Fortnite, Facebook, YouTube: Welcome To The New Ticketmaster, Coronavirus Edition

Fortnite is showing the way. Facebook is opening the door. YouTube already has all the plumbing in place. Other platforms will join the party.

The future of concerts is in large social platforms, and the roadies of tomorrow will be coders and geeks.

Will this happen in virtual reality? Sure, but not necessarily. In games? Absolutely, we've seen it multiple times already. On video platforms like YouTube? Yes. What is increasingly obvious now is that all it takes is an aggregation of people, a payments process, and the music and entertainment stars who can't otherwise work right now.

Screenshot of the Travis Scott concert in Fortnite.

John Koetsier

Travis Scott and Fortnite shoved the future into our faces last week in a massive concert that 12.3 million individual Fortnite players attended, and probably millions more watched along with their game-playing kids, spouses, or friends. We can't attend live concerts right now thanks to COVID-19, and nothing will ever replace real live music, but this is something we can do, and it's relatively new: global million—plus-audience events viewable on multiple consumer technology platforms.

And, that are micro-monetizable.

It's not mass broadcasting on free TV channels, and it's not premium pay-per-view at $50-100 like UFC fights. It's something in between, something that we can pay a few dollars for. It's not for a few thousand or few hundred thousand; it will be for millions and tens of millions. Maybe even hundreds of millions.

YouTube can accommodate this via existing technology: channel memberships or YouTube Originals. Facebook just announced the ability to charge for access to events with live videos. It already has "Stars," a micro-payment tip system for creators and streamers. Twitter and Reddit and tens of others social platforms could fairly easily do the same.

For entertainers, this makes tons of sense.

And dollars.

Kanye West can't tour right now, but he can show up on PlayStation. Billie Eilish can't do an in-person concert tomorrow, but she could perform for fans on Facebook. A million-person event — and West has 30 million Twitter followers — charging just a few dollars could bring in $3-5 million, and with much less cost than a concert in a stadium.

The concerts we're seeing right now are mostly free as a public-minded gesture during the Coronavirus era, but that will eventually fade as stars and other entertainers drift towards charging.

Right now Ticketmaster is the gatekeeper for most large-scale in-person entertainment events, which aren't happening anytime soon. Soon YouTube, Facebook, Fortnite, Twitter — any platform with a significant userbase, a social component, and a payment mechanism — could be the new Ticketmaster.

With second and third waves, COVID-19 is likely our new reality for years, not months. That's a lot of time for these kinds of concerts to develop, evolve, and become habit-forming. And it's a way for stars to monetize without massive in-person events.

100 stars have over 10 million followers. That's a lot of potential for attention and monetization.

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