Songkick: Connecting fans and artist
At Songkick, we were exploring new and creative ways for artists to connect with their fans through digital experiences like live streaming. As part of this initiative, we partnered with our parent company, Warner Music, to host a special live stream concert featuring Laura Mvula and Biffy Clyro’s, Simon Neil. This collaboration provided a valuable opportunity to test how live-streamed performances could engage audiences in meaningful ways. Following the event, I conducted interviews with attendees to gather feedback on their experience. These insights played a key role in helping us understand what resonated with fans and informed how we could refine and optimise our live stream strategy going forward.
Team
Project Manager / Engineers / QA / Customer Support / External Stakeholders and Labels
Role
Product Designer and Researcher
Methodology
As part of our efforts to refine our live stream strategy, I conducted a series of 40-minute one-on-one user interviews to better understand audience perceptions and experiences. We spoke with a diverse mix of participants across age, income levels, and gender to ensure a wide range of perspectives. Each session covered three key areas: discovering the concert and purchasing tickets, the user’s experience during Laura Mvula’s live stream, and general attitudes toward live streaming and attending live music events. I then used affinity mapping to analyse the findings, identify common themes, and uncover actionable insights to guide future improvements to our digital concert offerings.
Findings and team debrief
We presented our key findings to the wider Songkick team in a collaborative debrief session. This allowed us to align on user insights and surface opportunities for improving future live stream events. Below is an example of top line summary takeways
We're reaching, engaging and solving problems for all kinds of music fans
Pre-covid, some attended concerts once a week / month, others very rarely. Those that did not attend concerts regularly found that location, lack of free time, and price stopped them from seeing more gigs. Two thirds of attendees were not Songkick users
Tuning in for a live stream is “superfan” behaviour
Most participants have been following Laura Mvula’s music for a number of years and did not tune in for a casual listen or discovery
Participants trusted the event because the promotion was coming straight from the artist
Participants trusted the event because the information was coming from the artist and not a third party
Participants felt buying tickets was straightforward but many had difficulties joining or watching the stream
Poor connection, forgotten passwords, and trouble casting all prevented participants from enjoying the full stream. Many turned to replay to rewatch the show
Participants wanted on-screen connection from the artist instead of a chat feature
When promoted about chat many felt it would have been distracting and taken away from the event. They felt disconnected from the artist because she did not “address” fans or do a Q&A during the stream
Participants still feel apprehensive about attending in-person concerts, but will look to live streams in the meantime
Participants had concerns around attending in persons concerts. Some had concerns about the experience of a socially distanced show and others were waiting on the vaccine. Many felt live streams allowed them to see their favourite artist at a lower cost, anywhere, which is easy to join
Next steps and outcomes
The research helped bring the Songkick team together around shared user insights, highlighting how fans experience live streams and where we could do better. We saw that live streams work best as a superfan experience and have real potential to introduce Songkick to new audiences, while also uncovering opportunities to improve reliability and connection during events. Next, the team focused on making streams easier to join and watch, exploring more artist-led moments to help fans feel connected, and continuing to learn from future events to guide our product decisions.
