By Stefny!
A major theme of the 2026 South by Southwest Music track was ownership–of your craft, your creative product, and even your fans. “Filling the Room: Live Music Growth in the Age of Data & AI” was moderated by Fabrice Sergent of Bandsintown with speakers Mark Steiner of GigSalad, Jeremy Gruber of Friends at Work, and Anj Fayemi of Rivet.
Gruber believes artists should own their own customer data for the people who buy their stuff. He believes email lists are still the best way to keep in touch with fans and gather data, sharing that ticket data only represents 50 to 60 percent of the ultimate audience, given gifts between family and friends, and other common scenarios. Emails can be a driver of tour presales as well as platforms like Bandsintown, set.live, set.tools, and Seated. There are free options too, like Substack, which allows artists to amass subscribers and potentially generate revenue.
Fayemi, an MIT grad, created Rivet for artists to use data to create a more robust understanding of their fans to personalize experiences. Steiner created GigSalad to help artists at all levels to make an income on the platform, something he believes is directly related to their ability to control the story and directly create content. He cited the wisdom of pre-internet marketing like marquees, newspapers, and flyers.
“Owning Your Narrative: Global Strategies for Indie Artists” was another lively panel on ownership featuring Guji Lorenzana from Symphonic Distribution, Pedro Kurtz from Deezer, Adel Hattem from DMusicMarketing (DMM), and Mark Feist of Hitmakers Entertainment. The speakers debated what authenticity means when 180,000 songs are released daily on DSPs from the perspectives of the artists themselves, their fans, business partners, and distributors. They all agreed that the music has to be good, which includes knowing your target audience.
Finally, “Own the Fan, Own the Future: Artists Building Loyalty” was a presentation by Connor Hachey of Virgin Music Group on social media engagement. In the last year alone, AI tools have enabled over 40 percent of content on social platforms, making it harder than ever to break through the noise and gain organic reach. He reminded attendees that social platforms are designed to keep people on their platform, and going viral on TikTok doesn’t necessarily translate to multi-platform success in the short- or long-term.
Artists can gather their own fan data on platforms like Rivet, co:brand, Openstage, Laylo, Community, Klaviyo, and Mailchimp, including music pre-saves, tour pre-sales, link-in-bio, direct-to-consumer (D2C) store, throughout the checkout, activations, partnerships, and more.
These panels were enlightening for me as someone on the fringes of the music industry and with many musician friends, and I wonder how many of my friends know about these things or have even thought about them. I will personally be doing a lot more research into these new platforms so I can use my knowledge to help them become the artists they want to be.
