Artist-Led Events & the Future of Fan-Generated Content
Unlocking the full value of every moment — capturing, curating, and amplifying fan content with TimeLoop.
The current landscape
The landscape of the music and entertainment industry is undergoing a significant transformation, marked by a pivot towards artist-led concepts. This shift is characterised by the cancellation of traditional, multi-day greenfield festivals like Splendour in 2024/25—a move that, while surprising to some, reflects a broader trend in the industry.
The success of artists such as Fred Again, Fisher, Dom Dolla, Taylor Swift (the list goes on) in selling out Australian tours to large crowds underscores the growing appetite for more artist-focused events. This development signals a move away from large-scale festivals towards pop-up, single-day experiential events that offer a unique, curated experience directly influenced by the artists themselves.
Fred Again Perth 2024 - Sold Out 30K Punters
How has this shift had an impact the industry?
We’re witnessing a fundamental change in the live events landscape — moving away from large-scale, promoter-led festivals towards smaller, more agile experiences designed and owned by artists themselves. This shift is reshaping how events are planned, promoted, and monetised.
Decline of Multi-Day Festivals: The traditional model of large, multi-day festivals is becoming less appealing to both artists and fans. The logistical challenges, costs and generic experiences of these events are driving a preference for more personalised, artist-driven experiences.
Rise of Pop-Up and Experiential Events: There is a growing trend towards single-day, pop-up events that offer unique experiences tailored by the artists. These events are more agile, can be organised with shorter lead times, and offer direct engagement between artists and their fanbase — with the artist capturing more of the value end to end.
Implementation of Artist-Led Initiatives
As the live events space continues to evolve, artists and their teams are increasingly taking control—building events around their brand, fan base, and vision. This shift requires a new approach across planning, promotion, and delivery. Key areas of focus include:
Artist-Driven Promotion and Risk: Artists and their teams are increasingly taking on the promotional responsibilities and financial risks associated with event planning. This approach leverages the strong connection between artists and their fans, ensuring that ticket sales are driven by the artists' brand and reputation. The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward — and many artists are cashing in.
Agile Systems for Event Planning:
The rise of artist-led events has driven the need for more flexible and responsive systems that match their dynamic nature. This includes streamlined planning tools, adaptable ticketing platforms built for 2025’s demands, and operational frameworks that can scale up or down based on event size. A growing number of apps now empower artists to directly leverage their fan base, cutting out the middle layers and enabling them to run their own events with ease.Bespoke Apps for Ticketing & Pre-Launch Engagement
The rise of bespoke ticketing platforms has empowered artists to take direct control of ticket sales and pre-launch engagement. These tools provide a more personalised experience for fans and give artists greater control over release strategies, data, and branding.Platforms like Lu.ma are leading in the ticketing space with sleek UX and customisation options that suit modern event needs.
Cobrand is being used by artists such as Dom Dolla to announce and launch shows, while Laylo supports artists like Folamour in building anticipation and engaging their fanbase ahead of major releases.
Volunteer, Venue, and Operations Planning:
Artists now have dedicated internal teams who rinse and repeat — delivering high-quality events consistently, with all the boxes ticked. The artist brings the crowd, and the team handles everything else: volunteers, venue selection, operations, and logistics. Each event is polished, aligned with the artist’s brand, and built to leave a lasting impression.
The Shift
The rise of artist-led events marks a fundamental transformation in how live experiences are conceptualised, organised, and delivered. By putting artists at the centre of planning and execution, this model creates deeper, more authentic connections with fans — something traditional festivals once did well but failed to evolve. It’s a model that benefits everyone: artists gain control and greater returns, fans enjoy more personalised experiences, and the industry moves towards a more innovative, agile, and sustainable future.
Opportunities
The rise of artist-driven events has created a major market opportunity — and a clear gap — for a platform specifically designed to capture event video and fan-generated content (FGC), while deepening audience connection. Artists like Fisher are leading this movement, using FGC to strengthen engagement and grow their reach. This approach enables artists to close the full event loop: marketing directly to their audience through emerging platforms, deploying internal teams to consistently deliver high-quality experiences, and capturing content post-event to remarket, fuel social media, and continually grow their fanbase.
Introducing TimeLoop
In today’s experience economy, fan content is one of the most powerful marketing tools — but it’s fragmented. Artists, event teams, and brands are losing out on authentic fan-generated content (FGC) because there’s no easy way to collect, organise, and repurpose it after events. Tools like Dropbox, AirDrop, and Google Drive are not fit for purpose, decentralised, and lack the context and features needed for creative reuse.
Check our TimeLoop here.
TimeLoop is a lightweight UGC collection platform designed for artists and event teams. It provides each event or creator with a custom content link (like a Linktree), where fans can upload videos or photos from their experience. These uploads are automatically organised by metadata (like time, location, event), and soon, smart tagging and AI curation will allow teams to build highlight reels or marketing recaps in minutes.
What makes TimeLoop so good:
No app needed for users
Plug-and-play for any team (agency, artist, label, venue)
Designed around simplicity and speed — we’re not trying to replace cloud drives, we’re trying to eliminate them in this context
Focused on fan-to-brand workflows, not just cloud storage
TimeLoop in the future
TimeLoop will become the go-to platform for capturing and activating fan content at events — not just music, but sports, conferences, festivals, and eventually everyday by anyone. The roadmap includes:
AI-powered smart tagging (e.g. detect artist, crowd shots, reactions)
Creator rewards (e.g. best upload gets VIP access)
Direct integrations with editing platforms (canva) and social channels
Content licensing and monetisation tools for artists and teams
Ultimately, TimeLoop sees fan-generated content (FGC) as a powerful yet underutilised asset — and aims to become the infrastructure layer that enables its seamless collection, smart curation, and strategic conversion.
Trial TimeLoop for 7 days free 🔥
Sign up to TimeLoop today and explore or the features for your next event.
And Yes, we will be back with more in 2025! Stay tuned :)