Category: Industry News

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TIDAL reveals $1 million artist grant program, starting in Detroit

Tidal, TIDAL unplugged, streaming, streaming services, unsigned artists

TIDAL is the first streaming platform to make developing young talent one of its primary concerns.

Spotify and Apple Music are the first names most think of when asked about streaming services, but TIDAL is not far behind. Jay-Z’s music streaming service boasts 4.2 million subscribers worldwide, and as of this week, the platform has become the first in its field to make a focused effort to discover and develop promising young talent.

Tidal Unplugged is a new, $1 million endowment program made possible by philanthropists Mark Lampart and Robert Nelsen, two of venture capitalists associated with the platform. Kicking it off in Detroit, the promotion aims to give artists the means and resources to pursue their passion. A brief explanation on the Tidal Unplugged landing page reads:

All local artists are welcome to submit an acoustic performance to be eligible for the program. This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity allows aspiring musicians to dedicate more time and energy to seeking a career as an artist.

Artist Incentives:

– Artist incentives
– Creative budget
– Monthly stipend
– Access to recording & creative resources
– Industry mentoring
– Promotional support via TIDAL Rising
– Opportunity to perform in a TIDAL Unplugged showcase

At the end of the program, finalists will develop and finish four songs for distribution.  Once complete, the tracks will debut on TIDAL.  Artists will also maintain 100% ownership of their works.

TIDAL hopes to expand the program in other markets.

Sbumissions for TIDAL Unplugged begin on March 1. For additional information, please contact unplugged@tidal.com.

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Business Advice Editorials Industry News News

10 Music podcasts every aspiring professional should hear

Whether you dream of standing on stage in front of thousands or working with the biggest stars of tomorrow, these podcasts will give you a leg up in the music business.

We’ve talked a lot about podcasts on our blog as of late, and for a good reason. The audience for podcasts is booming, and the content being created by brilliant minds from around the world is second to none. For no cost whatsoever, anyone can tune into a podcast and learn something about topics that interest them, laugh with the biggest names in entertainment, or lose themselves in a completely irreverent conversation about nothing shared between close friends.

Competition in music is fiercer than ever, which means the professionals of tomorrow need to take advantage of every opportunity for education they are able to right now in order to surpass their peers. Thankfully, aspiring musicians and business folk alike no longer need a college degree to learn about the realities or working in music or the work required to succeed. There are tons of podcasts covering those same subject for free with new episodes released weekly, and many feature guests that help to create a more fully-realized picture of life in the entertainment industry today.

Finding the show you enjoy the most that best meets your needs and interests is an individual journey, but we can help get you started. Out of the numerous music podcasts in existence today, the following shows are guaranteed to entertain and educate you on a regular basis. Check it out:

Inside Music

Subscribe: SoundCloud / iTunes

Mentioning our podcast may be a bit silly, but the show itself is quite serious. Inside Music focuses on the daily lives of people currently working in the music business. Each week, a musician or someone who works with artists shares their journey to success and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. There is also a lot of storytelling, as well as discussions around emerging trends within the industry that could very well shape our future.

Lead Singer Syndrome

Subscribe: Official website

What does it take to front a band? Hosted by Silverstein vocalist Shane Told, Lead Singer Syndrome seeks to answer that question through a series of interviews with vocalists from the world of alternative rock and metal. Told’s experience on the road allows him to relate to anyone who guests, which in turn creates a space for deep conversations to occur in a relatively small amount of time. Artists open up to other artists in ways they otherwise might not, and when that happens, there is no better insight into the realities of music anywhere on Earth.

The Six-Minute Music Business Podcast

Subscribe: iTunes

Don’t have time to dedicate an hour or more every week to a podcast? Wade Sutton and Rocket To The Stars have a solution. The Six-Minute Music Business Podcast delivers an industry education in bite-sized chunks without skimping on facts or entertainment. With episodes posted multiple times a week, listeners can quickly learn to navigate various realms of the music business while running errands, driving to work, or walking the dog. It’s everything you need to know delivered in an easily digestible manner.

