Coachella’s all six stages will be streamed live online across both weekends in April for the first time. The live YouTube stream promises performances from Bad Bunny, BLACKPINK, Calvin Harris, Rosalía, Gorillaz, Burna Boy, Becky G, Wet Leg, Benee, Willow, Bjork, The Comet is Coming, Murder Capital, Yves Tumor, Kaytranada, Boygenius, Weyes Blood, and many more. Coachella’s weekend one livestream will launch on Friday, April 14th at 4:00 p.m. PT, with weekend two following on Friday, April 21st at the same time.

On Friday (June 24), a free livestream performance from the Backstreet Boys was watched by 45 million viewers in China via WeChat, the social app owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings, MBW reports. It was the highest-attended livestream concert on WeChat by an international artist. An additional element to the event saw UK-headquartered Driift, a producer and promoter of live streamed music events, produce a guest appearance on the livestream from Irish boy band Westlife. Broadcast from Smock Alley in Dublin and directed by Chris Howe and, the Driift-produced livestream saw the two boy bands duet remotely on the Backstreet Boys’ hit 'I Want It That Way' and Westlife’s 'My Love'.

Stream isn't live enough
September 27, 2021

Cherie Hu: Music livestreaming is a losing battle

"With live shows slowly returning, we’re seeing a fundamental contradiction play out: Even as livestreaming platforms continue to raise more funds and announce marquee celebrity partnerships, demand for music livestreams has gone down significantly from its peak last year" - Cherie Hu looks at the (last year's) promising new live music domain. "There are two possible reasons for this stagnation. One is that music livestreams just haven’t really innovated as a format to the point where fans are continually willing to pay for them... Maybe fans are just more interested in seeing these artists perform in person".

The number of artists making $25,000 on Twitch has grown 16x since the pandemic started. For those making $50,000 or more, the median viewership is 183 fans, which makes for $274 per fan - Twitch’s VP Head of Music, Tracy Chan, said on the Trapital podcast. He also talked about how artists make money on the platform, finding 100 True Fans, and the creator economy. Chan also worked at Spotify and YouTube to build their creator platforms.

Dance me to the end of year
December 31, 2020

BTS, Justin Bieber, Jason Isbell perform New Year's live-streams

Variety has listed pay-per-view concerts being held on New Year's eve, with artists ranging from BTS, Justin Bieber, Jason Isbell, Norah Jones, and Willie Nelson, to Post Malone, John Legend, and Jason Derulo. EDM music lists dance music livestreams with equally attractive names - Carl Cox, Armin van Buuren, David Guetta...

Inspired by Underoath's announcement about how they made $800,000 on three live-streams (on tickets, merch, and vinyl), Metal Sucks made some estimates about the price of online shows. According to one industry insider, expenses for one live-stream are: $20,000 for live event production - venue rental, camera operators, live video switcher, lights, monitors, audio mixer; $40,000 - broadcast platform fee (20%); $30,000 - the management (15%). Those estimates can vary, of course, but in a case like this, the band would have made a $20k-$25k profit per show, which is roughly $3k-$4k per band member.

Stay-at-home crowd
October 19, 2020

New live-streaming platforms: Dice TV, DUIO, Oda...

Apart from Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, the Guardian presents several start-ups that are getting into live-streaming. Dice TV launched with a performance by Scottish superstar Lewis Capaldi who charged £5 per person. Live show production company We Are Sound is launching DIUO later in October - it will stream one-off concerts on a pay-per-view basis, as well as allow acts to set up their own subscription-based channels to host regular events; the first 100 bands who stream with DIUO will get 10% portion of the company. Oda is offering festival-style curated programming whereby fans enjoy live performances beamed directly to Oda’s bespoke connected speakers, sold for $299 and supplemented by a $79 (£60) subscription fee every three months.

Melissa Etheridge

White label company Maestro’ is partnering with Tim McGraw for paid concert experience, with tickets selling for $15. Livestreams usually draw in 0.5% to 2% of an artist’s Instagram following. By that estimate, McGraw, with 2.7 million followers, could’ve netted $200,000 to $800,000 (he grosses $916,000 per show on physical tours). Melissa Etheridge is currently streaming five days a week, charging $10 for individual tickets or $50 for a monthly subscription. She’s made over $32,000 by now. BTS drew in 750,000 fans who paid $26 to $35 making in between $19 million and $26 million, just in ticket sales. Rolling Stone has the story on livestreams of the near future that will be better, but fans will also have to pay for them...

90% of regular concert-goers have sought to replace the live music experience online during the COVID-19 lockdown, and around 70% of those who have been newly accessing livestreamed shows say they plan to continue doing so even once the pandemic is over - according to a new survey conducted in the US, Complete Music Updates reports. So, in-between real-life concerts, music-lovers will be regularly attending livestreams...