Spotify tipped in possible plan to sell live and virtual concert tickets

Spotify, the platform that has dominated music and, more recently, podcast streaming may be eyeing its next big thing: selling tickets to music events, including live and virtual concerts. That's according to a new report that cites people "familiar with the matter." This business expansion, assuming Spotify proceeds with it, would benefit from the company's existing mass of user data.

The details come from The Information, which claims that Spotify is only considering an expansion into the musical events business at this time. It's well-known that many musical artists depend on live events to make a considerable portion of their income, which often comes partially from ticket sales and more heavily from selling merchandise.

The report notes that by offering ticket sales to these kinds of events, Spotify may be able to improve its relationship with artists who have, generally speaking, been critical of the funds they get in royalties from these kinds of services.

For Spotify's part, such an expansion could help its once again diversify its revenue away from simply musical albums, a process it already started by embracing podcasts — including original audio shows — in a big way. Whether this move, should it happen, would be successful depends entirely on whether artists and consumers would embrace the platform as a place to buy tickets.

The report claims that Spotify doesn't plan to compete with the dominating entities in the events business, but rather that its efforts would be more focused on improving its relationship with artists. The company already has limited experience in selling tickets for virtual concerts, but there's no guarantee it'll ultimately expand that effort in a big way.