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Reservoir Media plans to sell an additional $100 million of securities, according to an S-3 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday (April 29). The funds may go toward acquisitions, debt repayment, share buybacks and other general corporate purposes, according to the filing.
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The company will often offer common stock, shares of its preferred stock, debt securities, depository shares, warrants, purchase contracts or a combination of these offerings, according to the filing. Reservoir Media currently has an authorized capital stock of 825 million shares — 750 million common shares and and 75 million shares of preferred stock. As of Feb. 5, it had 64.82 million shares of common stock outstanding. No shares of its preferred stock have been issued.
Tapping the market for additional capital now would enable Reservoir Media to benefit from a recent upswing in its share price. Its stock, which trades on the Nasdaq, reached a 52-week high of $9.20 per share on Friday (April 26) — and its highest point since May 4, 2022 — and closed at $9.03 on Monday(April 29), up 26.6% year to date. Reservoir Media went public in 2021 by merging with Roth CH Acquisition II, a special purpose acquisition corporation, or SPAC.
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The company’s pipeline of potential deals was roughly $2 billion in total value, CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi said during the company’s Feb. 7 earnings call. “We remain a highly respected and regarded partner,” she said, “and our proven reputation for being a steward for catalogs through value enhancement initiatives allows us to acquire some of the best assets in the market.”
Since its inception in 2007, Reservoir Media has invested $938 million, according to its latest investor presentation — with $770 million of that amount spent on acquisitions of catalogs and companies. It owns Chrysalis Records, Tommy Boy Music and Philly Groove Records and manages artists through Blue Raincoat Music and Big Life Management.
In February, the company reported first-quarter revenue growth of 19%, to $35.5 million, and raised its guidance for full-year revenue to $140 million to $142 million, implying 15% annual growth at the midpoint.
FKA Twigs is slated to testify before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property on Tuesday afternoon (April 30) to warn members of Congress about the dangers of the unsanctioned use of artificial intelligence to mimic an artist’s unique style and delivery.
The singer/dancer will also reveal that she has been developing a deepfake of herself over the past year in a bid to explore using AI to help with marketing and streamlining the creative process, as well as to head off anyone else beating her to the AI punch.
“As a future-facing artist, new technologies are an exciting tool that can be used to expressdeeper emotions, create fantasy worlds, and touch the hearts of many people,” she will tell the committee, which will also hear from Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl. Her appearance in D.C. is in support of the Senate’s bipartisan Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe (“NO FAKES Act”) draft proposal, aimed at protecting Americans from nonconsensual AI-generated deepfakes and creating federal-level rules to protect an individual’s voice and image from being used in harmful AI-generated content.
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Her testimony — provided to Billboard ahead of her appearance — will open with the 36-year-old artist describing a life spent immersed in the arts, including the ballet, singing and acting lessons her dancer mother and stepdad dance company director sacrificed to provide for her. “From the age of 16, I began to explore both dance and music as a career, and that interest in multiple disciplines has defined my life for the past two decades both personally and professionally,” she will tell the committee.
The Grammy-nominated singer and recent soloist with the acclaimed Martha Graham Dance Company — and co-star in an upcoming adaptation of The Crow — will tell the committee that she wanted to testify because “my music, my dancing, my acting, the way that my body moves in front of a camera and the way that my voice resonates through a microphone is not by chance; they are essential reflections of who I am. My art is the canvas on which I paint my identity and the sustaining foundation of my livelihood. It is the essence of my being.”
All of that, however, is under threat, she testifies, noting that while AI can’t replicate the depth of her journey, “those who control it hold the power to mimic the likeness of my art, to replicate it and falsely claim my identity and intellectual property. This prospect threatens to rewrite and unravel the fabric of my very existence. We must enact regulation now to safeguard our authenticity and protect against misappropriation of our inalienable rights.”
At a time when bootleg AI songs claiming to feature the voices of major stars such as The Weeknd are proliferating — including the Drake AI freestyle diss track “Taylor Made” with computer-generated voices of Snoop Dogg and the late Tupac Shakur that was removed after a lawsuit threat from Shakur’s estate — Twigs says that the progenitors of the internet could not have predicted three decades ago how integral, and sometimes dangerous, it would become to our lives.
