Jack Stephens retweeted
Let me break down exactly why UMG keeps laying people off. This didn't just start with the 2026 stock crash. The real shift started back in 2024. That is when Lucian Grainge took a hard look at the map and decided Universal had way too many separate operations doing overlapping work.
Bots have been a thing in ticket scalping for a long time already. Now everybody has a personal agent on their phone, the problem's only set to get worse. Time for an overhaul of the whole system.
jackstephens.substack.com/p/…
RAYE Blames ‘AI Bots’ After Presale For Intimate London Show Clocks 1.8 Million Sign-Ups: ‘This Experience Has Really Opened My Eyes’
billboard.com/music/pop/raye…
I worked with Michael on either side of the Spotify<>Ticketmaster integration back in the day. He's a good dude, and I'm excited to see what he can do with the Songkick brand (a company close to my heart!) as part of the Suno ecosystem.
Breaking: Suno is launching a live experiences division, and hired a Ticketmaster guy to help run it. Veryyyy interesting
Check out my exclusive here: billboard.com/pro/suno-hires…
Very commendable that @AppleMusic have partnered with an independent promoter in @communionone rather than a conglomerate for these shows.
Ticketing will be handled by @dicefm , which is a good move considering how hungry scalpers will be to get in on the action here.
Our first run of shows, live from @applemusichall. Tickets for @eltonofficial, @babykeem, and Skye Newman drop Monday at 9am BST. Set your alarms and sign up for access at applemusichall.com.
The same principle applies to concerts and dynamic pricing / the secondary market. If only people able to pay the most are in the room then the vibe will be dead, guaranteed.
Jack Stephens retweeted
Hilarious to read while thinking about artists at labels who don’t get cash for equity but rather a loan they need to pay back and after it’s paid back still owe 80% on all $$ and often get dropped anyway
Nut up my lil ivy league bbs it’s a cruel world
Interesting story from another YC alum:
"[YC] derailed my life and left me in a deep state of depression and addiction. And no one at YC cares. PG and Jessica have lived 30 minutes from me for many years and wouldn't even have a coffee with me...My startup was voted 'top of the round'. But after 3yrs of driving my life into the ground, I'm not worth a coffee."
bands still doing 'pre-order for presale access' in big 2026
Many such cases. Live Nation has ownership in a startling amount of the prominent artist management companies around the world.
Ellie Goulding says former managers secured her deals with Live Nation while Live Nation owned their management firm pitchfork.com/story/ellie-go…
a £5.25 fee on top of a £35 ticket (15%) is steep to begin with, but to then stick another £3 restoration levy on top... the normalisation of egregious fees is getting out of hand. used to be it was mainly a US thing, but rapidly becoming commonplace in the UK now too.
Any artist can "be a part of" their ticket pricing, but lower ticket prices means lower advances (unless the revenue's made up elsewhere), and that's when a lot of artists decide they'd actually like to leave that up to their "team" and cash the biggest cheque possible.
Zara Larsson addresses ticket prices for her Bangkok show:
“I agree, I think the tickets are very expensive. And even though they’re in line with the market for international shows in Bangkok, it doesn’t make them less expensive. I really wish we had a cheaper entry tier so more people could come… For my next tour, I don’t think there’s any reason why I shouldn’t be a part of ticket pricing.”
Pretty huge news in live entertainment. A large swath of the west end is now going to be owned by Ari Emanuel.
Ari Emanuel's Mari Acquires ATG Entertainment, Theater Owner Behind 'Wicked' and 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' Productions variety.com/2026/biz/global/…
Same for music.
There’s a big hoo-hah about ‘labelling’ AI music, but I don’t see how this will be feasible going forward.
Suno will evolve to be more and more like a traditional DAW. Trad DAWs will integrate more and more AI features.
The lines will get very blurred.
Former Spotify Global Head of Music and Avicii's old manager launch a superfan... thing? Seems super interesting, but pretty scant on details so far.
The @stuartdredge @MusicAlly article covering this gives a bit more detail:
"Belong [enables] customers to “use financial tools such as payment cards or accounts” with “regulated financial institutions and partners”"
So it seems like a fan pass/payment card combo of some kind