Written by: Roshan Dwivedi
Amazon is making an entry into the live music streaming business in the UK by managing and promoting its own gigs starting with Blondie later this month. This is the their new business based on their music strategy expansion plans, called Prime Live Events wherein tickets for shows, gigs and events will be sold by Amazon in the UK. According to UK Music, live gigs are worth about £1bn a year to the UK economy and the U.S digital giant is using these live gigs as a way to attract customers to its Amazon Prime £7.99 a month subscription service.
Major artists in smaller, intimate locations is the strategy Amazon is adopting for subscribers who pay £79 a year or £7.99 a month for services that include video and same-day one hour delivery of a variety of products. Blondie will be playing at the Round Chapel in Hackney, London on 23 May, in a gig that is being performed after 40 years since the US band first played in the UK in Bournemouth. Alison Moyet too will be performing at the Round Chapel next on 12 June inclusive of a pre-performance Q&A session. This will be followed by Texas that will play on 16 June at the Porchester Hall and Katie Melua who will be performing on 25 and 26 July at Cadogan Hall. Each of these events will also be broadcasted exclusively on Prime Video.
If the music event strategy succeeds, then it could be rolled out to other international markets. Amazon Tickets was introduced in the UK and may be rolled out to the US soon with the number of gigs going up to as many as one a week. Amazon’s latest initiative in an attempt to make its subscription service appealing to existing customers as well as to attract new subscribers. Amazon Prime offers 2m songs and one free Kindle book a month apart from offering video content at £7.99 a month which costs the same as Netflix that offers just TV and film content. According to analysts at Ampere, there are about 5 million Amazon Prime subscribers in the UK and it is believed to have almost 4 million users of its video service. IHS Markit estimates that Amazon Prime has 75 million to 80 million subscribers globally with almost 50 million of those belonging to the home market in the US with approximately 30 million that subscribe to its video service. Last year pilots of Amazon’s new live gig strategy were launched in UK featuring Robbie Williams and John Legend. Read More
Add your comment