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Ariana Grande and Miranda Lambert among first to sell rare merchandise and VIP concerts to fans through streaming service
Spotify has added a new way for musicians to make money from its streaming music service, through a partnership with US company BandPage.
The pair have teamed up to enable artists to sell “VIP experiences” to fans from their Spotify profile pages, including access to exclusive concerts, meet’n’greets, Skype conversationsand limited-edition merchandise.
Country artist Miranda Lambert, pop singer Ariana Grande and dance star Porter Robinson are among the first musicians to take advantage of the new feature, which will sit alongside existing ticket and merchandise sales on their profile pages.
The experiences are similar to those offered by musicians as part of crowdfunding campaigns on sites like Kickstarter, although in this case, they’re being sold rather than offered as rewards for pledges.
Spotify is not the first streaming music service to work with BandPage in this way. In September 2013, it announced a similar partnership with US service Rhapsody. More than 500,000 musicians have profiles on BandPage already.
For the Spotify launch, fans can pre-order Grande’s new album for $9.98 and get access to an online stream of her concert debuting its songs; pay $39.99 to meet Robinson during his upcoming tour and get a mask prop from a recent video; or buy Lambert’s $25 t-shirt and beer-cooler bundle.
Other examples include US band Tea Leaf Green charging fans $200 to collaborate on one of their own songs with its drummer and producer, and The Stone Foxes charging $30 for fans to watch soundchecks and meet them on their next tour.
“Offering direct-to-fan experiences represents a massive opportunity for musicians,” BandPage chief executive J Sider told The Guardian, citing a report from research firm Nielsen suggesting that this area could be worth up to $2.6bn a year to artists.
“At BandPage, we’ve seen bands increase their net revenue by as much as 25% by adding experiences like VIP backstage passes, online concerts, custom recordings and more. And fans absolutely love the opportunity to connect with their favourite artists in this way.”
Spotify’s director of artist services Mark Williamson told The Guardian that the new experiences feature will be live in nine countries today – the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland – with more to follow.
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