In 2023, it is rare to be at a concert without having your vision obscured by a sea of arms holding smartphones capturing every moment on stage. Some artists or venues even ask attendees to lock away their devices upon arrival.
But at TikTok’s first in-person music event, “TikTok In The Mix,” the phone was not an intruder, but rather, a guest of honor. The event on December 10 was simulcast on TikTok Live, and performers addressed the crowd as TikTok users first and concert attendees second.
“Hello fellow TikTokers,” singer Niall Horan, wearing what appeared to be a high-end pair of dark blue, silk pajamas, told the crowd when he arrived on stage after the sun had fully set and the temperature had dropped off in the desert of Mesa, Arizona. “Thank you for having me. It’s freezing, and that’s coming from an Irishman.”
Other performers nodded to the role the app had played in their careers.
“Thank you for blowing up this song for me on TikTok,” performer Lu Kala told the crowd before performing her track “Pretty Girl Era.”
TikTok has established itself in the music world as its app has become the main place where music fans go to find new songs. The company works closely with artists and record labels and even runs a music-streaming app in several markets. But its first big push into live concerts felt like a coming-out party for the company, serving as both a celebration for its partners and a way to say, “We’re here for the long haul.”
By blending real-world and in-app elements, “TikTok In The Mix” hammered home the idea that the future of music, even in person, will be digitally augmented.
Even the design of the venue, held in Sloane Park, a baseball stadium outside of Phoenix where the Chicago Cubs run Spring training, felt like a nod to TikTok’s app origins. The company and its partners built a round center stage on the stadium floor surrounded by four large screens, each in vertical orientation like a smartphone.
Throughout the event, the towering screens switched between close-ups of the performers, clips from TikTok creators, and advertisements for the event’s sponsors. In the backdrop, a large TikTok logo mounted on scaffolding glowed brightly after the sun set.
“When we talk about how do we do a TikTok show off the platform and how do we bring it to life and that music experience to life, it is really hard to do it without the context that I feel on the platform,” Paul Hourican, TikTok’s global head of music partnerships and programming, told Business Insider. “The concept that we wanted to do was almost creating a coliseum and putting the artists [inside] so that you are surrounded by the TikTok community.”
TikTok partnered with production company Done+Dusted and its director Hamish Hamilton for the event. Hamilton has worked on high-profile performances including a string of Super Bowl half-time shows over the past decade.
Outside of performances from TikTok-popular artists like Charlie Puth, Peso Pluma, and Cardi B, the company enlisted content creators like Josh “Bru” Brubaker and Drew Afualo to serve as hosts and commentators for livestream viewers. In between headliners, the company brought on up-and-coming artists like Lu Kala and Isabel LaRosa who are part of its artist incubator program, Elevate.
For several of those artists, the Sloane Park venue was the largest crowd they had ever performed in front of.
“The only reason I have a platform and songs that people listen to is because of TikTok,” LaRosa told BI.
Live events are the latest experiment dreamed up by TikTok’s music team
TikTok’s entry into live events comes after a string of other tests it’s run to see how it can convert its influence in music into a business.
In just a few years, the social-entertainment platform has become a major player in music discovery. Songs that take off on the app often end up charting on the Billboard 100 or Spotify Viral 50. The company has parlayed its role in discovery into other opportunities in music, launching an artist-services arm called SoundOn, a TikTok radio station on SiriusXM, and a dedicated music-streaming app in five markets. Its first big foray into live music was all about merging the digital TikTok experience with an in-person event.
The sold-out event, which was simultaneously livestreamed on TikTok, sold around 17,000 in-person tickets, per the company, and drew a little over 9 million views on TikTok, according to a tally on the app just before the livestream ended. Among those in attendance were TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew and Ole Obermann, global head of music business development at TikTok and parent company ByteDance.
The company priced tickets low, in the $25 to $60 range. It scattered marketing activations throughout the stadium. Concertgoers could take selfies on mini sets promoting Paramount Pictures’ 2024 films “Mean Girls” and “Bob Marley: One Love,” or grab red blankets from a Coca-Cola-themed booth. In one corner of the stadium, two employees stood in front of a table promoting, Ripple, a new music-creation app owned by ByteDance.
The event served as both a marketing vehicle for the company and an opportunity to throw a party, not just for users, but for the music industry that TikTok is often working hard to demonstrate value to.
“Any excuse to throw a big global livestream completely centered around music, hopefully is a good thing for everyone involved,” Hourican said.
Many of the attendees who packed in the center of the field or sat on blankets on the little green slopes surrounding the back of the stadium were locals who heard about the concert on TikTok, either through ads or influencer promotions, several concertgoers told BI. The company also pushed the event on billboards and local radio.
Veronica Moraila, 24, who lives in Mesa, Arizona, said she was drawn to the event because she saw influencer Drew Afualo was hosting.
“I’m on TikTok pretty much every day, and when I heard about this event I was interested, I was intrigued,” Ashley Ordonez, 22, a concert attendee who also lives in the Mesa area, told BI. “No one really comes out here to Mesa, at least, it’s always usually Phoenix.”
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