Independent UK ticketing platform Skiddle has announced a new integration with music streaming giant Spotify.

Through the integration, Spotify users will be able to discover gig, club night, and festival listings featuring their favourite artists directly from their profiles.

By navigating to the ‘Events’ tab, fans can explore upcoming shows, select a date, and buy tickets through Skiddle.

“Our team has put a lot of work into bringing the Spotify integration to life, so it’s fantastic to see it now live,” says Skiddle’s head of festivals and partnerships, Duncan King. “This collaboration opens up an exciting new marketing channel for our partner promoters, seamlessly linking Skiddle’s intuitive platform with highly engaged music fans on Spotify.

“We envision a world where no Spotify listener misses a concert because they didn’t know it was happening”

“This is just the beginning – the first of many tech partnerships designed to help our promoters sell more tickets while making it easier than ever for fans to discover and book the gigs they love. We’re already integrated with Songkick and Bandsintown, and we’re continuing to expand our network of integrations to ensure events listed on Skiddle are visible in more places, to more people, at the right time.”

Skiddle says the partnership offers event organisers a valuable new channel for ticket sales, while improving the ticket-buying experience of music fans using the platform.

The collaboration comes just weeks after Spotify announced it was rolling out personalised playlist Concerts Near You to help listeners discover upcoming concerts in their area.

“We envision a world where no Spotify listener misses a concert because they didn’t know it was happening,” says Jon Ostrow, head of BD and live music at Spotify. “Our partnership with Skiddle brings us closer to realising that vision by making sure live music fans in the UK can discover more local concerts on Spotify across surfaces like our brand new Concerts Near You playlist.”

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Spotify is rolling out personalised playlist Concerts Near You to help listeners discover upcoming concerts in their area.

The list is updated each Wednesday with 30 songs from artists performing nearby, inspired by users’ listening habits.

The function also includes full event details and ticket links directly from expandable track rows in the playlist, with both the playlist and the event info designed to be easily sharable, so friends can plan to attend a concert together.

“There’s nothing worse than realising that your favourite artist played your town last week,” says Charlie Hellman, VP, global head of music product at Spotify. “Concerts Near You solves for that. This new playlist not only makes it easier for fans to find shows nearby, but it also gives artists a powerful new way of selling more tickets and filling venues with the audiences who love their music most.”

To find their playlist on their own personalised Live Events feed, fans just need to search for “concerts” on the Spotify app.

The streaming platform recently declared that it had paid the music industry US$10 billion in 2024

The streaming platform recently declared that it had paid the music industry US$10 billion (€9.2bn) in 2024, amid the ongoing row over royalty rates.

Live Nation boss Michael Rapino confirmed during the company’s earnings call last month that the promoter had held talks with Spotify, as well as streaming rivals Apple and Amazon, over potential ticket presale deals.

“They’ve approached us all,” he said. “We’ve talked to them all about ideas if they wanted inventory. There’s a cost to that and we would entertain and look at that option if it made sense for us in comparison to other options we have for that presale, which is a very valuable asset.

“We do deals for the artists, but ultimately the artist has control of it and that artist’s job is to maximise the revenue from it. They’re not giving that away to anyone for free. So whether we partnered with them and found sponsors, or we paid for it, it’s valuable.

“It’s always the easy go-to, ‘Let’s give them presale access.’ The hard part about presale is just scaling it. Everybody wants Beyoncé presale and that’s hard to scale. So we’ve been working with all three of them, trying to find a model that may work for us and them and I assume that they’re talking to others also.”

Last December, The Weeknd starred in Spotify’s first-ever Billions Club Live concert in Los Angeles, held exclusively for his top fans on the service, to celebrate having the most songs with more than one billion streams on the platform.

The company also expanded its its Mi Primer Escenario (My First Stage) scheme, which launched in Mexico last year, to Argentina, offering up-and-coming artists a slot at one of the country’s top rock festivals.

The streaming giant previously courted controversy in December 2023 when it announced it was withdrawing its financial support from two French festivals – the Francofolies de La Rochelle and the Printemps de Bourges festivals – in response to a new tax imposed on streaming services in the country. It went on to increase its subscription prices in France last year due to the “additional costs” of the tax.

