Spotify tests selling concert tickets straight to fans

Spotify’s testing a new website to sell concert tickets directly to fans, as first reported by Music Ally. The site, dubbed Spotify Tickets, currently has a limited selection of upcoming US-based concerts for participating artists like Limbeck, Tokimonsta, and Annie DiRusso.

Spotify already partners with Ticketmaster, Eventbrite, and See Tickets to sell tickets through its new Live Events Feed, where you can browse nearby shows and purchase tickets through a third party. The new Spotify Tickets site, however, eliminates the middleman and lets you buy tickets through Spotify itself.

“At Spotify, we routinely test new products and ideas to improve our user experience. Some of those end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as important learnings,” Spotify spokesperson Carling Farley said in a statement to The Verge. “Tickets.spotify.com is our latest test. We have no further news to share on future plans at this time.”

As noted on the support page for Spotify Tickets, you must create a Spotify account in order to buy tickets, and it looks like it doesn’t support printable tickets (or tickets by mail) just yet. Spotify says you must present your email confirmation and a valid ID at the venue’s box office to pick up your tickets.

TikTok is making similar moves to help artists promote live events. Earlier this month, the service announced a partnership with Ticketmaster that lets users buy tickets to see Demi Lovato, OneRepublic, Usher, and the WWE from within the app. TikTok’s also rumored to be working on a dedicated music streaming app that could compete with Spotify and Apple Music, as it filed for a TikTok Music trademark in May.