How to Reach the Most Valuable Music Fans
The music industry isn’t what it used to be. The rise of streaming services has contributed to a decline in album sales—and a surge in concern about where the business is headed. But while consumer spending on CDs and digital downloads has fallen by nearly 50% in the past four years, live music spending is up by an impressive 66%. Could it be that this shift in music discovery isn’t harming the music industry, it’s simply driving consumers to put their pounds elsewhere?
To find out more about the growth of live music spending and the fans behind it, we conducted a survey and talked to 1,000 people between the ages of 18-49 who’ve attended at least one concert in the past year to get the scoop on how they discover music.
So how do Eventbrite’s attendees stack up against the general population? We ran the same survey with 1,000 consumers who bought a music ticket in the past year on Eventbrite—and found some fascinating differences.
Finding #1: Eventbrite music ticket buyers discover more new music at live concerts and music festivals.
They also discover more new artists through streaming services than the general population.
Think about music artists and bands you have discovered in the past year. How did you discover them?
Numbers do not add up to 100% because the majority of people discover through multiple channel types. |
Finding #2: Eventbrite music ticket buyers are more likely to use streaming services, with 94% reporting that they streamed recently.
And while a healthy percentage also listened to the radio and their own digital downloads, streaming still stood way out as their preferred mode of tuning in. CDs? Not so much.
Which of the following activities have you done in the past year? Select all that apply.
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If you want to reach these ticket-buying fans, you’re in luck. Their activity on online channels like streaming makes them much more targetable.
Finding #3: Eventbrite’s highly-engaged fans are MUCH more likely to buy tickets to see newly discovered artists perform—regardless of how they found out about them.
Which of the following helped you discover a music artist or band that you later bought tickets to see perform at a live show, concert, or festival?
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Finding #4: Eventbrite music ticket buyers are way more likely to go to multiple music events every month—by a long shot.
85% of Eventbrite’s music ticket buyers go to at least one show or festival per month, compared to only 57% of the general population.
How many live shows, concerts, or festivals do you go to in a typical month?
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With 65% going to at least two shows every month–and 15% going to 5 or more–this puts Eventbrite buyers squarely in the “rabid concert-goers” category. Their supersized event attendance adds more fuel to the discovery flames, since they’re nearly twice as likely to discover new artists they love while at a live show or festival. And as we learned from our general population study, fans that buy tickets to live events spend twenty times as much on music, which fosters a larger revenue pool for the entire industry.
So, what does all this mean?
Eventbrite music ticket buyers are more engaged music fans, which translates into more spending. They partake more in “interactive” forms of music discovery and consumption, such as streaming and live shows. They go to more concerts, discover more music via live performances, and are more likely to convert their love for a newly discovered artist into an actual concert ticket purchase.