Bandsintown boasts that they have over 55 Million Live Music Fans actively using their platform. Users log-in, connect to Facebook, and begin tracking when artists are coming to town. That kind of data about live music lovers & the artists they track is very valuable to us music marketers & Bandsintown knows it.
Bandsintown Promoter is their self-serve ad platform where you can send targeted e-mail campaigns to users. Much like other self-serve ad platforms, you can utilize their tools to do some quick research on artists. This guide walks you through how to use Bandsintown to gather information you can use when creating offers for artists to perform in your market.
How To Use Bandsintown For Artist Research
Knowing how many Bandsintown users are tracking an artist can be very valuable, especially when booking emerging artists. Follow these simple steps to get a good gauge on how popular an artist is in your market:
- Log in to your Bandsintown Promoter account.
- Create a new Campaign.
- Choose Single Event.
- Type in the artist you want to research under “Which artists are performing?”.
- Add your market. They will require that you add an event start date + campaign start date, so just fill in a placeholder for now. Then click Continue.
- Take note of the max number in the Emails to send column. This number represents how many Bandsintown users in your market track a particular artist.
How do I use this information?
Having this number isn’t a silver bullet, but it helps. Compare your results with other markets, other artists, Facebook numbers, and Pollstar numbers to get a good understanding of how I think a show would perform:
How popular is this artist in relation to another artist I have more information on?
Certain genres are more popular on Bandsintown than others. If you are gathering information on an emerging artist you are not going to have any historical sales data to work with in Pollstar. However, you could look at how popular an established artist in the same genre is on Bandsintown & compare. This is certainly not an exact science, but it can help you identify trends.
How popular is this artist in my market vs. another market I have more information on?
We all know that artists perform very differently in different markets, especially near the start of their careers. That’s the problem with looking at an average on Pollstar, right? By changing the geographic targeting in Bandsintown Promoter you can see how popular an artist is in one market vs. another. If you have history with the artist in another market, or can share information with another promoter there this can be a valuable gauge to help you on your way.
Comparing Pollstar Averages to Bandsintown Max Reach
If an artist has a stable touring history & a pretty good contingency of their fans are active on Bandsintown then the max reach on Bandsintown should be eerily similar to their average number of tickets sold on Pollstar. Use the two numbers to confirm you are in the right range when drafting an offer. Sometimes you can identify artists that are more popular in your market than the average. However, sometimes people may track an artist with no intention of ever paying to see them play. Use your best judgement.
Additional Resources For Artist Research
- How To Use Spotify For Artist Research
- How To Use Pollstar For Artist Research
- How To Use Facebook For Artist Research