DIY Musician Podcast

Subscribe: iTunes

CDBaby is known around the world for its role in distribution, but the company’s official podcast has established its own integral role in the lives of artists everywhere. Each week, the CDBaby team tackles issues facing musicians today with wit and knowledge to spare. Topics range from ‘twenty-five ways you’re sabotaging your career’ to ‘how to tour Europe without a booking agent or label.’ They even take listener questions!

The Music Industry Blueprint Podcast

Subscribe: iTunes

Many artists will hate to read this, but your music is a business. Rick Barker is the President and CEO of the Music Industry Blueprint in Nashville, TN. He is a manager, entrepreneur, author, and consultant focusing on the recent changes in the music business. Each week, Rick helps musicians learn to see their music as a business so that they can better navigate the record industry and position themselves for a successful career.

Song Exploder

Subscribe: iTunes

How do you make a hit song? Is it the lyrics? The melody? The production?

If you’ve ever asked this question, Song Exploder is for you. Each week, the show highlights a different artist and picks apart one of their most successful tracks to understand why people can’t get enough. It’s the kind of deep dive into the craft of songwriting and music production that was largely impossible to achieve in a time before podcasts. Aspiring musicians can use this show to improve their songwriting, while rising professionals can learn what grabs the attention of increasingly distracted consumers and why. Everybody wins!

Manage Mental

Subscribe: iTunes

The only thing harder than making it as a musician in the entertainment business is having the mental strength to manage talented people without losing your mind. Manage Mental brings together two experienced artist managers and music industry professionals who share their insight into the business of music, as well as offer advice on how to keep cool and succeed in artist management.

Break The Business

Subscribe: Official website

A show for indie artists, the people who work with them, and the fans who support them. Break The Business welcomes a wide variety of industry talent to discuss their work, their aspirations, and their experiences navigating the tricky terrain of entertainment. Most episodes run under thirty-minutes, which makes the show an ideal companion for walking to class or driving to work. As a bonus, you can hear the Haulix team discussing what we do best!

100 Words or Less

Subscribe: iTunes

Ray Harkins knows how to make people talk. For the better part of half a decade, Harkins has used 100 Words Or Less to speak with some of the most influential names in alternative music of all-time. His gift for conversation has allowed Ray to help artists open up about their struggles and uncertainties, as well as their successes, in a way no one else can achieve. He’s the Marc Maron of the alternative underground, and his show should be considered required listening for anyone passionate about music.

Stereo Confidential

Subscribe: iTunes

A newer show, Stereo Confidential goes deep into the work required to create an album or catalog that stands the test of time. By focusing on one artist or release per week, the hosts of the show are able to uncover the contributing factors in a record’s success, as well as little known facts that help listeners hear music in a new way. The show’s recent series on the band Copeland is particularly inspired. Don’t miss out.

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Business Advice Editorials Industry News News

How media sites inflate traffic stats and why it never works out

Sites raise money and gain access based on traffic, but the numbers can be deceiving.

The beginning of 2019 has been hard on writers and creatives at a number of the web’s most recognizable sites. Between recent cuts at Buzzfeed and Vice, not to mention a number of smaller publications, estimates show at least 2,000 people lost jobs in media over the past six weeks. Some analysts are referring to these losses as a ‘bloodbath,’ and many expect more downsizing announcements in the near future.

The explanations for the cuts run the gamut from restructuring to cost-cutting. Either way, traffic most likely played a role. Everything related to online media companies boils down to traffic, especially for businesses who rely on outside investors to keep their properties afloat.

To gauge traffic, most investors and industry analysts rely on ComScore, a company dedicated to measuring media online. Faking a score in their system is practically impossible, but some forward-thinking media conglomerates have found a way to game the service’s measurements, at least in the short term, to raise their value.

As Tim Pool explains in the video above, digital media companies adjust their traffic and engagement by acquiring clickbait-heavy platforms and folding that audience into their brand. Here’s an example of the kind of articles these sites generate, which you’ve probably seen promoted at the bottom of articles on numerous media sites:

Articles like these offer little information, but boost engagement by requiring numerous clicks to view their content in full.

