{"id":234333,"date":"2025-06-18T11:27:05","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T10:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=234333"},"modified":"2025-06-18T11:27:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T10:27:05","slug":"spotify-integrates-with-japanese-ticketing-platform-zaiko-to-connect-live-events-directly-to-listeners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/spotify-integrates-with-japanese-ticketing-platform-zaiko-to-connect-live-events-directly-to-listeners\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotify integrates with Japanese ticketing platform ZAIKO to connect live events directly to listeners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spotify has integrated ZAIKO<\/a> into its \u2018Live Events\u2019 page<\/a>, adding concert listings from the Japanese ticketing platform directly to artist profiles and event discovery feeds.<\/p>\n

ZAIKO is led by CEO Kazuhiro Shimada, the former Chief Operating Officer<\/a> of Warner Music Japan.<\/p>\n

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The partnership marks the latest in Spotify\u2019s expansion into live entertainment. Back in April, the company integrated<\/a> UK-headquartered ticketing platform\u00a0<\/b>Skiddle<\/b><\/a>\u00a0<\/b>and Dutch event management platform Stager <\/b><\/a>directly on artists\u2019 Spotify pages<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new integration was struck with ZAIKO, which provides<\/a> electronic ticket sales for events and a streaming platform, catering to both domestic and international audiences.<\/p>\n

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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<\/a> from Statista, live music ticket sales in Asia are projected to reach $5.18 billion <\/b>this year alone.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/figure>\u201cIntegrating 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kazuhiro Shimada, ZAIKO<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The ZAIKO partnership provides Spotify with significant inventory in Japan and other Asian markets, where the ticketing platform has processed over 40,000<\/b> events, both online and in physical venues, since March 2020.<\/p>\n

ZAIKO says the alliance also helps event organizers deliver event information directly to their target audience, specifically listeners who listen to the artists\u2019 music on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

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Speaking with MBW, <\/i>ZAIKO CEO Kazuhiro Shimada,<\/b> said: \u201cIntegrating 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spotify’s live events strategy has evolved over the past years. The company initially partnered<\/a> with Songkick<\/b>, the concert discovery platform owned<\/a> by Warner Music Group<\/b>, in 2020 to add virtual event listings during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Spotify overhauled its concert features by launching a dedicated \u2018Live Events\u2019 <\/b>feed to replace the earlier \u2018Concert Hub\u2019<\/b> interface. The company then began piloting direct ticket sales in April 2022 through a standalone \u2018Spotify Tickets\u2019 <\/b>website.<\/p>\n

However, the direct ticketing experiment proved challenging, with Spotify retreating from ticket sales in 2024, pivoting toward partnerships with established ticketing companies.<\/p>\n

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The platform now aggregates listings from multiple sources including Ticketmaster<\/b>, Eventbrite<\/b>, AXS<\/b>, and Bandsintown<\/b>, which joined<\/a> the integration roster last year alongside the existing Songkick relationship.<\/p>\n

In February,\u00a0Live Nation<\/b>\u00a0President and CEO\u00a0Michael Rapino<\/b>\u00a0confirmed<\/a> that the company is in ticketing talks with Spotify,\u00a0Apple<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0Amazon<\/b>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve 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\u2019re talking to others also,\u201d Rapino said at the time.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg<\/i> had previously\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that Spotify\u2019s long-anticipated\u00a0\u2018Super Pro\u2019<\/b>\u00a0tier<\/a>\u00a0could debut in 2025, featuring early access to concert tickets among its offerings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tokyo-headquartered ticketing platform has processed over 40,000 events since 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":183249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[108,134331],"class_list":["post-234333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-spotify","tag-zaiko"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}