“AI is the biggest leap in technological advancement since the internet. You know the saying ‘Fool me once, shame on you… Fool me twice, shame on me,’” she says. “If we make the same mistakes with the emergence of AI, it will be ‘shame on us.’”
Having gleefully embraced technology throughout her career, Twigs will describe her bespoke deepfake, which she trained in the quirks of her personality and tuned to the exact tone of her voice to speak in several languages. “I will be engaging my AI twigs later this year to extend my reach and handle my online social media interactions, whilst I continue to focus on my art from the comfort and solace of my studio,” she says.
“These and similar emerging technologies are highly valuable tools both artistically and commercially when under the control of the artist,” she tells the committee. “What is not acceptable is when my art and my identity can simply be taken by a third party and exploited falsely for their own gain without my consent due to the absence of appropriate legislative control.”
Noting that history is littered with the stories of artists being the first ones to be exploited during moments of great technological advance, Twigs will warn that the “general and more vulnerable public” are often next. “By protecting artists with legislation at such a momentous moment in our history we are protecting a five-year-old child in the future from having their voice, likeness and identity taken and used as a commodity without prior consent, attribution or compensation,” she says.
Her testimony includes a plea to the committee to help protect artists and their work from the dangers of AI exploitation, speaking on behalf of fellow creators whose careers depend on the ability to create with the knowledge that they can maintain “tight control” over their “art, image, voice and identity.”
“Our careers and livelihoods are in jeopardy, and so potentially are the wider image-related rights of others in society,” she says. “You have the power to change this and safeguard the future. As artists and, more importantly, human beings, we are a facet of our given, learned, and developed identity. Our creativity is the product of this lived experience overlaid with years of dedication to qualification, training, hard work and, dare I say it, significant financial investment and sacrifice. That the very essence of our being at its most human level can be violated by the unscrupulous use of AI to create a digital facsimile that purports to be us, and our work, is inherently wrong.”
The testimony will end with an urgent plea, as well as a dire warning: “We must get this right … you must get this right,” she says. “Now… before it is too late.”
In January, a bipartisan group of U.S. House lawmakers announced a bill aimed at regulating the use of AI for cloning voices and likenesses, the No AI FRAUD Act, which could establish a federal framework for protecting one’s voice and likeness while laying out First Amendment protections.
Fonovisa-Disa, Universal Music Group‘s regional Mexican label, has appointed Ana Martinez to U.S. GM. Based in Los Angeles, Martinez, a 19-year music industry veteran, will report directly to Antonio Silva, MD of Fonovisa-Disa for the United States and Mexico.
“The legacy that Fonovisa has historically created, mainly across Mexican music, has been the inspiration and reference for entire generations, and will continue to build long into the future,” Martinez said in a statement. “With the current moment in Latin music, it is exciting for me to join a company and team of this nature, to herald a new era for this historic label, where our music continues to elevate, leaving its mark on history and culture, not only across Latin music, but also globally.”
Martinez previously spearheaded strategy and relations as part of Amazon Music’s global Latin team, where she carried out global campaigns for the likes of Bad Bunny, Karol G and Shakira, as well as multi-platform Amazon livestreams, including Maluma‘s concert from Medellín in 2022, ”Medallo En El Mapa.” Prior to Amazon, she spent seven years at Universal Music México, joining the company as label manager of Anglo repertoire before landing the role of marketing director.
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“I am very excited about the integration of Ana Martínez to the team, her experience across different fields of the industry complements our business vision and strategy for the Fonovisa-Disa roster,” added Silva. “I fully trust that her ability to foster success across projects will further strengthen our vision of generating global hits for Mexican music in the future.”
Martinez’s appointment comes just months after Alfredo Delgadillo was appointed as president/CEO of Universal Music México. Of Martinez’s return to Universal Music Group, Delgadillo said: “Ana is always connected and thinking ahead of the market and this, together with her extensive experience across the Latin music industry from independent labels, booking and production of concerts, artist management, her time in specialized magazines and most recently in her position at Amazon Music, will further nourish our ecosystem and help Fonovisa-Disa to maintain its position as the leader of Mexican music in the world.”