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Live Nation president/CFO Joe Berchtold says the company’s talks with streaming services highlights the “critical” importance of tickets in the modern business.

LN boss Michael Rapino recently confirmed discussions with Spotify, as well as Apple and Amazon, amid reports that Spotify is considering adding access to presale tickets as a tenet of its rumoured super-premium subscription tier.

In addition, Ticketmaster announced a partnership with SoundCloud that will enable artists to list and manage their live events on the streaming platform.

Speaking yesterday (5 March) in a fireside chat at Morgan Stanley’s Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in California, Berchtold suggested the fact the services were targeting ticketing served as validation of how “critically important the ticket is”.

“That’s a pretty strong statement in today’s world that very diverse technology media companies are focused on the value of the ticket,” he said. “When people say, ‘We want tickets,’ we say, ‘That’s great, we’d love to talk to you.'”

“The conversations now are over an entire cycle… It’s a much more strategic, long-term discussion”

The 40-minute interview also saw Berchtold share his thoughts on the growth of the live industry and the complexities of plotting world tours.

“We have a business that has no barriers,” he said. “The big transformation that we’ve talked about over the last 10, 15, 20 years is the artist is now making all their money on the road. So they need to tour, married with the fact that these digital platforms mean that – through TikTok, through Instagram – every fan, every 15-year-old girl in the world is listening to Beyoncé at the same time. So we have global latent demand.”

He continued: “Coming out of Covid, we invested much more in a central team that is responsible for working with the artists and saying, ‘We can talk about the 40 shows in North America, but really, let’s talk about the three-year plan, because we have the North America run, the Latin America run, the Asia run and the Europe run, the festival run in the US, the festival run in Europe…

“‘Let’s map out the next three years. When do you want to work? Do you have kids [and] want to take summers off? How do we sequence it? When are you releasing new music? How do we integrate that in?’ The conversations now are over an entire cycle… So it’s a much more strategic, long-term discussion, because we built that organisation centrally that has that capability.”

Ticket prices were another area of concern, with Berchtold addressing the thought process when it comes to pricing the house.

“Almost every artist says the same thing: ‘I want any fan to be able to afford to get into the building,'” he said. “That doesn’t mean that they can afford to buy the front row, but it means they can buy a ticket and get in. So the increased sophistication on pricing is letting us start with, ‘What does that artist want to make?’ And then, ‘Okay, so now how are we going to price the back of the house?'”

“We are now positioned to do things we couldn’t have done 15 years ago”

By pricing the best seats higher, Berchtold said artists could both combat the secondary market while subsidising an increased number of lower priced tickets. He noted that over 4,000 tickets per date for Beyoncé’s tour were priced $75, with 14,000 tickets costing $110 or less.

“[Artists are thinking], ‘how do I scale the rest of the house so I achieve my objective of what I want to make, knowing that those tickets are still giving good value to the fans?'” he continue. “They’re saying, ‘I can sell [a fifth row ticket] for $300 and know that the scalpers are just going to figure out how to get that ticket… [So] I can price it at $1,000 because that will let me have another couple of hundred tickets at $75.’

“They’re not looking at it and just saying, ‘How do I get the most?’ They’re saying, ‘How do I balance all the pieces to get what I need, while still serving a lot of fans in terms of making it accessible to them?'”

Berchtold praised Live Nation’s Latin America business as a “big contributor” to its growth, noting that its acquisition of Ocesa, which was completed in 2021, “fundamentally changed our position in those markets”.

“We are now positioned to do things we couldn’t have done 15 years ago,” he said.

“We want to go where the demand exists, but buildings don’t exist”

On the flipside, Berchtold pointed out that employing a “hyperlocal” strategy in the US had been key to growing its fanbase in its traditional heartland.

“We’re expanding the market and building that fanbase in more local areas,” he said. “It’s the same underlying dynamic. It means we can go to Buenos Aires with Coldplay… and we can go with the new alt rock band and play in six spots between San Diego to LA.”

Referencing its new 20-year agreement to operate Finland’s Helsinki Halli, as well as other venue projects in Europe and South America, Berchtold outlined Live Nation’s venue strategy.

“We want to go to where the market isn’t,” he stressed. “We’re not going to go compete in the US and try to build an arena and compete against billionaire NBA owners. We want to go where the demand exists, but buildings don’t exist.”