Between the clicks and added traffic, media companies can boast big numbers for their community of sites without having to show the performance of individual publications. Big numbers attract big investors, and investments keep the lights on.

Believe it or not, there is nothing illegal about this approach to promotion. The numbers are legitimate. The deception lies in how sites describe what pulls in readers. Here’s an example:

Let’s say a media conglomerate buys a clickbait-heavy site to boost its numbers. The conglomerate may claim their audience turns to them for news and essays on culture when in reality their audience is driven by articles like, ’25 celebrities who had plastic surgery.’ The investors would need to sift through the data for all sites to determine whether or not the company is lying, which requires time and money most do not want to sacrifice.

Over time, however, the truth about most sites comes out. Whether through internal investigations or a drop in traffic that the conglomerate cannot explain away, investors and readers inevitably see through the deception of inflated numbers. Even if they don’t, a number of services have emerged in recent years that can separate real and fake engagement into easy to read reports that anyone can follow.

The cuts we are seeing in media right now are bound to continue unless this trend changes. The problem is that few, if any sites have found a way to generate a committed audience large enough to draw the investment capital needed to build a media empire through legitimate means. When Facebook boasts a potential audience in the billions, what incentives do investors or advertisers have to work with sites whose monthly audience lies in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions?

But there is a catch-22 to the entire affair that will inevitably need to be addressed. Facebook and similar social media platforms are the primary way people consume news and media, but those services rely on countless third-party publishers to create the content users click. Without investors and ad sales, those publishers will go under, which will leave social media giants to generate news and content on their own.

Something has to give. The only questions are, what will it be and when will it happen?

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Artist Advice Editorials Industry News News

Why more musicians need their own podcast

With a growing global audience and low startup costs, podcasts are the next step in digital marketing and fan engagement.

Did you know that 50% of all US homes are podcast fans? How about the fact that over 44% of the entire US population, or roughly 124 million people, listened to podcasts over the last twelve months?

On a global scale, more than one in four residents of Japan, France, Canada, Italy, the United States, Australia, Sweden, and Spain listen to podcasts monthly. In South Korea, more than half of the entire population (58%) listens to podcasts on a monthly is.

These figures and other available online are growing with each passing month. Podcasts were practically unknown a decade ago, but today there are more than 500,000 shows offering millions of hours of entertainment for listeners. Studies show the average podcast fan commits to six or seven shows each week, and most (80%) listen to each episode in full. Podcast listeners are, on average, smart and loyal listeners who actively support the shows they enjoy through either digital promotion, crowdfunding, or engagement with sponsors who make their favorite programs possible.

All this data is impressive, but what is even crazier is how few musicians have decided to engage their fans through podcasts.

A podcast can be anything you want. Some choose to interview people they find interesting, while others stick to a theme or subject. Pop-punk band Waterparks host a series where they read fan fiction about their group. The possibilities are endless!

The perks of having a podcast are numerous, including:

  • Direct engagement with fans
  • Ability to deliver new content to fans regularly
  • A promotional vehicle for tours, albums, and anything else
  • Creates future promotional material (you can share clips on your social media)
  • Allows fans to know you better (they don’t have to stalk you, they just have to listen)
  • Provides a platform to discuss and dissect your art
  • Potential to create new fans for your music through conversation
  • Fill time while at home or on the road that is otherwise spent scrolling social media or staring out the window
  • Potential for extra income, either through fans buying merchandise or sponsors getting behind the show

Podcasts are also incredibly cheap to create. Many shows are recorded using a smartphone voice memo app, but others use the same microphones artists use to create demos in their home studios. Hosting is available through a number of providers, including several that have offers for free hosting to first-time users, as well as free distribution to major platforms such as Apple Podcasts and Stitcher.

