Spotify’s Head of Music Talks ‘Reserved’ Ticketing for Superfans

Spotify’s global head of music, Charlie Hellman, took the stage at the streaming service’s Investor Day on Thursday (May 21) to announce the launch of Reserved, a ticketing initiative that identifies an artist’s most dedicated fans and holds two tour tickets for them.

This is a service designed to reward Spotify premium subscribers for their dedication to their favorite artists and to combat the rising challenges associated with ticket buying in a time when scalpers, bots and endless queues have become commonplace. While the exact formula of how these selected fans are determined is unknown, Spotify notes in a press release about Reserved that it is based on factors like “streams, share and other Spotify activity” and that the service will monitor “the activity of Premium users to ensure these are real human fans and not bots.”

Not every premium user will get this opportunity because, as the press release states, “there will be significantly more superfans than there are seats available on a tour.” But starting this summer, Spotify will be experimenting with these Reserved offers on a variety of different tours across the U.S.

In an interview with Billboard, Hellman explains why Reserved has become a major initiative for the company — even though its one that takes Spotify users offline.

With the announcement of Reserved, you stress that these tickets will only go to true fans and that Spotify “will also monitor the activity of Premium users to ensure these are real human fans and not bots.” Spotify has talked about spam, bots, and artificial streaming a lot lately. Why has this become such a key talking point lately?

In the era we’re in and everything happening with AI, these kinds of live performance experiences are even more valuable and meaningful — to have the authentic experience of showing up and being with other super fans and being with the artists. It’s always been the most special part of being a fan, and I think even more so now.

How does this fit into Spotify Premium?

We always try to make Spotify Premium the best experience for being a music fan in all the ways that we can, and historically that’s meant a lot about the digital experience. But one of the biggest things that’s broken about the experience of being a music fan is when the tour goes on sale and everyone is trying to figure out how they’re going to be able to get tickets, and then [tickets] end up with scalpers. So because we have validated, authenticated paying premium subscribers, we have a really good visibility into all their fan activities, how much they’re saving and sharing and repeat listening on a daily basis to the artists. They should be the ones that are first in line to get tickets. So unlike the way that all other pre-sales historically have worked, where you get a code and you get in a queue, the real difference for this is that it actually is a guarantee. When we invite the biggest super fans, we [and] the promoters [hold] that amount of tickets, so as long as you go in during that day, there will be tickets there, and that peace of mind is a huge change from the level of stress that is required to get those tickets today.

Are you guys working with any specific companies on this program — like Live Nation or AEG?

This summer we’re launching with Live Nation. Then, we will be scaling this benefit to additional promoters over the course of the rest of the year. We’ve already worked with over 40 ticketing partners to get all the tickets on the service.

There’s been a really big push culturally right now about getting offline and connecting with community in person. But as an online tech platform, how does it benefit you guys to encourage people to leave Spotify and go out into the real world?

We have started putting on more and more shows ourselves. We do these Billions Club live events, [where] we invite the biggest super fans in [a] city. Every time, the artist has said to us that this was incredible, and it got us talking about how could we take this to scale. Could we do this across every show? For Spotify Premium, it’s always been a membership where your benefits are online, but this starts to cross it over [offline.] If that can help grow [and retain] paid streaming, that’s good for our business and good for the industry.

Sometimes streams don’t equate to hard ticket sales for an artist. For example, you’ve seen these artists who have viral moments, and they get a lot of monthly listeners, but then they go on tour, they book out arenas, and it turns out no one really wants it. How is Spotify trying to ensure that you’re actually picking true fans who don’t just want to stream, they want to go to a show in real life?

It’s a really important question and critical to getting this system right. So, with wrapped at the end of the year, [those] streams count. For this system, we are creating this 360 degree fan picture that includes a bunch of different variables. We’re never going to share the full formula, because then people will try to engineer it, but it’s around repeat listening. So, how faithful are you to the artists? How active is your listening? How much are you sharing and saving and deeply engaging? There’s all these different signals that contribute to us being able to see this is a die-hard versus someone [who] likes to have it on, but might not be that into the artist as a fan.

This is your first Investor Day under new leadership. How has Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström’s leadership as co-CEOs impacted the music team and what your priorities are?

One thing that has always been true of Spotify is that we are a music company first and foremost, and our north star is to drive culture. [Our goal is to] not just be a tech platform, but meaningful in people’s lives and meaningful to culture. I think one thing that Alex and Gustav have conviction about is that as AI proliferates, real world experiences mean that much more. They have been strong sponsors of this type of work and Billions Club Live to really bring home that vision.