And in the wake of “live music’s biggest year yet”, Berchtold added: “We’ve now sold over 70 million tickets for shows this year and expectation of double digit AOI growth continues, even with the currency fluctuation. So we’re feeling very good overall.”

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Spotify is offering up-and-coming artists a slot at one of Argentina’s top rock festivals after expanding its Mi Primer Escenario (My First Stage) scheme to the country.

The streaming behemoth launched the music contest in Mexico in 2024, which saw winner Mia Salinas added to bill at MEXCLA Spotify: Palenque, Feria y Cotorreo – Spotify’s biggest live event in Mexico to date – and land the cover of its top Mexico playlist.

The platform is now inviting Argentine acts to participate, with the winner receiving the chance to play a 30-minute set at the 60,000-cap Quilmes Rock, set for 5-6 & 12-13 April at Tecnópolis in Buenos Aires.

“We launched this contest to give participants the chance to showcase their music to the world and debut at one of the most iconic festivals in the country”

“National rock continues to leave its mark in Argentina, and with the new wave of emerging artists, the genre continues to evolve and transcend generations,” said Carolina Martin, Spotify’s artist & label partnerships lead, Southern Cone. “As part of our mission to support local talent, we launched this contest to give participants the chance to showcase their music to the world and debut at one of the most iconic festivals in the country.”

Participants are asked to record a video of 30 seconds to two minutes of them performing an original rock, indie or pop-rock song, and then upload it to TikTok with the hashtag #SpotifyMiPrimerEscenario.

Entrants must be Argentine nationals and resident in the country. They are also required to have an active Spotify profile with at least six original tracks, and at least two tracks uploaded in the last year, as well fewer than 50,000 monthly listeners.

The 20 entries with the most comments will advance to the semi-finals, from which the Spotify team will select the 10 finalists to feature on a special Spotify playlist. The winner will then be decided by a public vote utilising a new in-app tool.

The victor, who will be announced on 5 March, will also be featured on the cover of Spotify’s Top Verano 2025 playlist for the following week. All 10 finalists will be added to a separate Spotify editorial playlist.

The streaming platform courted controversy in December 2023 when it announced it was withdrawing its financial support from two French festivals – the Francofolies de La Rochelle and the Printemps de Bourges festivals – in response to a new tax imposed on streaming services in the country. It went on to increase its subscription prices in France last year due to the “additional costs” of the tax.

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The Weeknd will perform at Spotify’s first-ever Billions Club Live concert in Los Angeles to celebrate having the most songs with more than one billion streams on the platform.

The concert will be held exclusively for his top fans on Spotify on Tuesday 17 December, and his set list will include selections from his 24 total songs in the Billions Club such as Blinding Lights, Starboy, Die for You, The Hills and Save Your Tears.

Billions Club Live is the latest extension of the Billions Club, which celebrates fans’ favourite artists hitting the career milestone of one billion streams on Spotify.

The Canadian-Ethiopian superstar (real name Abel Tesfaye) is set to release his sixth studio album, Hurry Up Tomorrow, on 24 January. The record will serve as the third and final instalment of his latest trilogy, following 2020’s After Hours and 2022’s Dawn FM.

The Weeknd has the most songs with more than one billion streams on Spotify

He debuted these songs and more from Hurry Up Tomorrow during his one-night-only show at the Estádio MorumBIS in São Paulo, Brazil, in September before he took the stage at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena for the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Festival.

In October, he performed a handful of shows at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium and Sydney’s Accor Stadium in Australia. And he’ll perform a one-night-only show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on 25 January, one day after his new album drops. The concert will feature never-before-seen production, and the stage will take over the entire floor of the stadium.

The Weeknd’s most recent After Hours Til Dawn tour has been a global success, with over 60 sold-out stadium dates and more than three million attendees across North America, Europe, the UK, and Latin America.

The tour has also broken attendance records, including a two-night run at London Stadium that drew 160,000 fans.

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Streaming platform Deezer has pledged its “renewed and strengthened support” to French music festivals this summer under its “Live the Music” banner.

The Paris-headquartered company will continue to work with events such as We Love Green, Garorock, Eurockéennes, Vieilles Charrues, Rock en Seine, Rose Festival, Delta Festival and Golden Coast to curate “unique and immersive” festival experiences.

