Spotify has joined the procession of streaming services trying to help artists sell more concert tickets. The company announced Thursday a new feature called Concerts that recommends nearby concerts. The feature has immediately started rolling out on Spotify’s iOS and Android apps.
Powered by concert tracking service Songkick, Concerts is located inside the “browse” tab in the mobile app. Recommendations are based on a person’s listening history and are intended to include not only favorite artists but concerts Spotify thinks a person will enjoy.
This announcement comes as no surprise. Streaming services have been integrating concert information to both meet a need and one-up their competitors. Pandora has been using its artist audio messages to target fans and send them to the appropriate ticketing service web page (the Rolling Stones and Odesza were successful test cases). Last month it upped the ante with a $450 million purchase of Ticketfly to better integrate ticket buying into the user experience.
One upstart service is taking a different approach. Earlier this week, MAGNIFI, a revamped and rebranded Deli Radio, launched as a streaming service that allows consumers to hear artists with upcoming concerts in a particular city. Unlike Spotify and Pandora, which think of themselves first as a general streaming service and second as concert discovery tool, MAGNIFI is first and foremost a concert discovery platform.
But for Spotify, Concerts fits into that company — and every other’s — overarching goal of giving users a more curated, personalized service. Its 2013 acquisition of music recommendation service Tunigo helped Spotify offer playlists based on mood and activity. The 2014 acquisition of music intelligence startup the Echo Nest gave Spotify improved recommendation capabilities. The launch of the Discovery feature this year provided users another way to delve into Spotify’s immense catalog. If phase one of the streaming industry was simply making it happen, phase two is making it work.