Furthermore, with Spotify’s recent acquisition of Gimlet Media and Anchor the streaming giant — who already has a large stake in podcasting — is planning to promote podcasts heavily in the months and years to come. Artists with shows will not only be able to promote their music and vice versa through a single platform, but they will also be able to earn streaming royalties from their podcast. That’s money which, unless otherwise agreed to in a contract, goes directly to the artist behind the show. It’s a side hustle that helps the main focus of an artist’s career in many ways.

Competition is music is growing fiercer by the day, and most acts use the same tricks as every other artist or business or consumer to build their audience. But right now, for what will likely be a very short window of time, there is a market for musicians willing to open up in podcasting that is largely overlooked. Any artist would be foolish to not take advantage of this opportunity. Podcasting offers a chance to grow closer to fans, build an audience, and earn a few extra bucks. What more could you want?

Need more reasons to start a podcast? Watch this:

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Music streaming royalty rates continue to drop as streaming volume rises

Making a living from streaming has never been easy, but it just got a little harder.

Streaming royalty rates are not rocket science. You can learn rocket science, but understanding how platforms royalty payments is something only a select few industry professionals understand. There are no rates that apply to everyone, nor is there a universal rate paid by every service. Majors have different deals with streaming platforms than everyone else, but even the deal each label makes with each platform is different.

With all that in mind, it is hard to accept any figures given by a single party as indicative of all streaming deals. What may be true for them may not be the same for anyone else. Still, looking at data with all the information behind it understand can shed some light on the realities of streaming royalties in 2019.

David Lowery’s The Trichordist blog recently gathered information on streaming performance and payouts. The data detailed below is isolated to the calendar year 2018 and represents a mid-sized indie label with an approximately 250+ album catalog now generating almost 1b streams annually. from one mid-size label with 250 releases. Here are the top 10 streaming services based on the royalty rate they are paying:

RankNameRoyalty Rate
1Amazon Unlimited$0.01175
2Napster$0.01110
3Tidal$0.00927
4Deezer$0.00567
5Google Play$0.00543
6Apple Music$0.00495
7Amazon Digital Service$0.00395
8Spotify$0.00331
9Pandora$0.00155
10YouTube Content ID$0.00028

You can view a full list of services and streaming rates on here.

Writing about the current rates and changes, The Trichordist wrote:

The Spotify per stream rate drops again from .00397 to .00331 a decrease of 16%. Apple Music gains almost 3% for an total global marketshare of about just under 25% of all revenue.

Apple’s per stream rate drops from .00783 to .00495 a decrease of 36%. We need to state again, that 2018 saw a massive shift of revenues from downloads to streaming and no doubt this expansion of scale, combined with more aggressive bundling (free trials) as well as launching into more territories was bound to bring down the overall net per stream.

Apple Music still lead in the sweet spot with about 10% of overall streams generating 25% of all revenue (despite the per stream rate drop). Spotify by comparison has nearly triple the marketshare in streams than Apple Music but generates less than double the revenues on that volume.

The biggest takeaway by far is that YouTube’s Content ID, (in our first genuinely comprehensive data set) shows a whopping 48% of all streams and only 7% of revenue. Read that again. That is your value gap. Nearly 50% of all recorded music streams only generate 7% of revenue. Apple Music and Spotify combined account for just short of 40% of all streams and 74% of all income.

Readers should also keep in mind that we as consumers don’t fully understand the cost of operating these platforms. One can argue that artists should make more for their music, and we fully agree, but we also admit to not fully knowing the cost involved with offering on-demand streaming of virtually all recorded music to hundreds of millions around the world. Spotify, for example, has thousands of employees operating in offices around the planet, as well as hosting fees, marketing costs, and development work.

The information above may be disheartening for many independent artists and smaller labels, but that’s not the worst of it. There seems to be no means for those outside the major label systems to negotiate their streaming deals with any of the bigger platforms. That could change if the rates grow even worse, or if a group of artists chooses to band together, but at this point, we know no such efforts in the music ecosystem.

Some can argue that participating in these platforms is not a requirement, which is true, but that idea reveals a key misunderstanding of how the music industry works in 2019. Artists may not be required to share their music on streaming platforms, but those who choose to avoid them altogether have an incredibly difficult journey toward recognition ahead of them. Streaming is now the primary way people stream music, and most listeners do so through one of the portals mentioned in this article.

