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Music

Spotify Tests Selling Concert Tickets Directly To Fans (musically.com) 14

As first reported by Music Ally, Spotify is testing a new website to sell tickets directly to fans, "rather than just linking to external ticketing firms." From the report: For now, this is strictly a test rather than a full commercial launch. It kicks off [August 10] with a small number of artists, with pre-sale tickets available to fans through Spotify's app and a newly-launched tickets.spotify.com website. The test is happening in the US, with Annie DiRusso, Tokimonsta, Osees, Dirty Honey, Limbeck, Crows and Four Years Strong the first artists confirmed for the initiative. The tickets will come from those artists' pre-sale allocations for upcoming concerts.

Don't get carried away with any 'Spotify takes on Ticketmaster' hyperbole just yet. The company is making it very clear that this is just a test for now, and that it's focused on pre-sales rather than primary ticketing. [...] The theory behind the test kicking off this week is to find out whether Spotify can both widen its involvement in pre-sales while selling the tickets directly. We would expect that to include a share of the revenues, although Spotify declined to give any details of the business model. There's another obvious motivation behind the test. Pre-sales of their own allocations can be an important income stream for artists, so if Spotify can help them do it, that could be a reputation-booster at a time of renewed debate (alright: big arguments) about musicians' streaming royalties.

If Spotify can also become one of the ways artists ensure their tickets go to genuine fans rather than touts -- resales are not allowed in the test -- that could also be positive. And in this case, Spotify has the data to prove whether ticket buyers are genuine fans: their listening history. Important caveat: there's no suggestion at this point that Spotify will use this data as a barrier to purchase, in a 'you can't buy this artist's pre-sale ticket because you haven't streamed them enough' way. We're imagining something else: options for artists to promote their native-Spotify pre-sales to their biggest listeners in the cities / regions where the concerts are happening.

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Spotify Tests Selling Concert Tickets Directly To Fans

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  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @08:41PM (#62778798)

    Will they have
    Facility Charges?
    Delivery Fee / Print at home fee / will call fee?
    Service Fee / Order Processing Fee?
    CC fee?
    taxes?

  • by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

    charging a fee to sell tickets to bands no one has heard of ... your big name is something indy publications picked up on it seems 2021 and apparently has a mix of Nashville and NYC while telling stories or something

    Add in a bit of "Smokey Blues" and she would get a half hour spot on NPR

  • And yet, that desktop application still make you go through hell when using Pi-Hole with it... just because who care about your privacy. Starting to wish there was more competition in the fields, apple music and youtube (previously google music, which was good until google kill it) are not even close.
    • Not sure which issues you encountered, but I use Spotify with Pi-Hole and I have had absolutely no issues with it.
      I guess you are using it for free? I pay a subscription.

      • No, I have premium. Spotify (desktop) will not work properly when Pi-Hole is set to block Microsoft's Heartbeat tracking system (detect if you have access to the internet or not, in theory, but like in this case, doesn't work properly). So basically, because Windows think that it is offline (while it isn't, and have a perfectly working internet access, ie: Spotify Web Players work fine with origin ublock on-top), spotify won't even try to access online resource, and will make content "unavailable" and pro
        • To be honest, I don't know if MS Heartbeat is blocked on my Pi-Hole, but I couldn't care less about that. I just didn't want ads :)

          • I assume you did not understand what I meant, so I'll retry to explain it :

            That actually affect the desktop version of Spotify, so yes you would care about that, because if Pi-Hole block it, your windows think that you do not have a internet connection, show you the little planet in the systray, while still having a perfectly fine working internet.

            The result is that Spotify won't allow you to access any online content, only the downloaded content, and will think you are offline. (the web player will work fi

            • I understood perfectly.
              And I couldn't care less about blocking Windows heartbeat service.
              That's why you have the issue and I don't.

  • by arosenfield ( 998621 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @11:08PM (#62779042)

    Ticketmaster has contracts that require venues to use them. Even if Spotify turns out to be the lesser evil, any shows they sell tickets for will not be at any major venues in your area. It's going to take a long time and a lot of money to convince venues to end their contracts with Ticketmaster and use a different ticket seller, if it ever happens at all.

    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Ticketmaster has contracts that require venues to use them. Even if Spotify turns out to be the lesser evil, any shows they sell tickets for will not be at any major venues in your area. It's going to take a long time and a lot of money to convince venues to end their contracts with Ticketmaster and use a different ticket seller, if it ever happens at all.

      And I'm certain spotify is doing absolutely nothing about it, actually - they're probably working WITH Ticketmaster.

      Ticketmaster allows pre-sales and spec

    • While I'd never be inclined to trust Spotify blindly, I'd sure like to see them attempt to enter the market, which will result in them quickly getting shutout and the subsequent anti-competitive lawsuit that a sane country would surely bring the hammer to over Ticketmaster. Unfortunately, this isn't a sane country anymore and monopolies have been a-okayed since the Microsoft lawsuit in the 1990s fell apart.
  • Won't somebody PLEASE think of the scalpers!

  • by Synonymous Cowered ( 6159202 ) on Thursday August 11, 2022 @07:09AM (#62779668)

    I'm confused...is Spotify an artist, going on tour? It says they are selling tickets directly to fans, but this seems no more "direct" than ticketmaster. It's just competition to ticketmaster. Just a different middleman. Possibly better, but still just another middleman.

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