Live Music Data
This week, I had the pleasure of taking my little superfans to the Twenty One Pilots show at the newly minted Intuit Dome, here in LA. I had started writing a post about it, but there's actually a lot to say about this topic, so let's dig in a little more.
Gen Alpha, the invisible superfan
My kids are Gen Alpha (born after 2010) and have very specific musical tastes, which should come as no surprise given the household they live in. My older one, in particular, is a Twenty One Pilots "superfan" and has been obsessed with the band since the Blurryface album came out in 2015 - he was 3 at the time.
Superfan (noun) - a person who has an extreme or obsessive admiration for a particular person or thing.
Since then, we have spent money on vinyl, t-shirts, Funko Pops, and other merch. There have been countless hours spent on YouTube watching their released videos, lyric videos, and other content. My Apple Music account frequently offers up their music in the algorithm (which I don't mind letting the kids influence, to an extent), and my son has now seen them in 5 concerts - 3 times live, one live stream during COVID, and once as a Roblox concert experience.
Despite his fandom, on paper, it pretty much all traces back to me. It's my credit card, my DSP accounts, my emails on the verified fan list, and so on. The Roblox event might be the only thing that's traceable to the kids as they do have their own logins.
With all the discussion of superfans, something that I have been contemplating is how musicians might identify Gen Alpha superfans. These kids under 12 may have very specific musical tastes and may be spending on their fandom, but are hard to track demographically because they're still minors.
Then there was an app...
This brings me to the Clancy World Tour, which we attended on Tuesday. We bought those tickets through Ticketmaster a few months ago, when Intuit Dome wasn't even open yet. In the last couple of weeks, it became apparent that, to attend the show, you have to download the venue app and set up a full profile.
This included:
- facial recognition (which I declined to opt-in to)
- age verification (using Clear, which I also declined)
- loading in a credit card (venue is cashless)
- loading in vehicle info (required for parking)
- creating "teammate" accounts for the kids (more on this below)
The concept behind this is to allow ease of movement around the venue, to be able to purchase concessions, etc. without having to take your phone out of your pocket (with facial ID) or by tapping your phone (with "identity pass").
It's also a masterful method for data collection.
Teammates
By requiring individual "teammate" accounts for the kids to enter the venue, Intuit Dome has successfully managed to gather the data of the Gen Alpha crowd at scale. While Ticketmaster doesn't collect info on whether the tickets were for an adult or a child, at the point of sale, the venue now knows exactly how many kids were in each party, their name, their age, what they ate/drank, where they sat, and how loudly they cheered at their seat.
The kids, who are linked to my account profile, were issued wristbands that they needed to "swipe" (mostly to get into the concessions stands.) I'm glad that we didn't need to provide anything other than their name and date of birth, or I might have had a lot more objections to it.
According to the Privacy Policy posted on the Intuit Dome website, they will use the data they collect to personalize your experience, identify trends, conduct marketing, create new products and services...the list goes on. Now they can also look toward the generation that doesn't yet have independent income but, by the time they do, they will know exactly how to appeal to their fan dollars.
"We do not knowingly sell or share personal information about consumers under the age of 18."
Convenience or privacy?
I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about giving up that much personal data about me and my family in order to see a live music show. While they are selling "convenience", I don't see the necessity for using my facial identity to make my burger purchase faster.
The other question I have is what recourse one might on a ticket refund if somebody finds themselves uncomfortable with this level of data collection, which could be true for a multitude of reasons. After all, data breaches are commonplace these days and we almost have to assume our personal data is compromised.
The musical artists that play there could probably glean some fantastic fan data from what the venue is collecting, although it's unclear what exactly might be shared with the artists (if anything).
In the end, the show was great and I'm sure we'll see Twenty One Pilots again next time they come through LA - my verified fan status will certainly make sure I get those pre-sales! My kids will continue to be (mostly) invisible superfans for the time being. I'm curious if other venues might take the lead from this, but I don't think I'm ready for this to become the norm any time soon.