Promotions include the live version of its “Shaker” feature, which turns a collaborative playlist into a mini-festival with an exclusive dance floor and customised merch, and live music and party series Purple Door, where fans experience their favourite artists in an intimate and exclusive setting.

The streaming service also regularly brings its award-winning Giant Karaoke, after-parties and unique fan activations to events at Paris La Défense Arena, as well as organising exclusive concert series Deezer Sessions Live.

“We’re excited to be back this summer season to create even more unforgettable shared moments”

“Deezer is proud to support festivals in France,” says Deezer CMO Maria Garrido. “We strongly feel that festivals are social and cultural experiences in their own right, uniting fans through live music experiences and creating a sense of belonging.

“For years, we have been committed to offering festival-goers unique and immersive experiences, connecting them in new ways with their favourite artists and with other fans. We’re excited to be back this summer season to create even more unforgettable shared moments.”

The reinforced commitment comes after rival platform Spotify said last December that it was withdrawing its financial support from two French festivals in response to a new tax imposed on streaming services in the country. The so-called “streaming tax” was announced by president Emmanuel Macron’s government following “several months of consultation”, and will require subscription streaming platforms to make a contribution of 1.2% of their turnover in France.

The tax will directly finance France’s National Music Center (CNM), which was created in 2020 to support the wider music industry. Platforms that turnover less than €20 million a year will be exempt. However, Spotify said it would no longer support the Francofolies de La Rochelle and the Printemps de Bourges festivals as a result of the proposal.

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Spotify is partnering with live event discovery platform Bandsintown to help boost concert and festival discovery.

The link-up will see Bandsintown event listings directly integrated into Spotify – driving better engagement and potentially stronger sales for their live events worldwide.

Bandsintown and Spotify say they are teaming up to bridge the gap and ensure every artist gets their deserved spotlight, with Spotify having increased impressions for live events across its platform by 10x in the last 12 months alone.

“Bandsintown is on a mission to help artists get discovered and sell out shows”

“Bandsintown is on a mission to help artists get discovered and sell out shows,” says Fabrice Sergent, co-founder and managing partner of Bandsintown. “With Spotify on board, we are bringing artists and fans closer in a world where every show counts, and every fan matters.”

The free Bandsintown for Artists platform gives artists full control of their event listings, providing a more complete and accurate pipeline of data to Spotify. By linking their Spotify profiles and publishing their shows on Bandsintown, artists can instantly amplify their reach through Spotify’s live event listings on the platform, including across artist pages, the dedicated Live Events Feed, and the Now Playing View.

“Our partnership with Bandsintown reinforces our commitment to help artists connect with and monetise their fanbases,” adds Jon Ostrow, associate director, growth & discovery, live events at Spotify. “With more concert listings and data directly sourced from artists, this integration gives artists more control to update their tour schedules on Spotify and ultimately improves the fan experience of discovering and purchasing tickets,”

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Spotify has announced it is withdrawing its financial support from two French festivals in response to a new tax imposed on streaming services in the country.

The so-called “streaming tax”, which comes into effect in 2024, was announced by president Emmanuel Macron’s government following “several months of consultation”, and will require subscription streaming platforms to make a contribution of 1.2% of their turnover in France.

The tax will directly finance France’s National Music Center (CNM), which was created in 2020 to support the wider music industry. Platforms that turnover less than €20 million a year will be exempt.

As a result of the proposal, Spotify says it will no longer support the Francofolies de La Rochelle and the Printemps de Bourges festivals from next year onwards.

“Following the announcement of the implementation of a tax on music streaming in France, we regret to announce that Spotify France will stop supporting the Francofolies de la Rochelle and the Printemps de Bourges, from 2024, financially and through activations on the ground,” says Spotify France MD Antoine Monin on X.

The CNM is currently funded by a 3.5% levy on ticket sales for shows, a contribution from the state to cover operating costs, and support from rights management organisations.

Monin says the Swedish streaming giant, which campaigned for a voluntary contribution instead of the tax, will focus its attention on emerging artist initiatives the Chantier and the iNOUïs, adding: “Other announcements will follow in 2024.”

