“I’ve played to millions of people in my lifetime and I wouldn’t know how to contact them”: James Blake bemoans artists’ lack of ownership of fan dataIt’s no secret that unless you’re a big name artist, you’re going to have a hard time making ends meet by releasing music alone. Music sales figures are in the toilet – and quite frankly, aren’t coming back – thanks to the rise of streaming services, which themselves don’t exactly offer strong payout figures.
And it’s a commonly issued response that artists can still rely on touring and live performance to generate revenue, but it’s never that simple. Touring is an expensive game, and as venues, staffing and planning have to be booked ahead of time, it can be a gamble which results in losses if ticket sales are poor.

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And that’s not even mentioning some of the other factors at play in 2024, like Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing, for example, which put a rather big dampener on Oasis’s recent reunion tour announcement. Or the fact that, in general, live music is still controlled by a monopoly of bigger companies.
In a long Instagram post last week, singer-songwriter and producer James Blake shone a light on the decreasing viability of touring for many musicians, and how large companies taking ownership of fan data is playing a big part in that decline.
“If you are a fan and you wanna see me perform, please sign up for free at the link in bio cause otherwise you might never hear about any of my shows,” the post reads. “I’m not going through the monopolies any more. I’m not having my fans and myself be ripped off by people who don’t care the way we do about live music. They own all of our mailing lists and won’t let us use them to reach our fans.”
Blake, who is now an independent artist, says he’s less able to get the word out about his upcoming shows without data he has relied on previously, which is owned by ticketing companies, promoters and labels.
“Every show I’ve ever done for 13 years, a company has taken the data,” he writes. “I didn’t know how important that was at the time.”

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Now, since his post went viral – amassing over 135,000 likes at the time of writing – Blake has appeared on BBC News to discuss the issue of big companies withholding artist and fan data.
“I’d like to see more transparency from ticketing companies,” he says [via MusicRadar]. “I’d also like to see artists building their own audiences and owning their own data; data is a very important part of this…
“For the last decade we’ve seen companies harvest our fan data, which means phone numbers and emails of people who come to see us. I’ve played to millions of people in my lifetime and I wouldn’t know how to contact them to tell them I’ve got a show coming up.
“I’d liken it to a heist. Over the years, a lot of musicians haven’t understood the importance of gathering fan data in order to market to your fans. It’s such an important part of it, in the sense of, if I’m a fan I’m going to want to hear when my favourite band is in town. I’m not going to hear that if I don’t even see their posts. Musicians are in the hands of the people who own their data, ultimately.”

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