Ticket offices taken by storm: Spotify offers to reserve concert tickets for its ultra-fan subscribers

Spotify will offer its paying subscribers the opportunity to purchase tickets to the concert of one of their favorite artists before tickets officially go on sale, the audio streaming platform announced Thursday, May 21. Subscribers will be chosen based on several indicators, the number of plays of a given artist, the range of different titles streamed in their repertoire, but also the saves in the audio library, explained Rene Volker, event manager, during the day investors of the Swedish group.

After notification, the subscriber will have approximately 24 hours to purchase up to two tickets for a concert, via a partner ticketing platform. This service, called “Reserved”, will be launched in the summer of 2026, first in the United States, before being extended to other markets, Spotify said.

“There will never be enough tickets for everyone, because theaters have a limited number of seats, but we will set aside millions of tickets“, declared Gustav Soderström, co-general director, during the platform’s investor day.

The major players in ticketing are struggling to solve the problem of “bots”, these computer programs which prevent many individuals from finding show tickets at official prices. Among the most notable recent examples, the sale of tickets for Taylor Swift’s world tour by Ticketmaster in 2022, or that, in April, of Céline Dion’s concert series in Paris. “It’s frustrating for the fans“, a résumé Rene Volker, “but also for artists, who can wonder, looking at the audience (at a concert) if these fans are the ones who helped them build their career.“

“When those who actually listen to an artist’s music on Spotify are those who have access to his concerts, they are loyal, the artists benefit and the live performance is strengthened.“, explained the platform in a press release. Spotify can thus identify a qualified audience by eliminating intermediaries who often scoop up, thanks to software, a significant portion of the tickets for the most popular concerts, insisted Rene Volker.

The company already collaborated with more than 40 ticketing providers to allow users of the platform to find out about shows in a given region or about concerts by a particular artist. According to Rene Volker, Spotify has already generated more than $1.5 billion in ticket sales by directing its users to these partner sites.