It’s a real case of expectations vs. reality.
The gap between online and live music events has gotten smaller, but not how Spotify users might have hoped.
A TikToker recently revealed how the platform’s concert ads have led to a misleading “concert experience”. Worse, it’s not a one-time thing, nor was he the only one who has fallen victim to this alleged ‘Spotify scam.’
The Spotify Fake Concert Scam
San Francisco-based TikToker tallneil shared his letdown with a “fake Summer Walker concert” from six months ago.
The event in question, grandly titled “The Summer Ain’t Over Party with Summer Walker,” took place on November 19, 2023. And, the platform had marketed it as a full-fledged concert, listing Walker as the “Headliner” under “Artists Performing.”
But the reality was far from what was promised.
The $40-$45 ticket, it turned out, only granted access to a brief club appearance. This contrast between expectation and reality left many attendees feeling short-changed and misled.
“She never performed; she just showed up and kinda stood around and walked around while people took pictures. And she was only there for a minute. She showed up past midnight. We were there for like hours before that.” he shared.
“But from the email that I got from Spotify, it’s like being marketed as a concert. So it literally says “artists performing, headliner: Summer Walker.””
Interestingly, other entertainment outlets like Do the Bay and True Skool had accurately listed Walker as a “host” rather than a performer. Meaning, Spotify was the only one who made the mistake of tagging Walker as a headliner.
But the rabbit hole went deeper. Tallneil’s frustration didn’t stop with the Summer Walker event as the mistake turned out to not be a one-time thing.
He also showed a recent Spotify email advertising an August 2, 2024, Tony Bennett concert in San Francisco.
The glaring issue? Bennett passed away in 2023.
Looking into it more showed that the event was actually “Totally Tony: A Birthday Salute To Tony Bennett,” a tribute show with local singer Jonathan Poretz.
But, Spotify’s website description of the event left out these key facts, listing Bennett as the “Headliner” without mentioning it was a tribute or who was really performing.
Widespread User Experiences
Tallneil’s exposé opened the floodgates, with users on TikTok and Spotify’s Community forums sharing similar stories.
On Spotify’s Community forum, user hakonslie pointed out how the platform wrongly matched artist names to unrelated events, almost causing them to buy the wrong tickets. Many others have shared similar instances.
However, a quick research shows that the issue has been happening for at least six years now. Another user said they were upset about getting ads for a Mac Miller concert after the artist had died, calling it “disrespectful.”
Yet, Spotify still hasn’t resolved it.
The issue also extends beyond concert promotions.
Users have also found songs by “fake artists” in their Release Radar playlists because of name mix-ups. This shows a bigger issue with how Spotify handles data, affecting not just event info but also music suggestions.
A particularly worrying trend is Spotify’s apparent confusion between tribute bands and original artists.
For example, a tribute band called “Black Charade” was mistaken for My Chemical Romance, leading to wrong concert notifications. Even other big artists like Panic! At The Disco have been affected by similar errors.
Spotify’s Concert Data Issues
The recurring nature of these incidents points to systemic issues with Spotify’s event data collection and verification processes.
“Wherever they’re scraping their concert data from, like whatever websites they’re just pulling this information in from, they need to fix that or get a human to review these emails, at least in major cities.” said tallneil in his video.
“San Francisco’s a major city. Get someone to look over this and say, “Hey, Tony Bennett’s dead. Let’s remove that.””
Adding to user frustration, some say they find broken links when trying to see concert info from Spotify ads, leaving them unable to check event details.
While Spotify advises users to report content issues to their Customer Service team, the frequency and breadth of these problems suggest a need for more systemic solutions.
As music fans and Spotify users, we’re left wondering: how can we trust the concert info we get?
It seems that for now, double-checking event details from other sources might be the safest bet. Here’s hoping Spotify tunes up its data management soon, for the sake of music fans everywhere.