U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) have introduced a bill to help support music tourism throughout the country. Dubbed the American Music Tourism Act of 2024, the newly introduced legislation would be an amendment to the Visit America Act that passed in 2022 and required the assistant secretary of commerce for travel and tourism to lead a coordinated national effort to rejuvenate international tourism following declines from the pandemic.
The American Music Tourism Act of 2024 requires the assistant secretary to identify locations and events in the United States that are important to music tourism and promote domestic travel and tourism to those sites and events.
“Tennesseans know a thing or two about the positive impact that music tourism has on the economy and culture,” Sen. Blackburn said in a statement. “The Volunteer State is proud to be home to so many iconic musical landmarks for tourists to enjoy – from Graceland in Memphis to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, and the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol. This bipartisan legislation promotes music tourism’s fast-growing industry and ensures fans from all over the world can celebrate the rich history of music for generations to come.”
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The act classifies music tourism as the act of traveling to a state or locality to visit historic or modern-day music related attractions including museums, studios, venues of all sizes and other sites related to music. The definition also includes traveling somewhere in the U.S. to attend a music festival, concert or other live music performance. If passed, the act would strengthen the economic benefits of music festivals like Tennessee’s Bonarroo or California’s Stagecoach, as well as music venues from Madison Square Garden in New York City to Bluebird Cafe in Nashville.
“Music venues are keepers of our culture. From Red Rocks to the Grand Ole Opry, and hundreds of small venues across our country, millions visit Colorado and all our states to hear world class musicians and connect with each other,” said Sen. Hickenlooper in a statement. “Our bipartisan American Music Tourism Act will support these venues by helping our music tourism industry grow and expand.”
The bipartisan legislation is endorsed by the Recording Academy, the Nashville Songwriter’s Association International, the Recording Industry Association of America, Live Nation Entertainment, the National Independent Venues Association, Tennessee Department of Tourism Development, Tennessee Entertainment Commission, Memphis Tourism, Pigeon Forge Department of Tourism and the Overton Park Shell in Memphis.
“The Recording Academy is pleased to support the American Music Tourism Act and applauds Senators Blackburn and Hickenlooper for their continued dedication to lifting up the music community,” said Recording Academy chief advocacy and public policy officer Todd Dupler in a statement. “Music has long played an important role in our economy and culture. This bill will amplify the music community’s contributions to economic growth and increase understanding of music’s impact on the U.S. and the world.”
Live Nation’s president of Nashville music and business strategy Sally Williams also voiced her approval of the act, stating, “In Nashville, Memphis, and countless other communities across the country, a vibrant live music scene is an economic magnet that draws fans from around the globe. The American Music Tourism Act is an important piece of legislation that will help ensure live music remains a pillar of American culture and tourism, and we’d like to thank the Senator for her leadership on this issue.”
The American Music Tourism Act would leverage this existing framework within the Department of Commerce to highlight and promote music tourism in the United States with the act requiring the assistant secretary to submit their findings, achievements and activities to the congressional and senate committees within one year of its passage and every year thereafter.
“From rural communities to city centers, independent stages attract investment and visitors for the artists and professionals that put on shows and the restaurants, retail, and attractions around them,” said National Independent Venue Association executive director Stephen Parker in an endorsement. “The American Music Tourism Act finally recognizes music tourism as a catalyst for economic development and ensures its growth is a national priority. We applaud Senators Marsha Blackburn and John Hickenlooper for aligning the nation’s tourism strategy with the venues and festivals across our country that the world travels to experience.”
Country singer Josh Turner, known for hits including “Your Man” and “Would You Go With Me,” has re-signed with longtime label home MCA Nashville. Later this week, Turner will be inducted into the South Carolina Entertainment and Music Hall of Fame. He released the song “Heatin’ Things Up” on Friday (April 26). – Jessica Nicholson
Sister duo Aly & AJ (“Potential Breakup Song,” “Like Whoa,” “Slow Dancing”) signed with UTA for global representation in all areas. Composed of Aly and AJ Michalka, the duo will continue to be represented by Scott Felcher at Felcher & Freifeld, LLP, Joel McKuin at McKuin Frankel Whitehead LLP, Jared Rosenberg at Redlight Management and Andrea Pett-Joseph at Brillstein Entertainment.
