Spotify is launching a new feature called Reserved that will hold two concert tickets per tour for an artist’s most dedicated fans among eligible Premium subscribers.
Eligible fans will have access to what Spotify describes as “a reserved window to purchase before tickets are on sale to the general public.”
TicketmasterparentLive Nation has been confirmed as the launch partner, with additional ticketing and promoter partnerships to be rolled out for the feature over time.
“This summer, when we start rolling out, we’ll be launching with Live Nation in a multi-year agreement, so that Spotify will be the exclusive music service that offers this kind of a benefit to its members,” Spotify‘s Head of Music, Charlie Hellman, told MBW.
“Obviously, the more tours, the more shows that this touches, the better it is as a benefit for our subscribers, so that’ll be rolling to more and more ticketers, promoters over time. Since Live Nation covers so many of the most sought-after tours, it’s a great jumpstart.”
Reserved will launch this summer in the US, with more markets to follow.
Reserved addresses one of the same consumer demands, priority access to concert tickets, but within the standard Premium subscription, at no additional cost.
“This felt to us like such a core thing that all music fans would really value, that it’s something that it’s best in our premium subscription,” Charlie Hellman told MBW.
Hellman added, however, that Spotify continues to explore paid add-on subscriptions for other features.
“We also, in parallel, think about ways that we can offer niche audiences additional things that they can pay add-on subscriptions for,” he said.
Spotifyreported 293 millionPremium subscribers globally at the end of Q1 2026 – up 3 million on the prior quarter and 9% YoY – alongside 761 million total monthly active users.
“This is one of the most exciting additions that we’ve made to the Premium offering,” added Hellman.
“On Spotify now, your fandom will actually be rewarded in such a distinct way, without added fees. There’s no strings attached.
“It’s just that if you’re showing up for the artists and you’re being a great fan, that this is the way it should work, and you should be able to be early to get tickets to the show.”
How Reserved works
Spotify said it will identify an artist’s most dedicated fans based on what Hellman described as “a 360-degree view of fan activity”.
That includes sharing, saving, active listening, the frequency and cadence of listening, and whether the behavior is organic and human – rather than bot-driven.
“It’s not as simple as total stream volume,” said Hellman.
“We’ve been around long enough that we can see your tenure as a fan and how much you stuck with an artist.”
Eligible fans will receive an email and an in-app notification, and will have a dedicated window, typically around a day, to purchase up to two concert tickets on the tour via a ticketing partner’s platform.
Fans who receive an offer will be able to buy tickets for any show on the tour, choosing their date, location, and seats at checkout.
According to the blog post, “Reserved offers are based on the tour’s locations, so if a tour isn’t coming to your area, you may not receive an offer”.
The blog post notes that “ticket types, seating options, and availability will vary by show”.
Spotify acknowledged that “there will be significantly more superfans than there are seats available on a tour, so not every fan will receive an offer”.
“We’ve been around long enough that we can see your tenure as a fan and how much you stuck with an artist.”
Charlie Hellman
Crucially, Reserved tickets are not a subset of an existing presale allocation.
“This will be not a subset of a different presale system, but its own dedicated inventory that is set aside for the artist’s biggest fans on Spotify,” said Hellman.
The feature will initially be available for newly announced tours for select artists this summer, before expanding to more tours across all stages – “from the biggest in the world to developing artists”, Hellman said.
“We think it’s equally important that for developing artists who are going on tour, they want to see their biggest diehards in the front row.”
On the question of whether Reserved tickets could end up on the secondary market, Hellman said that putting tickets in the hands of verified fans rather than professional scalpers “has the potential to change the landscape of who gets that first shot at tickets”.
“The day after a tour goes on sale and it’s sold out, and you see it on the secondary market, it’s really professional scalpers that you’re seeing post those tickets, it’s not superfans that have had a change of heart,” he said.
Hellman added that Spotify is building safeguards into its partnerships to address potential abuse.
“If someone games the system, we can actually claw things back,” he said.
“We want to make sure that it’s validated for superfans, and if we see abuse in the system, that that can actually be corrected.”
Reserved represents the latest step in Spotify‘s evolving approach to live music.
The streaming platform currently works with more than 40 ticketing partners and says its live music efforts have to date driven more than $1.5 billion in ticket sales for artists.
That figure is up from the $1 billion the company cited in January, when Hellman revealed that Spotify had paid out over $11 billion to the music industry in 2025.
Spotify‘s Fans First presale program, launched in 2018, has offered top listeners early access to concert tickets via presale codes, but that program is open to all account holders, including those on the free tier.
Reserved goes further, holding dedicated inventory exclusively for Premium subscribers.
Spotify also tested selling concert tickets directly to fans in 2022 via a dedicated Spotify Tickets site, but scaled back those efforts in 2024, pivoting towards partnerships with established ticketing companies.
Most recently, Spotify’s Charlie Hellman told us that the platform has “incredibly high fidelity fan data of who is an active diehard, and we have enough scale where it can actually fill rooms [and] not just have a superfan presale with a few tickets, but actually be meaningful to the artist.”
Spotify‘s decision to include concert ticket access within its standard Premium subscription contrasts with the approach taken by Tencent Music Entertainment in China.
TME, which operates QQ Music, Kugou Music, and Kuwo Music, uses priority concert ticket access as a key perk of its higher-priced Super VIP tier, which costs approximately RMB 40 ($5.72) per month, roughly five times the standard subscription price.
The SVIP tier surpassed 20 million subscribers by the end of 2025, and TME has attributed much of its growth to the “continuous expansion of SVIP membership privileges,” including early access to concerts and artist-related merchandise.
TME has also been building its own live music operation, promoting concerts and selling tickets directly, a more vertically integrated model than Spotify‘s partnership-driven approach with Reserved.Music Business Worldwide
