While the emergence of BlockChain technology has been centred on the benefits to the music industry in the redistribution of wealth in favour of music artists, the potential can be equally applied to live music performance which has, arguably a greater impact on musicians

There are 3 main areas where we see the benefits accruing to the participants in the live music industry

Paperless Ticketing

BlockChain technology has the ability to track ownership of paperless ticketing in a way that isn’t currently being considered. This provides a way for music artists and concert promoters to benefit in the on sale of tickets in the secondary market.

Currently, it’s very difficult to track the authenticity of concert tickets but BlockChain will allow the lifecycle of a ticket to verified. Furthermore, by understanding this lifecycle, the on selling of tickets in the secondary market can benefit the musicians by allowing them to receive a revenue from the secondary price

Live Performance Booking Process

Smaller, live music venues need to have a constant flow of interesting artists to their venues to attract customers and survive in a competitive space. The mechanism of bringing these artists and venue owners together can be a convoluted, manual and inefficient process.

By use of the BlockChain, it is possible to make this process transparent between both parties, building trust and possible leading to ongoing engagements and revenue for the artist and venue owner

Safe streaming

Much debate has been centred on YouTube and the lack of substantial royalties which are ploughed back to the artists.

The use of the BlockChain where the rights to the music are anchored to the writers and composers, provides a mechanism for those groups to be rewarded almost automatically from the sales resulting from their live music appearances and shows (including those shown on social media sites)

There is still some work to realise this potential, but start-ups such as Zimrii Music and the Uk’s Lava are developing solutions to tackle some of these issues head on

Also published on Medium.