetise their fanbases,” said Jon Ostrow, associate director of growth & discovery and live events at Spotify. “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.”

Late last year, Spotify announced that it was cutting down 17 per cent of its workforce in order to save costs. That was after an earlier decision to lay off another 6 per cent of its staff at the start of 2023, which at the time it said was to promote “speed”.

Chief executive Daniel Ek said he made the “difficult” decision as economic growth has “slowed dramatically”. Spotify employs around 9,000 people, meaning 1,500 jobs were estimated to have been lost in the current round of layoffs.

The news was a surprise to some as just months earlier, the company had announced better-than-expected third-quarter profits and a 6 million boost in subscriber numbers.

Spotify has also recently made controversial changes to its platform, including a streaming threshold of 1,000 plays to generate royalties. According to Spotify data, there are around 100million songs on the service, yet only around 37.5million meet the new requirements to generate revenue.

The Bandsintown deal may just be one of a number of new innovations the platform has in mind. In January, they appeared to suggest that a “superfan clubs” feature could be coming soon.

In reference to how the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) will affect their business, they said: “Thanks to the DMA we’re looking forward to a future of superfan clubs, alternative app stores, and giving creators the ability to safely download Spotify for Artists or Spotify for Podcasters directly from our site — and that’s just the start.”

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