Spotify has integrated ZAIKO into its ‘Live Events’ page, adding concert listings from the Japanese ticketing platform directly to artist profiles and event discovery feeds.
The partnership marks the latest in Spotify’s expansion into live entertainment. Back in April, the company integrated UK-headquartered ticketing platformSkiddleand Dutch event management platform Stager directly on artists’ Spotify pages.
The new integration was struck with ZAIKO, which provides electronic ticket sales for events and a streaming platform, catering to both domestic and international audiences.
By embedding ZAIKO’s event inventory into its platform, Spotify gains access to concert listings across key Asian markets where live music spending continues to grow. According to data from Statista, live music ticket sales in Asia are projected to reach $5.18 billion this year alone.
The integration operates via Spotify’s existing artist tools, automatically populating concert information from ZAIKO-managed events onto relevant artist pages. Users browsing music from participating artists now see upcoming tour dates with direct links to purchase tickets.
“Integrating live event information in a digital streaming service is a clear benefit for music lovers, and I am very excited about the strategic partnership with Spotify which brings artists and fans closer together.”
Kazuhiro Shimada, ZAIKO
The ZAIKO partnership provides Spotify with significant inventory in Japan and other Asian markets, where the ticketing platform has processed over 40,000 events, both online and in physical venues, since March 2020.
ZAIKO says the alliance also helps event organizers deliver event information directly to their target audience, specifically listeners who listen to the artists’ music on a daily basis.
Speaking with MBW, ZAIKO CEO Kazuhiro Shimada, said: “Integrating live event information in a digital streaming service is a clear benefit for music lovers, and I am very excited about the strategic partnership with Spotify which brings artists and fans closer together.”
Spotify’s live events strategy has evolved over the past years. The company initially partnered with Songkick, the concert discovery platform owned by Warner Music Group, in 2020 to add virtual event listings during the pandemic.
Two years later, Spotify overhauled its concert features by launching a dedicated ‘Live Events’ feed to replace the earlier ‘Concert Hub’ interface. The company then began piloting direct ticket sales in April 2022 through a standalone ‘Spotify Tickets’ website.
However, the direct ticketing experiment proved challenging, with Spotify retreating from ticket sales in 2024, pivoting toward partnerships with established ticketing companies.
The platform now aggregates listings from multiple sources including Ticketmaster, Eventbrite, AXS, and Bandsintown, which joined the integration roster last year alongside the existing Songkick relationship.
“We’ve been working with all three of them [Spotify, Apple, and Amazon], trying to find a model that may work for us and them, and [we] assume they’re talking to others also,” Rapino said at the time.
Bloomberg had previously reported that Spotify’s long-anticipated ‘Super Pro’ tier could debut in 2025, featuring early access to concert tickets among its offerings.
