Wonder

Log in

Research Outline

Prepared for Mike W. | Delivered June 30, 2020

Musician Fan Clubs in the U.S.

Goals

To provide information on the musician fan clubs in the U.S., including: the size of the overall market by value and number; the top 5-10 fan clubs in the U.S. (such as DMB Warehouse, Phish, Grateful Dead, Taylor Swift, Rihanna); the average size of fan clubs and their revenue; insights on artist-fan relationships with a focus on fan clubs; and the range of offers provided through fan clubs such as exclusives, experiential, bundles, pre-sales, and meet & greets. This information will be used to plan a project launch.

Early Findings

Insights on Musician/Artist Fan Clubs in the U.S.

  • In major concerts, fan club pre-sales usually represent 8% -10% of tickets.
  • Before social media, fan clubs were the primary method in which consumers stayed connected to their favorite artists, for a low fee, often paid monthly, giving them access to exclusive content, pre-sales, and even music.
  • Fan clubs would often be organized by those who consider themselves superfans of the artist and not by the musicians themselves.
  • This engagement has changed over time with the advent of social media as everyone has access to every artist they like.
  • The fan clubs approach is making a come-back, and in this new model, fan clubs are driven more by the artists (not by fans).
  • Fan clubs are one of the new direct-to-fan artist engagement models that musicians are adopting to connect with their fans.
  • Musicians often create a mailing list which helps with publicity, marketing, and helping to draw participants for live shows.
  • Some musicians have a subscription-based fan club. For example, Neil Young announced he would quit Facebook and instead engage his fans through his archive website. Fans can access his archives by paying a membership fee of $1.99 per month to access his entire catalog and have the ability to pre-order concert tickets.
  •  Another example is "The National," a popular indie rock band that also recently launched a fan club of its own with a subscription fee of $50 per year for fans to access exclusive merchandise, exclusive content, priority ticketing for concerts, and annual collectible vinyl.
  • Other musicians have created private communities free-of-charge, like Taylor Swift, with her app, "The Swift Life.”
  • Among the more well-known musician fan clubs in the U.S. is The Warehouse, The Dave Matthews Band online fan club, which was reported to have more than 80,000 members, with annual subscriptions creating more than $2 million in revenue for the band in 2002. Unconfirmed records show that the number of members stands at about 3.39 million people.

Summary of Findings

Based on our preliminary research, information on the figures for the size of the musician/artist fan club market in the U.S., in value or number, do not appear to be publicly available. Additionally, information on the average size of the the musician/artist fan club market in the U.S. may not be available, although information on revenues for select musician/artist fan clubs may be found.

In addition to this public search, we scanned our proprietary research database of over 1 million sources and were unable to find any specific research reports that address the stated goals.