British-Brazilian singer-songwriter Liana Flores (“rises the moon”) signed with Verve Records. Flores, who merges bossa nova and folk music, recently toured with Laufey and is ramping up for her first U.S. headlining dates. She’ll release her debut album later this year, preceded by the single “I wish for the rain.” Her booking agents for North and South America are Sam Gans and Wilson Zheng at High Road Touring, with Primary Talent handling the rest of the world.
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Absolute Label Services signed a deal with Universal/Capitol Records Italy for the release of Jack Savoretti‘s first Italian language album. Through the deal, which covers the United Kingdom and Ireland, Absolute will manage the distribution, marketing and promotion of the album, titled Miss Italia (set for release on May 17). Savoretti is managed by Niko Michault and Danielle Livesey at P.U.S.H. Music Management.
Also at Absolute, the company signed a deal to market, promote, distribute and handle synch for a new album from “neo-skiffle” band Fairground Attraction. The album, titled Beautiful Happening and set for release Sept. 20 on band member Mark Nevin’s Raresong Recordings label, marks the first time all four original members of the group — Nevin, Eddi Reader, Simon Edwards and Roy Dodds — have worked together since 1989.
Downtown Neighboring Rights signed singer-songwriter ANOHNI (lead singer of ANOHNI and the Johnsons), whose entire catalog will be represented by the company. She’s been a Downtown Music Publishing client since 2022. The company also unveiled an international agreement with publisher and label Position Music (Welshly Arms, 2WEI, Ryan Oakes) as well as TH3RD BRAIN Records (Emmit Fenn, Zerb).
Singer-songwriter Debbii Dawson signed with RCA Records, which released her new single, “Happy World,” on April 19 ahead of a forthcoming EP. Dawson’s booking agency is Wasserman and her managers are Matthew Kennedy and Rachel Higg at WeManage. She has a co-publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music and Katy Perry‘s Unsub Publishing.
Capitol Christian Music Group signed hip-hop/pop artist gio. The 21-year-old’s debut single, “reality,” was just released. His first EP in conjunction with the label is slated to arrive in the fall. – Jessica Nicholson
Country artist Louie TheSinger signed with UTA for global representation in all areas. Louie released his first single for Universal Music Group, “Brothers,” in January and recently announced his Desperado Tour, which launches in June. – Jessica Nicholson
RECORDS Nashville artist Alli Walker, along with her manager, Brad Turcotte, joined Vector Management. Walker, who just released her new single, “Creek,” becomes part of a management roster that also includes Charley Crockett, Molly Tuttle and Marcus King. – Jessica Nicholson
Universal Music Group Nashville signed singer-songwriter Timothy Wayne. A Franklin, Tenn., native, Wayne is currently a sophomore at LSU and working on his first project. He’s slated to support his uncle, Tim McGraw, for several dates on his Standing Room Only Tour. – Jessica Nicholson
French music streamer Deezer reaped the benefits of its price increases as its first-quarter revenues grew 15.0% to 132.5 million euros ($143.5 million at the average exchange rate for the period). Average revenue per user (ARPU) also improved for direct subscribers and business-to-business subscribers from partners including Brazilian mobile carrier TIM and French retailer Fnac Darty.
Deezer raised subscription prices in France, its largest market, in January 2022 and other markets later in the year. After Apple, Amazon, YouTube and Spotify all followed with their own increases, Deezer raised its prices again in September 2023.
In the first quarter, ARPU for direct subscribers grew 6.4% to 5.1 euros ($5.50) as the latest price increase was implemented for over 75% of them, while ARPU from partnerships improved 5.5% to 2.9 euros ($3.1). Both ARPU figures have grown considerably in the last two years. Since the first quarter, direct ARPU has grown 13.3% from 4.5 euros ($4.9) and partnership ARPU has improved 20.8% from 2.4 euros ($2.6).
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Partnerships produced most of Deezer’s revenue growth in the quarter. While direct revenue from paid subscriptions grew 5.2% to 86 million euros ($93.1 million), partnerships revenue grew 40.3% to 43.3 million euros ($46.9 million); Deezer provides its streaming platform for its partners’ branded products. The company attributed partnerships growth to a recent deal with Mercado Libre in Latin America, RTL in Europe and Sonos. The company also renewed deals with TIM and Fnac Darty in the quarter.