With streaming’s dominance likely to continue for the foreseeable future, not agreeing with the royalty rate offers made by streaming services is not a viable option for the vast majority of performers. So, what can be done?

If you have a solution, or if you have information related to this story that you feel should be included, please email james@haulix.com. We would love to hear from you.

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Spotify acquires two podcast companies as CEO lays out plans to become the Netflix of audio

Spotify is determined to be the streaming king of all audio, not just music.

The growth of Spotify continues this week as the company announces the purchase of two huge podcast companies. Gimlet Media, a leading producer of content including shows such as Homecoming (recently made into a television series by Amazon) and Reply All, as well as Anchor, a platform that helps creators with tools to build, publish, and monetize podcasts, was purchased by the streaming giant for an undisclosed amount.

In a post to Spotify’s company blog, CEO Daniel Ek used the acquisition news to detail his ambitious plan to grow the company’s stake in the podcast market throughout 2019. “In just shy of two years, we have become the second-biggest podcasting platform,” Ek wrote. “Our podcast users spend almost twice the time on the platform, and spend even more time listening to music.”

Ek also described the state of the audio market as a whole, noting how consumers spend roughly the same amount of time streaming audio as they do video, but the value of the two services differs greatly. The video industry is almost a trillion dollar market, but the music and radio industry is worth around a hundred billion dollars. “I always come back to the same question,” Ek writes, “Are our eyes really worth ten times more than our ears? I firmly believe this is not the case. For example, people still spend over two hours a day listening to radio — and we want to bring that radio listening to Spotify, where we can deepen engagement and create value in new ways. With the world focused on trying to reduce screen time, it opens up a massive audio opportunity.”

With the purchase of Gimlet Media and Anchor, not to mention Ek’s plan to invest up to $500 million into the podcast marketing throughout the year, Spotify is now in the business of content creation. How that effects current and future shows produced by Gimlet remains to be seen, but it could result in exclusivity that draws listeners away from Apple podcasts and other competing platforms.

“Based on radio industry data,” Ek notes, “we believe it is a safe assumption that, over time, more than 20% of all Spotify listening will be non-music content. This means the potential to grow much faster with more original programming — and to differentiate Spotify by playing to what makes us unique — all with the goal of becoming the world’s number one audio platform.”

Though not stated, other reasonable explanations for the acquisitions include:

  • Doubling the amount of content available on the platform
  • Grabbing a share of ad revenue as more advertisers abandon terrestrial radio for podcasts
  • Playing a role in creating the next headline-making podcast series or helping that show reach a broader audience
  • Better revenue-sharing possibilities. 80% of the music on Spotify comes from three major labels that likely won’t offer the company a larger share of streaming revenue anytime soon. Podcasts, by comparison, are spread across a vast marketplace of publishers, including The New York Times and NPR.
  • A chance to quickly become the leader in the podcast marketplace. Apple currently reigns in podcasts because of its popularity in the US, but 80% of consumers outside the country use other operating systems (Android, Google, etc.).

But make no mistake, music fans. Spotify remains committed to the audio that made them a household name. Ek believes these acquisitions, as well as the creation of original content, will give the company greater leverage in negotiations that will ultimately benefit creators as much as they do the platform.

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Marshmello’s Fortnite concert had 10 million players in attendance

The future of “live” entertainment is upon us, and the potential benefits are crazier than anyone could have predicted.

Following a blitz of news and leaks last week, Marshmello performed at the world’s first in-game concert over the weekend through an exclusive partnership with Epic Games. The performance, held at Pleasant Park in the incredibly popular game Fortnite, drew a crowd of 10 million split across thousands of concurrent gaming sessions. That figure could be much larger, as the number given does not include viewers who watched the performance via Twitch or other streaming services. Here’s how it worked:

When players logged in to Fortnite – which has over 125 million players, according to its developers – they were met with only one competitive game mode available to them. When they chose to join the ‘Showtime Mode’ they were transported to the in-game park, which was modified to feature a performance space. Marshmello appeared on stage at 2 PM EST to share 10 minutes of music accompanied by a wide array of special effects such as lighting and sparks mirroring his real-world concert production.

