The iTunes Festival Model

 

As most of you would probably know, my niche is the Latin Music industry. Nevertheless, it is always good to watch trends of other niches and try to extrapolate strategies or business models and test them. In this case, I chose a relatively new idea that becomes to life in a massive event.

The iTunes festival is a month-long annual music festival that takes place every year in London. The festival’s first edition took place in 2007 and, since then, Apple Inc. has sponsored the event. Probably the most remarkable feature of this festival is that it is 100% free for fans around the world. Tickets are awarded on a ballot basis. Thus, the only requirement to get tickets is to apply on iTunes for them. Additionally, concerts are streamed live for free on iTunes and available for viewing afterwards for a certain period of time. As a result, the festival reaches massive audiences worldwide in an effective and convenient way.

The second key factor of the iTunes festival is its artist lineup. Among the artists that have played in the festival you can find Bruno Mars, Usher, Lady Gaga, Elton John, and many other multi Grammy Award winners. However, upcoming artists complete the artist lineup, finding a huge promotional platform for their careers. In this way, Apple sends a direct message indicating that the music matters for them. After six festival editions, the win-win relationship is evident. Artists get a competitive advantage when it comes to promoting themselves, and Apple continues establishing iTunes as the most important platform for online music distribution.

Finally, the Latin Music industry has already observed this model and lately has tried to extrapolate ideas from it. The Terra Live Music is a group of concerts sponsored by the news and entertainment company Terra. Different famous and emerging Latin artists such as Alejandro Sanz, Alex Ubago, and Grupo Treo have performed live on the Terra Live Music stage. All the concerts have been streamed live through Terra’s website with important positives results never seen before in the Latin Music industry. Although technological limitations in Latin America might cause issues, this initiative has the potential to impact the industry and boost massive Latin audiences immediately. Stay tuned for more!