The first quarter improvement “highlights clear momentum and evidence that our strategy is on point,” said interim CEO Stu Bergen in a statement. “By delivering unique experiences to music fans worldwide, Deezer delivers value and innovation to all our stakeholders. We continue to be a catalyst for positive change, challenging the status quo in remuneration and pricing, while maintaining our unwavering support for artists and songwriters.”
France accounted for the majority of Deezer’s revenue (57.4%), though revenue in the country grew just 8.5% to 76.1 million euros ($82.4 million) from the prior-year period. Revenue in the rest of the world jumped 25.2% to 56.4 million euros ($61.1 million) and accounted for 42.6% of revenue, up from 39.1% of revenue in the first quarter of 2023.
Although a relatively minor player on the global music streaming stage, Deezer has been influential in the music industry’s efforts to make streaming a more sustainable endeavor for musicians. In 2023, Universal Music Group partnered with Deezer for an artist-centric royalty scheme that aims to provide better royalties for professional musicians. Independent rights group Merlin followed in March.
Part of providing better remuneration to professional artists is removing non-music tracks (also called functional music) from the platform and Deezer’s earnings release confirmed the company has removed over 26 million tracks (non-artist content, noise and duplicates) since October 2023. The company also “enforc[es] a stricter provider policy to ensure exceptional quality content and elevate the user experience,” according to the release.
Looking ahead, Deezer maintained its previous guidance given in February: Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be better than -15 million euros (-$16.2 million) — about half of the -29 million euros (-$31 million) in 2023 — and revenue growth is expected at 10%, which would be an improvement from the 7.4% revenue growth it saw in 2023.
Mario Olvera Acevedo, an event promoter specializing in Regional Mexican music, has died at the hands of unknown assailants in a direct attack that occurred in the early morning hours on Saturday (April 27).
According to a statement issued by the Secretaría de Seguridad Ciudadana (or Secretariat of Public Safety) of the Government of San Pedro Cholula, Puebla, Mexico, police officers responded to the scene after receiving a report of gunshots.
Paramedics from the Municipal Civil Protection confirmed that Olvera, age 42, no longer had vital signs when he was found. They proceeded to cordon off the area while awaiting forensic experts from the State Attorney General’s Office.
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Initial investigations indicate that it was a “presumed direct attack.” According to the press release from Seguridad Ciudadana, after “a motorist hit the rear of the truck of the deceased to force him to get out and shoot him, at that moment a third person on a motorcycle arrived and both subjects fled in the direction of Periférico Ecológico, where they finally abandoned the vehicle.” The authorities are still looking for the perpetrators.
The death of Olvera shocked the world of Regional Mexican music. For more than two decades, Olvera was a promoter of events in the states of Tlaxcala and Puebla with his company, Ranch Music Sinaloa, and countless artists and managers had working relationships and friendships with him.
Over the weekend, misinformation circulating in several media outlets about Olvera’s relationship with big stars of the genre suggested he acted as their representative and was a direct part of their teams, neither of which is true.
Last Wednesday (April 23), Olvera attended a meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico, of the ADEEM (Association of Entertainment Entrepreneurs in Mexico), of which he was once a member of the board of directors.
Multiple artists took to social media to express their condolences, including Los Tucanes de Tijuana, El Flaco Elizalde and El Yaki. The latter artist said he was close to Olvera and considered him an older brother, though the two were not biologically related.
“This is how I say goodbye to you my brother! Because I know you would have liked me to share it… and I do it from my heart,” wrote El Yaki on Instagram below a photo of the two together. “You taught me some really bitchin’ things and opened my eyes to something that today little by little I’m still building […] Fly high compa!”
In Puebla, Olvera was also known for his activities in the restaurant business. At the time of his death, he owned three establishments: Humo Gris, Ostería Humo and Puerto Marisco.
On Monday (April 29), Olvera’s body will be buried at the Valle de Los Angeles Funeral Home in Puebla.
