The coronavirus pandemic has forced many music festivals and venues to shut down or cancel events. Live performances are a much more lucrative option for artists to earn money, rather than try and get millions of streams on their songs.
To help artists attract more people to their events, Spotify is now introducing a virtual tour feature for musicians to list their online performances. We’ve seen a glimpse of this feature through a leak by Jane Manchun Wong, but now the company is launching it for real.
Spotify is working on Virtual Events
The virtual event shown here is actually 2020 iHeartRadio Music Festival pic.twitter.com/I6BJDqeAnc
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) August 25, 2020
You will be able to discover these virtual gigs through the “On Tour” section on your favorite artist’s page or Spotify’s own Concert Hub. Spotify will also send you a selection of personalized events through email.
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The company has partnered with the concert discovery platform Songkick and ticketing platform Ticketmaster to integrate all these events. Artists can list any of their online gigs regardless of the platform being Twitch, Instagram Live, YouTube Live, or a hosted website.
If you’re an artist, you won’t be able to directly list your events on Spotify. You’ll have to work with Songkick or Ticketmaster to get your events listed on the streaming platform.
A lot of platforms have introduced new features to help musicians through this pandemic. In April, Facebook allowed artists to charge for concerts on its platforms. Musicians are also using the membership platform Patreon to fund their alum production or gigs.
The feature will be rolling out starting today. You can learn more about the announcement here.
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