Amazon moves into UK live music starting with Blondie London gig
US digital giant to expand music strategy with Prime Live Events, in latest move to attract subscribers
Amazon is moving into the live music business in the UK, running and promoting its own gigs starting with Blondie later this month.
Amazon, which started selling tickets for shows, gigs and events for the first time two years ago, is once again using the UK to expand its music strategy with the launch of a new business called Prime Live Events.
The US digital giant is using live gigs, which industry body UK Music says are worth about £1bn a year to the economy, as the latest sweetener to attract customers to its Amazon Prime subscription service.
The company is putting on gigs featuring major artists in smaller, intimate locations for subscribers, who pay £79 a year or £7.99 a month for services including online video and one-hour and same-day delivery of a wide range of products.
First up is Blondie, who will be playing at the Round Chapel in Hackney, London, on 23 May, in a gig taking place 40 years to the week since the US band first played in the UK in Bournemouth.
“We are excited to be performing at the first Prime Live Event marking 40 years since our first gig in the UK,” said Blondie’s lead singer, Debbie Harry. “The Round Chapel is an intimately warm and beautiful room allowing our fans to get up close and personal.”
Blondie will be followed by Alison Moyet on 12 June, also at the 750-capacity Round Chapel, which will include a pre-gig Q&A session; Texas will play on 16 June at the Porchester Hall and Katie Melua will play in 25 and 26 July at Cadogan Hall.
Each event will also be shown exclusively on Prime Video, Amazon’s international film and TV service, globally.
For Amazon, it is the latest initiative to try and make its subscription service as appealing as possible to existing customers and attract new subscribers.
Amazon’s most high-profile move to boost its appeal was to launch its own video service, competing against Netflix and traditional broadcasters, as part of its Prime subscription service.
The company, which is estimated to spend more than $3bn on film and TV content annually, has invested huge sums in shows including The Grand Tour, the motoring show from ex-Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, and critically acclaimed fare such as Transparent, Mozart in the Jungle and the freshly launched American Gods.
Other content available through the subscription service, which at £7.99 a month costs the same as Netflix which offers just TV and film, includes 2m songs and one free Kindle book a month.
Amazon is secretive about the numbers of Amazon Prime members, and therefore whether its huge investment in extra services is paying off, but analysts at Ampere estimate that there are about 5 million Amazon Prime subscribers in the UK. It is thought to have almost 4 million users of its video service.
Globally, IHS Markit estimates that Amazon has 75 million to 80 million subscribers to Prime, with almost 50 million of those in its home market the US, with perhaps 30 million using its video service.
“The expectation is that video is driving the overall Prime subscription base,” said Tom Morrod, analyst at IHS Markit, who expects Amazon to hit 40 million video users by the end of 2017.
Earlier this year Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, was named in Billboard magazine’s top 100 list of the most powerful people in the music industry, driven by the potential for Alexa, its voice-operated “personal assistant”.
Last year, Amazon UK ran pilots of its new live gig strategy featuring Robbie Williams and John Legend.
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