At the end of 2023, the gaming platform Roblox announced that it had more than 71.5 million average daily active users. While it still remains best known to teens and their parents, evangelists see gaming hubs like Roblox and Fortnite as the new frontier of social media — another space where musicians will need to establish a presence if they hope to remain commercially relevant with younger listeners.
“Just the way every artist has an Instagram account and a TikTok, eventually everyone’s going to have a Roblox presence,” predicts Nic Hill, co-founder of the company Sawhorse Production. Hill has worked on Roblox projects for Olivia Rodrigo and Elton John, while Spotify, iHeartMedia and Warner Music Group have all launched Roblox experiences, and Sony Music has an in-house team developing music-focused games or experiences for both Roblox and Fortnite. (The latter boasts of having more than half a billion player accounts.)
In Roblox, players create an avatar and access an ecosystem of millions of games, many of which are developed by creative teenagers rather than massive gaming companies. Roblox lovers, nearly half of whom are female, pay to acquire Robux, a currency which allows them to buy an assortment of items for their avatars, and devote an average of 2.5 hours a day to roaming Roblox’s colorful, blocky virtual byways.
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“There are different ways that they spend that time,” says Karibi Dagogo-Jack, head of music partnerships at Roblox. “Sometimes it’s playing a hardcore first-person shooter game. Sometimes it’s just hanging out with people that have an affinity for a thing they have an affinity for” — like music.
Fornite, in contrast, came to prominence as a fight-to-the-death survival game — its audience skews older than Roblox’s, and it’s male-dominated — but has been trying to diversify its appeal. Most notably, in March of 2023, Epic Games launched Unreal Engine for Fortnite (UEFN), which means creators can now develop their own worlds and experiences and make them available for the Fortnite audience, giving it some of the user-generated flair of Roblox.
Initially the music industry’s main way of engaging with Roblox and Fortnite audiences was through virtual concerts from the Lil Nas Xs and Travis Scotts of the world. But concerts, even virtual ones, are massive undertakings, often taking six months or more to develop and fine-tune, according to sources who have worked on them. That means concerts make sense primarily for a small number of big-name artists. In contrast, sources say putting together a Roblox shop may take closer to four to six weeks.
Even beyond budgetary constraints, concerts are one-time experiences in environments that prioritize constant interaction, an old-school approach to a new-school platform. “Artist events can have a lot more longevity,” says Ricardo Briceno, chief business officer of Gamefam, which built Harmony Hills, the virtual space that also serves as the home of Warner Music Group’s Roblox concerts.
Tony Barnes, founder of Karta, which worked on a popular Roblox experience for TWICE — a “fan hub” where supporters of the K-Pop group can play games, hang out virtually, and buy digital goods for their avatars — advises clients to think of the platform as “a new community channel that needs to be nurtured.” “You need to maintain your engagement,” he says. “It’s an always-on strategy.”
The music industry is now in a period that Hill describes as “a constant test and learn” with Roblox and Fortnite; some projects have generated serious revenue, while others are lucky to break even. “We’re still scratching the surface,” Briceno says.
Yet competition is already fierce. “Roblox is becoming a crowded space,” Hill notes. “Even if you’re a popular name and you show up, you can’t just expect everyone to be so excited and somehow find you. A lot of brands are marketing their experiences on the platform.”
Both Roblox and Fortnite incentivize artists and labels to treat the platforms as revenue generators. Artists can sell items on Roblox which players use to customize their avatars; the creator of the item takes home 30%, the creator of the experience — which could also be the artist — where the item is sold gets 40%, and the platform takes 30%.
Briceno sold ice antlers for Cher, for example, while TWICE has sold more than 3 million emotes, and an Elton John emote was purchased over 1.5 million times, according to a Roblox representative. Gavin Johnson, director of syncs and partnerships at the electronic music label Monstercat, oversaw the sale of a limited edition Ruby pendant necklace for 1,000,001 Robux (around $10,000) — “the highest primary sale ever on the platform.”
Over on Fortnite, if a label creates its own customized game-play environment, known as an “island,” they receive an “engagement payout.” (Roblox offers these too.) “40% of the net revenue from Fortnite’s Item Shop and related real-money purchases” is set aside for this purpose, according to Epic Games’ website, and then disbursed among island creators according to a complex calculation that takes into account the island’s ability to attract new players, re-engage dormant players, and keep both types coming back. (One gaming executive says that while the top UEFN experiences “drive a lot of gameplay and repeat visitors,” there’s a huge gap between the top few and most of the rest; a rep for Epic Games did not respond to a request for comment.)
