What If You Gave A Concert And 33 Million People Showed Up?
When the pandemic arrived back in 2020, it hit the music business hard on all levels, but especially touring. It didn’t matter what level you were at as an artist, if you couldn’t gig you weren’t making money. That’s when livestreaming first popped up with great fanfare and hailed as the future of artists performing both live and virtually. We know how that turned out. As soon as the pandemic was over most everyone lost interest in livestreaming and performers and audiences were back to face-to-face.
Virtual concerts aren’t dead though. It might have been overlooked by many, but TikTok’s TikTok In The Mix concert at Sloan Park in Mesa, Arizona last December 10th attracted 33.5 million viewers to the original live concert and 3 subsequent rebroadcasts. Plus there was another 17,000 in the sold-out crowd at the venue.
The five-hour event featured headliners that included Cardi B, Niall Horan, Anitta, Charlie Puth, Offset, and Peso Pluma, plus up-and-coming artists from TikTok’s Elevate program, Isabel LaRosa, Kaliii, LU KALA, and Sam Barber.
This is by far the most-viewed event in TikTok history, and as a result, the platform is planning more for the future.
Other Big Draws
Believe it or not, it’s not the largest virtual concert ever. In October of 2022 BTS drew 49 million to their final concert before going on hiatus, and although it’s not quit the same thing, Travis Scott drew 12 million to his fully virtual concert on Fortnite in 2020.
It’s one thing if you’re a superstar artist, but if you’re still an up and comer, virtual concerts can be expensive and complicated to pull off, and that’s what slowed down the whole livestreaming movement. While it was the only way to reach fans during the pandemic, artists still want to connect with the energy of the audience and that can only happen live.
Livestreaming in conjunction with a live performance makes sense though, but again, for artists that don’t have a world-wide audience can find it challenging. The TikTok In The Mix concert does prove the power of TikTok though, and hopefully we’ll see more of this in the future.