“France does not encourage innovation and investment”

The announcement of the streaming tax, which is intended to generate €15 million next year, was welcomed by groups including French live association Prodiss, whose director Malika Séguineau described it as “the only device which allows the CNM to be provided with sustainable and balanced financing”.

“We are delighted that the government has taken this decision, supported by deputies and senators,” added Séguineau. “After long months of consultation and discussions, we must now look to the future, with a fully operational CNM from 2024 serving the ambition for the music industry.”

However, the move was criticised in a joint statement by giants Apple, Deezer, Meta, Spotify, YouTube and TikTok, which claimed they had reached an agreement to raise a voluntary contribution of more than €14m in 2025.

A Spotify spokesperson slammed the proposed tax as an “inequitable, unjust and disproportionate measure”, with Monin warning the firm would “disinvest in France and will invest in other markets”.

“France does not encourage innovation and investment,” he told Franceinfo. “France will no longer be a priority for Spotify.”

France is the world’s sixth largest recorded music market according to the IFPI, generating €920m in recorded music revenue in 2022.

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French live association Prodiss has welcomed the introduction of a new tax on music streaming services in France to support the wider sector.

The move, which comes into effect in 2024, has been announced by the government following “several months of consultation”. It will directly finance the National Music Center (CNM), which was created in 2020 to help the music industry’s various stakeholders, including labels, publishers, venues and promoters.

“The tax contribution of subscription streaming platforms and free content sharing platforms will be 1.2% of their turnover in France,” reads a press release from the Ministry of Culture. “Platforms with a turnover of less than €20 million will not be subject to this new contribution, which is expected to bring in €15 million in 2024.”

According to Tous Les Festivals, the CNM is currently funded by a 3.5% levy on ticket sales for shows, a contribution from the state to cover operating costs, and support from rights management organisations.

Prodiss director Malika Séguineau has backed the move, saying it is “the only device which allows the CNM to be provided with sustainable and balanced financing”.

“We are delighted that the government has taken this decision, supported by deputies and senators,” says Séguineau. “After long months of consultation and discussions, we must now look to the future, with a fully operational CNM from 2024 serving the ambition for the music industry.”

“France will no longer be a priority for Spotify”

However, the announcement has been criticised in a joint statement by giants Apple, Deezer, Meta, Spotify, YouTube and TikTok, which claim they have reached an agreement to raise a voluntary contribution of more than €14m in 2025.

According to the IFPI, France is the world’s sixth largest recorded music market, generating €920m in recorded music revenue in 2022.

“We take note of the government’s decision, which does not take into account the efforts made by many platforms including Spotify,” a Spotify spokesperson tells AFP, via Euronews. “This is a real blow to innovation, and to the growth prospects of recorded music in France. We are evaluating the follow-up to be given to the implementation of this inequitable, unjust and disproportionate measure.”

In addition, Spotify France CEO Antoine Monin describes the tax as “a monumental strategic error which goes against the issues of economic, cultural and European technology”, and warns the firm will “disinvest in France and will invest in other markets”.

“France does not encourage innovation and investment,” he tells Franceinfo. “France will no longer be a priority for Spotify.”

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TEG-owned ticketing, data and analytics firm Ticketek has become a ticketing partner for Spotify’s Live Events Feed in Australia.

The link-up will provide users of the streaming service with direct access to the latest Ticketek events through Spotify’s platform, in an effort to enhance the convenience and accessibility of live event discovery when using the app.

“Ticketek is thrilled to be joining forces with Spotify on this partnership,” says Ticketek MD Cameron Hoy. “Both organisations are global leading technology and data driven businesses that exist to connect fans with their favourite artists.

“With this partnership, Ticketek and Spotify will fuel artist discovery and bring fans one step closer to their favourite artists”

“With this partnership, Ticketek and Spotify will fuel artist discovery and bring fans one step closer to their favourite artists, creating a seamless ticket purchase experience. At Ticketek we believe nothing beats the live experience and this alignment will ensure Australian music fans have every opportunity to see their favourite artist when they are touring locally.”

Fans will be presented with personalised recommendations for upcoming shows based upon their unique profile.

“Spotify is very excited to be adding Ticketek to its Live Events Feed in Australia, in order to continue growing the company’s global strategy of diving headfirst into concert discoverability,” adds Rene Volker, Spotify senior director of live events.

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