For now, artists and labels often find it easier to jump into Roblox, in part because the barrier to entry is low — “basically anyone can create anything and sell it,” as Briceno puts it. In contrast, “Fortnite doesn’t allow studios or creators to sell items in-game,” says Michael Herriger, co-founder of Atlas Creative, which built iHeartMedia’s Roblox environment. “Everything that is a Fortnite skin [an outfit to customize a player’s look in the game], for example, comes directly from the Epic Games store.”
Selling items, designing artist-themed experiences — these can help raise awareness of an act and drive what Barnes calls “fan culture,” but may not involve actual music. Artists and labels are still trying to figure out what effective music integrations might look like. “The idea of using Roblox to drive discovery of your song is really cool, and maybe untapped,” Dagogo-Jack says.
When Metallica released 72 Seasons in 2023, the band partnered with five popular Roblox games to pipe its music into their creations. (“It’s a fantastic way to promote these brands, be it Metallica or any other musical artist,” says Kohl Couture, who goes by MiniToon, and created the game Piggy, which was part of the Metallica rollout.) Earlier this year, Sony Music unveiled a Fortnite game called Nitewave, where winners of a capture-the-flag-like experience get to control the soundtrack of Sony artists, including songs by Flo Milli and Calvin Harris.
While Briceno “very much believe[s] in a future where there will be music discovery in these platforms,” he’s not sure “the right tools are available in these platforms just yet.” One potential tool is being developed by the company STYNGR: An ad-supported boombox full of pre-cleared songs — at the moment, just tracks from Universal Music Group — that players can equip their avatar with.
In early experiments, when players need to turn on the boombox themselves, 15% do so; if the boombox starts automatically, 90% choose to leave it on. Session lengths increase by as much as 10% while players have the radio blasting musical accompaniment, according to Alex Tarrand, STYNGR’s COO and co-founder, and for a small group of “power users,” session lengths are tripling.
“The reason the engagement goes up is people stay longer in games if they like what they’re listening to,” Tarrand says. “Our thesis is that recorded music makes stuff better.”
Superfans have become an very buzzy topic within the industry since last summer, when Goldman Sachs projected that this segment of fans could put more than $4 billion into the music industry by 2030.
As previously reported by Billboard, in January Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl called for “stok[ing] the blue flames of superfans” and additional “direct artist-superfan products and experiences”, while Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge highlighted the value of “superfan experiences and products”; and Spotify hinted at future “superfan clubs” in a blog post.”
Defined by Luminate as listeners who “engage with artists and their content in five-plus different ways” superfans were a topic of conversation at IMS Ibiza 2024, which last week brought hundreds of electronic music industry figures to the island for three days of panels and parties.
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On Friday (April 26), programming included a conversation on superfans presented by industry knowledge platform Music Ally. The talk featured Evie Thomas of Atlantic Records and Warner Music Group UK, Jack Bridges of SoundCloud, Myradh Cormican of U.K. management company Frame Artists and was moderated by Marlen Hüllbrock of Music Ally.
The conversation cited statistics from Music Ally which found that superfans spend 80% more on music each month than the average listener and that 2% of an artist’s monthly listeners on Spotify account for more than half of that artist’s monthly merchandise purchases.
Additionally, superfans are 54% more likely to be the first among their friends to discover new music and new artists, and superfans are 59% more likely to say they want to connect with an artist on a personal level. Around 15-20% of all music listeners consider themselves superfans.
These are five other takeaways from the talk.
1) Even 100 Superfans Can Successfully Launch a Campaign — If You Can Find Them
Fanbases are spread across myriad platforms, which makes it challenging for artists to understand who their fans are. This is particularly true because given that data is segmented and also often controlled by third parties, meaning that artists have no direct access to fans and must rely on different tools and platforms to figure out who their superfans are.
