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Planet, a new direct-to-fan (D2F) live music platform, launches today (26 July) with investment from Ben Lovett, member of Mumford & Sons, co-founder of Communion and CEO of Venue Group, and IE Ventures, the investment arm of artist management company IE Music (Robbie Williams, Passenger, Cher Lloyd).
Founded in early 2020 by James Morrison, former senior director of global partnerships for AEG, Planet enables artists to sell tickets, products and fans directly to fans, who in turn can influence “everything from tour locations to support acts”, according to the company, which describes itself as a “crowd-powered community where artists and fans come together as a collective”.
“Now is the moment to put fans back at the beating heart of live music” says Lovett, whose Venue Group added its latest property, the Social in London, late last year. “Planet has been designed to bring music fans and artists closer together, providing a platform for artists to build a deeper understanding of their fans wants and needs.”
The new company’s website, planet.fans, is powered by an insights engine dubbed the Beat, which gathers and interprets data on consumer behaviour to provide artists with a greater understanding of their fans.
“As we emerge from lockdown … the opportunity for artists to reinvent and rewire their relationship with their biggest fans grows stronger”
Accoring to Morrison, the Beat engine helps artists plan what to ‘drop’, when to do it, and who to drop it to, “enabling artists to connect with fans more effectively and more directly in the biggest moments”.
“The more fans participate the better chance they have of getting more of what they want, like great-value tickets, backstage access and first-release drops, straight from the artist,” he explains. “As we emerge from lockdown and live events return, the demand of the crowd beats louder and the opportunity for artists to reinvent and rewire their relationship with their biggest fans grows stronger.”
The platform is starting to power artists’ early release presales from September 2021.
“We have long supported artists going directly to their fans”, says Stephen O’Reilly, managing director of IE Ventures, “largely because it improves the experience and creates new value from already captive audiences, and there’s none more so than live music fans right now, so we are looking forward to working with James and the team to understand the levels of demand for our artists as things open up.”
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