One of these three companies will change live concerts forever

And if it’s not one of those companies, it will be one of their competitors.

What’s wrong with the live music section?

Before you answer that question, consider that the live concert industry has exploded over the past decade. According to one Recently published statisticsIn 2017 alone, concert revenue in the US totaled over $5.65 billion, a 33.3% increase over 2011 numbers To the right in live music.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t big problems to overcome and even bigger opportunities to pursue. In fact, continued revenue growth is likely to be driven by innovators in ticketing, smaller venues, live streaming, VR, and licensing.

In our latest installment of the Digital Music News podcast, we caught up with three start-ups that are exploring different areas of the burgeoning live concert business.

That includes Martin Erler, whose company Flits is currently tackling a very tricky problem involving live concert song recognition (and subsequent PRO reporting). But how can a machine recognize a live song when technologies like fingerprinting and metadata scraping are ruled out?

Among the innovators is Fabio Buccheri, whose Noys VR is working to add virtual reality to the live experience. Buccheri has already signed deals with Warner Music Group and Hamburg’s Elbjazz Festival while gaining investor support. But Buccheri doesn’t want to replace anything – this is just about enriching live music with experiences that make the in-person experience even cooler.

But when will VR really start to matter to artists?

And what about the smaller concert room?

Local clubs in cities like London are screaming loudly, but perhaps smaller gigs are taking a different, more decentralized route. Enter SofaConcerts, its co-founders Marie-Lene Armingeon builds a decentralized platform for smaller performances in homes and other non-traditional spaces.

It’s a neck-and-neck race with the likes of Sean Parker and Richard Branson, both of whom support SOFAR of the same name. Airbnb is also tinkering around in this space, all of which point to a big potential shift in this small gig space – with or without smaller clubs.

Here is our latest podcast interview – live from Hamburg’s HafenCity.

(And before you start, if you enjoy this podcast, subscribe to the Digital Music News Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever else you listen to podcasts…)