Music Ally’s Hüllbrock noted that it’s “incredibly important” for artists and labels to figure out how to directly speak to their own fans, “because they’re battling the algorithm if they’re just posting on their own channels.” One solution here is cutting through the content clutter by taking artist/fan conversations to more more closed and direct spaces like WhatsApp and Discord.
“It’s about how to cut through the noise in an authentic way but also a relative way so even if an artist has 10,000 fans, they’re reaching a 1,000 or even 100 to successfully launch a campaign,” added Bridges. Thomas noted that it’s key for teams to test to see what different platforms are working and where engagement is happening for each particular artist, “as it’s not one size fits all; every artist is different; every community is different.”
2) Soundcloud Has Long Been a Home For Superfans
“I think there’s also been an underestimation of how much the superfans mattered before they were being properly identified,” said Bridges, citing the 2022 hit “Afraid To Feel” by U.K. duo LF System. That song “went to No. 1 but lived on Soundcloud for nearly a year before it got picked up and signed,” he added. “When that got signed and as part of the release strategy, it came off of Soundcloud, and straightaway the artists were inundated with messages every day asking where the record had gone.”
Bridges cites this as a moment “where the labels, the artists, the artist managers really realized how important it was to not mess with certain things or go to market without certain platforms.”
He says that over the last 18 months, as the industry has sharply focused on superfans, there’s been a change in strategy that’s seen “a lot more artists and labels go to Soundcloud early… and build records from nothing and by artists messaging their fans directly, because we have the tools to do that.”
3) Strategy Is Not One Size Fits All
“You have to look at how much time you have to invest, the reward you have made for your fanbase and where your fans really messaging you and commenting and which platforms are you seeing that on,” said Thomas, adding that ones those factors are sorted, the process can be very bespoke. “Maybe for a bigger artist with bigger budget,” she continued, “you can do something like Discord where you can bring in agencies and there’s a lot of paid features.” Meanwhile for artists that want a simpler solution, “something as simple as a WhatsApp group can be amazing.”
Cormican of Frame Artists cited Scottish DJ Arielle Free as a success story in terms of using WhatsApp to connect with superfans. “It’s been an easy lift thing to do, we’ve just given it space to develop,” she said, noting that the conversation in the group is often about topics beyond music and that many fans from the group meet IRL to attend Free’s shows.
The panelists also agreed that an artist’s language and tone should be tailored based on what platform they’re using and what fan group they’re talking to. On WhatsApp, the artist will likely be more open and relaxed, whereas Instagram caption will be shorter and sharper. Overall, the key is creating different spaces for different fan types.
4) Filtering Superfans By Territory Is Effective
When data is used to separate superfans by location, artists can easily reward these people with special experiences — meet and greets, guest lists, etc. — when they come to town.
Thomas cited Atlantic Records artist Fred again..’s March tour of Australia, for which the team cross-referenced people that were in the artist’s Australian fan community and anyone who had their birthday on the day of one of the Australia shows. The team then DM’d these fans from the Fred again.. account saying that they’d been put on the guestlist +2 for their birthday.
“That’s such a unique experience,” said Thomas, “I think it really heightens the user experience of that fan.” In terms of longterm benefits, she compared it to receiving a surprise upgrade by an airline: “You’re going to want to fly with that airline again.”
5) Bring Superfans Into The Narrative
When coordinating Chase & Status‘ 2023 Boiler Room set, their management at Frame Artists told organizers they wanted a small guest list dedicated to superfans “because,” said Cormican, “we wanted to have their energy in the room.”
This guestlist offer was distributed via the U.K. duo’s Discord channel. When the recording of this set was made live, there were a few people in the crowd who knew every lyric, danced the entire time and never once looked at their phones: the superfans who’d gotten in on the Discord guestlist.
The team from Frame Artists then messaged one of these fans, Don Lemons, and had him take part in a merchandise campaign. (And offered him “free guest list for life, obviously,” said Cormican.) When Chase & Status performed at the 2024 Brit Awards, fans from the artists’ Discord were invited to be part of the performance, as the team “wanted real ravers onstage.” This group got to take part in show rehearsals and the live show, and a video clip of this performance is now Chase & Status’ highest performing piece of content ever, with 100 million views. The video includes Dom Lemons “who,” said Cormican, “is now a legend in our scene.”
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