A video of the performance is available below. The clip has already amassed more than 15 million views on YouTube.

The 10 million concurrent players watching Marshmello’s set is amazing, but what happened after the performance is even more impressive.

Throughout January, Marshmello averaged 37k new YouTube subscribers per day, and about 7.8 million YouTube views per day. On February 3, one day after the concert, Marshmello gained 699k new subscribers (nearly a 1,800% increase from his previous daily gain of 37k). He also amassed over 42.8M YouTube views, an increase of about 500% from his January average of 7.8 million views per day.

But the change in activity online doesn’t stop there.

According to Next Big Sound, Marshmello gained over 147K new Twitter followers this past week, up more than 2,000% from the week before (6,800). His Twitter mentions also increased by more than 1,000% (from 4,800 to 57,500).

Marhsmello’s Fortnite performance lead to a surge of engagement across all social media platforms.

With numbers like this, it is highly likely that additional in-game concerts will happen in the coming months. Epic has not revealed any information regarding the cost of the Marshmello promotion, but the return on investment most likely surpasses the time and money associated with making the event happen.

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Paid Streaming Subscribers will soon surpass free users

Who is paying for music? According to a new report from the UK, almost everyone.

A new study released by the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), a UK trade association, claims that the number of paid streaming music subscriptions will soon overtake the number of people accessing the same services for free.

The report, which was released on February 5, surveyed usage of Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Deezer, and YouTube Music, among others. The trade association found that more males already pay to stream (24.3%) rather than for free (23.9%), and more 25-34 year-olds also choose paid-for (34.9%) than free (27.9%). By a narrower margin, the same is now also true for 35-44s and 45-54s. You can view a full table of insights below. For women, more chose to stream music for free (19.1%) instead of paying to stream (16.8%).

For the time being, more people still stream for free (21.5%) rather than pay (20.6%), but the current conversation rates indicate a victory for paid-for services could come later this year.

Speaking on the results of the study, ERA CEO Kim Bayley said, “Ten or fifteen years ago popular opinion had it that it was all over for the music business and people would no longer pay for music. These figures are a striking vindication of the innovation and investment of digital services.

She added, “What is all the more remarkable is that the likes of Spotify and YouTube also offer fantastic free services, funded by advertising. These figures suggest that music fans increasingly believe that the added features offered by paid-for services, and the curation which enables them to navigate literally millions of tracks, are definitely worth the money.”

The ERA based its data on their recurring entertainment survey which every quarter for the past five years has quizzed a panel of 1,500 people on how they consume music video and games, tracking changing service and format preferences.

HOW PAID IS BEATING FREE IN THE STREAMING MARKET

 AllNov-16Nov-17Nov-18Change +/-%
Paid9.9%18.3%20.6%2.3%
Free17.6%21.7%21.5%-0.2%
  
MalesNov-16Nov-17Nov-18Change +/-%
Paid11.3%19.7%24.2%4.5%
Free19.9%21.7%23.9%2.2%
  
FemalesNov-16Nov-17Nov-18Change +/-%
Paid8.4%16.8%16.8%0.0%
Free14.9%21.7%19.1%-2.6%
  
Under 25sNov-16Nov-17Nov-18Change +/-%
Paid26.2%53.8%57.1%3.3%
Free31.8%64.0%45.7%-18.3%
  
25-44Nov-16Nov-17Nov-18Change +/-%
Paid23.00%34.2%34.97%0.8%
Free33.80%30.2%27.87%-2.3%
  
35-44Nov-16Nov-17Nov-18Change +/-%
Paid16.70%23.9%26.54%2.6%
Free20.10%25.6%24.38%-1.2%
  
45-54Nov-16Nov-17Nov-18Change +/-%
Paid6.70%14.6%15.67%1.0%
Free15.00%15.1%17.00%1.9%
  
55+Nov-16Nov-17Nov-18Change +/-%
Paid3.30%4.5%7.20%2.7%
Free12.10%10.7%14.90%4.2%

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Instagram will soon allow you to share links to entire Stories

A new Instagram update will empower artists, brands, and everyday consumers to promote their Story content on other platforms.

