Where Will Superfans Hang Out?

Swifties vs Angels, Suno & Udio sued, Queen sell their catalog and more...

Jun 28, 2024

‘Superfans’ has been somewhat of a buzzword in the industry lately, after Goldman Sachs got everyone looking for a way to extract the estimated $4.2b from the market that these superfans will supposedly spend.

While the investment pours in, and new tools and platforms are developed, one of the big questions is where these superfans will hang out.

One approach that we are seeing is labels building standalone apps, and also spaces where fans can hang out such as Weverse and Stationhead, but the amount of friction to onboard fans onto yet another platform means that this is only feasible for artists with a very large or dedicated audience, not to mention the amount of investment required to keep something like this updated.

The other approach is to build fan engagement into the platforms where fans are already hanging out - i.e. social media or DSPs. A good example of this is Taylor Swift’s in app experience on TikTok where fans can engage with certain tasks to unlock digital items and rewards.

While this approach massively increases the reach and reduces the friction of getting fans to engage, being able to do this is completely dependent on the platform and the tools it decides to provide to artists. I can’t envision this approach to fan engagement being rolled out to smaller artists any time soon.

That being said, we’ve seen mention from Spotify about ‘superfan clubs’ which may be aimed at a broader range of artists and could engage people directly in the app where they already consume their music.

Spotify also recently announced a partnership with AEG and Sabrina Carpenter to allow fans to get access to tickets early, as part of the Spotify Fans First program - a prime example of how interaction data can be used to segment and connect with devoted fans.

So, going forward will we see a new platform emerge to solve this problem, or will an existing platform start to integrate superfan features and become the dominant player in this space?

We’ll have to wait and see.

▶️ Swifties Vs Angels

There’s been a bit of friction between fans of Taylor Swift and Charli XCX after a Charli was denied a number 1 spot on the UK albums chart due to Taylor releasing UK-only editions of the Tortured Poets Department the same week (making it a total of 34 different versions of the album so far!).

Charli’s fans were upset by this seemingly intentional move, with chants of ‘Taylor is dead’ at a recent show in Sao Paolo, to which the singer responded later on Instagram criticising the behavior of the fans.

▶️ Suno and Udio Get Sued

The two biggest generative AI music generators at the moment are being sued by US labels body the RIAA. It seems clear that they have been trained on masses of copyrighted music so it will be interesting to watch this one play out.