Photo Credit: Sara Kurfeß
New evidence suggests that Spotify is preparing to roll out a livestream concert feature.
Screenshots of the “virtual event” function recently made their way onto social media, though it bears mentioning at the outset that Spotify officials haven’t yet confirmed or denied the images’ authenticity. The first of the pictures appear to show a list of upcoming virtual and physical concerts filtered by the user’s inputted location, Stockholm. (As the leading music streaming service is headquartered in Sweden’s capital, one would assume that this point lends additional credibility to the livestream-concert rumor’s authenticity.)
Similarly, in another possible testament to the legitimacy of Spotify’s livestream plans, this initial screencap’s “Recommended For You” and “Popular Near Stockholm” concerts, including a November 1st gig from electronic artist Jon Hopkins and a series of shows from Miss Li, match the performances’ actual scheduled dates. And above these lists, at the image’s top, is an “Upcoming Virtual Events” tab plugging remote sets that Coldplay, BTS, Kane Brown, and others will deliver as part of the 2020 iHeartRadio Music Festival in September.
The second image features a virtual-event page for the iHeartRadio Festival, including its proper date and the aforementioned lineup. As ultra-dedicated ARMY members are continuing to stream “Dynamite” on repeat, BTS’s present “monthly listeners” figure, about 17.47 million, exceeds that in the screenshot, 16.78 million. Coldplay hasn’t recently released new music, however, and its current monthly listeners total, 34.17 million, is extremely close to that in the screenshot, 34.15 million.
With the vast majority of non-socially distanced concerts still on ice due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems that Spotify has much to gain from entering the livestream sphere. The company has long sought to bolster its offerings (beyond music, that is) and increase profitability.
In a nice sign of validation, SPOT shares began gaining value shortly after Spotify announced in May that it had become the exclusive home of The Joe Rogan Experience.
Spotify’s record-setting stock-market gains continued following the reveal of other podcast agreements, contracts with Kim Kardashian West, WarnerMedia, and Addison Rae among them. And late last month, ahead of The Joe Rogan Experience’s September 1st arrival on the platform, Spotify started supporting video podcasts.
Earlier this week, Digital Music News was first to report that Spotify had become the official “audio service provider” for the massively popular League of Legends video game. Plus, the company recently took steps to develop a presence in the audiobook space.
Is it downloadable? I’m off of Spotify for quite a time cuz it always crushed on my phone. And I’ve been using TunesKit Spotify Music Converter to download songs and podcasts from Spotify. Hope this time they’ll provide the audio version of the concert.