Instagram is reportedly in the final stages of testing an update that will give users the ability to share links to Stories, thus furthering the potential reach of Story content. The feature, initially spotted last week by Lindsey Gamble, gives users a new “Share Link to Entire Story” option in addition to ones already available to users in the app’s ‘More’ menu below a story.

Instagram’s new Story sharing functionality (as discovered by @LindseyGamble_)

Some readers might remember that Snapchat introduced a similar feature for its Stories in summer 2018. The idea of Instagram offering something similar makes sense, especially considering that 500 million users are interacting with Stories daily, but it’s strange it took so long for the company to plan such an update.

Instagram Stories has gained 100 million Daily Active Users (DAUs) in the last sixth months.

Given their popularity and ease of creation, artists should see the impending update to Stories as an opportunity to grow their audience and further engage with fans. Stories make sharing news updates a breeze, but it also allows artists to offer fans an insider look at their careers one photo or short video update at a time. Artists can even add polls, perhaps to decide their new single or to perfect setlists, with a few quick clicks.

The new update has an added bonus for business accounts. Labels and similar industry businesses also get the option to “Promote” their Stories through the next option on the menu. It allows brands to further the return on their Stories by empowering them to drive traffic to their websites, send people to their profile, or get people to DM them in Direct.

Business accounts will have additional options when promoting Story updates.

A release date for the update has not been revealed, but with testing already underway a launch in the near future is likely.

Want even more industry news and marketing advice? Follow Haulix on Twitter.

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Fortnite to host world’s first in-game concert this weekend

Epic Games has recruited EDM star Marshmello to usher in a new era of music promotion.

Music marketing is both easier and harder than ever before. On the one hand, anyone can upload music and share it online with just a few clicks. On the other hand, anyone can upload music and share it online with just a few clicks.

To stand out in today’s marketplace artists need to find original ways to engage their audience. That can be accomplished on a small-scale by interacting with fans on social media. As the talent’s profile grows, however, there comes a point when meaningful growth can no longer be achieved through one-on-one interaction.

This weekend, EDM superstar Marshmello will do something no other artist has before, and in doing so, he might set a new precedent for large-scale music promotion. This Saturday afternoon, February 2, Marshmello will perform the world’s first in-game concert through a partnership with developer Epic Game. The performance will take place at Pleasant Park, a location in the wildly popular game Fortnite.

Rumors of the performance began making the rounds online months ago, but recent information uncovered by dedicated players forced the game to reveal the concert news earlier this week. Here’s what we know:

  • The event will begin at 2 PM ET on Saturday, though it’s not clear how long it will run for.
  • It takes place in Pleasant Park, though you may see the lights/hear the music from anywhere on the map.
  • It apparently will be its own LTM called “Party at Pleasant Park” with respawns enabled, meaning you will probably be able to kill each other during the party.
  • There’s apparently a cosmetic bundle for the event which will include a Marshmello skin, pickaxe spray. No word on pricing.
  • There are some leaked animations that show “DJ dancing” for lack of a better term which would appear to be how Marshmello himself will act on stage.
  • Object leaks have shown speakers, a stage, lights, all of which should be set up on the football field at Pleasant Park, presumably.

With this being the first event of its kind it is hard to know what the impact the performance will have on Marshmello’s career. If nothing else, the concert will expose Marshmello’s music to a larger than any single festival or show could offer here in the real world.

Fortnite is a battle royale game that is free to play. There are several challenge-related games to choose from, but the primary objective is to skydive into an island and kill one’s opponents until only a single player remains. The game boasts more than 200 million registered players worldwide. In November 2018, Fortnite set a record when 8.6 million users were simultaneously engaged in battle.

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