Ticketmaster parent Live Nation (LYV) has cemented itself a global live music goliath, thanks to its commanding presence in venues, tours, and ticketing. But with a little bit of tech magic, the entertainment giant is hoping to reach a new segment of music enthusiasts: music festival super fans.
In June, Live Nation quietly rolled out a new app aiming to cater to festivalgoers. The aptly-named Festiverse, which had humble beginnings as a Discord community, now boasts a more fleshed out companion app for attendees to plan out their time at festivals, build personalized schedules, access maps and real-time updates, and even ‘level up’ their festival experience with merch, upgrades, and VIP access.
“We realized there’s a gap in the market for those in the festival community, for fans to kind of engage in the festival before and after and in a more meaningful way,” said Live Nation’s Chief Operating Officer of Media & Sponsorship, Chris Loll. “We wanted to lead by making a great product.”
Live Nation
Loll says that about 30 of Live Nation’s 300 portfolio festivals piloted the Festiverse app in its first year. Among them were name brands such as Lollapalooza, Outside Lands, Governor’s Ball, and Austin City Limits. Before Festiverse, each of them had their own clunky apps. However, their feature sets were limited; much as you’d expect for an app only getting a lot of attention for one (or in some cases, two weekends) of the year.
With Festiverse, Live Nation Vice President of Product Management Anubhav Mehrotra says that there’s an opportunity to improve fan engagement and experience, implement more complex feature sets and coordinate physical and digital applications.
“Every weekend, there’s some festival out there in the world and there’s value to having an always-on digital layer,” Mehrotra said. “The average attendee buys a ticket six to eight months before a festival… can we fill in that gap by providing value?”
Both festival organizers and festival fans are seeing that value in year one. Per Live Nation, over 120,000 members that joined since the app’s June launch, and less than 1% have uninstalled it. They say that fans open the app eight or more times a day during a festival.
It also means that Festiverse is staying on the home screens of music fans and repeat festivalgoers, giving Live Nation and its portfolio products greater distribution and a crucial advantage in reaching the most dedicated music fans.
“Going to festivals requires a lot of work and the fans who are the biggest fans tend to go to a lot of festivals.” Mehrotra says, adding that he hopes that Festiverse will “superserve” these customers. “We see some people who go to festivals go to 40+ shows a year, which is a lot.”
Still early days, the company hopes to offer incentives to those ‘leaned in’ music enthusiasts. Loll says the company hopes to integrate value propositions like rewards and benefits, as well as tie-ins with the company’s brand partners. Zooming out, he sees Festiverse “boosting sales over time.”
It’s still early days at Festiverse, but Live Nation sees it spreading its wings in year two, adding more festivals and features. Mehrotra says that could include more community and social features that tie-in with the Discord, which now hosts hundreds of thousands of music fans, impacts booking decisions, and has attracted dozens of artists for Q&As and other online events.
Mehrotra says that the new features coming in the festival offseason could include friend finding, chatting without cell service, playlist builders, or other fan requests. “We have other things we’re thinking about expanding, which we’re excited to grow.”
Live Nation is having its best year ever, with revenue eclipsing $7 billion for the first time ever in the latest quarter. Through July, the company had sold a record amount of tickets year-over-year, over 130 million tickets in total. The company’s stock is up 31.6% year-to-date, nearly triple the 2025 return of the S&P 500.
