Spotify Tests Selling Tickets Directly to Users

Streaming giant Spotify appears to venture into the ticketing business. On 10th August, the music platform launched Spotify Tickets, a website with pre-sale tickets directly available for US users. 

With 15 upcoming gigs scattered across the US, this website acts as a primary distributor for ticket pre-selling. Rather than just linking to third-party vendors like Ticketmaster and Eventbrite, the company will sell tickets from artists’ pre-sale allocation for the upcoming shows. 

The first artists to debut on Spotify’s freshly launched initiative include the likes of indie-rock artist Annie DiRusso, American rock band Limbeck and electronic DJ TOKiMONSTA, among others. 

In a statement shared with Billboard, a Spotify spokesperson clarified that this ticketing enterprise is more of a pilot than a commercial launch. 

“At Spotify, we routinely test new products and ideas to improve our user experience. Some of those end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as important learnings.”

With the tagline “Your destination for live events by creators you love, ticketed by Spotify,” the website seems to focus on pre-sales rather than primary selling. Its legal section reads that the company is a ticketing agent who takes a booking fee.

It further adds that it can distribute tickets on behalf of “third parties which can include venues, event promoters, fan clubs, and artists, as their disclosed ticketing agent.” This means that the streaming titan doesn’t have the freedom to set prices, but it will charge users a booking fee which will pop up during checkout.

Spotify also recently launched its Live Events Feed feature

Spotify’s latest expansion into the live music realm comes after the company reported a 2022 second-quarter loss of $197 million.

Back in June, the music platform revamped its in-app concert listings, dubbed Live Events Feed, to improve the event discovery process based on the user’s location and listening habits. 

Until now, Spotify used external partners, such as AXS, Dice, and Ticketmaster to make concert passes available to users.

In a blog post, Spotify’s product manager Sam Sheridan described how users were leaving their native Spotify platform to book tickets from third-party apps.

He further added how the Live Events Feed feature creates the opportunity to close the buying tickets loop. 

“This helps ease the burden on fans, reduces the competition artists need to contend with to stand out, and creates new efficiencies around marketing.”