Concert Subscription Service Jukely Unlimited Opens for Business in L.A.
Jukely Unlimited, a social concert app that gains members entry into a selection of venues and concerts with a monthly subscription fee, launches today (Jan. 15) in Los Angeles. The Business Of…
Jukely Unlimited, a social concert app that gains members entry into a selection of venues and concerts with a monthly subscription fee, launches today (Jan. 15) in Los Angeles.
The startup launched in beta last summer as a concert recommendation app in about 10 U.S. cities. Version 2.0 matched users with friends and concerts by aggregating metadata from social and music services they used, including Facebook, Soundcloud, Spotify, last.fm, Hype Machine, and Rdio. Users were also able to participate in ticket giveaways and stream full tracks.
A few months ago, after raising $2.4 million in seed funding from Northzone (including Pär-Jörgen Pärson, a board member of Spotify), 14W, Soundcloud investor Hany Nada, Pandora investor Larry Marcus, and Lyor Cohen and fellow ex-Warner exec Alex Zubillaga, Jukely officially launched its Unlimited Concerts membership subscription service in New York City. For $25 a month, members have access to select venues and shows as predetermined by the Jukely team, which has pre-arranged ticket availability with promoters, artists and managers, and the venues themselves; for $45 a month, members get the same deal but with a plus one.
“We share those [membership] revenues with participating venue promoters, artists and agency partners,” Jukely co-founder Bora Celik tells Billboard. “They’re paid based on the original ticket price and how many people went. We’ve been increasing those checks 50% month over month. The average Jukely Unlimited member goes to two and a half, almost three shows a month, which is 20 times more than a regular concertgoer that goes to one or two shows a year. That’s really important for new artist discovery, and to introduce live music into their lives.”
Using social media and music listening services, Celik and his team count a total of 32 million people in Jukely Unlimited’s network. “That number is important because that’s the potentially reachable people we have,” says Celik. “Ninety-two percent of our users sign up through Facebook and give us permissions to access their friends’ music pages, so we find out who they are, where they live, and what kind of music they’re listening to. Then we can match them with concerts and make that information available to our promoter partners.”
Jukely Unlimited partners include Bowery Presents, Live Nation, Goldenvoice, Insomniac, and New York’s Webster Hall. “Jukely has built a loyal music community through strategic show curation and tasteful, user-friendly design,” venue co-president Kenny Shachter tells Billboard. “Their ability to target directly to members based on musical preferences has made them a valuable promotional partner to Webster Hall.”
A former promoter who has worked with DJs like Tiesto and Kaskade, Celik knows how much money passes through the live music industry through unsold tickets. He points out that consumers won’t spend $20 to $30 on a band they’re not already crazy about, but if they’re already paying a monthly monthly membership fee, then they’ll see a concert because why not.
Of course, there’s always the matter of getting them onboard in the first place, but Celik is optimistic: he is in the process of expanding Jukely Unlimited’s team (including three from Kickstarter, where Celik’s co-founder Andrew Cornett came from, and one from OpenTable) plans for the company to host another funding round and eventually launch in 400 cities. “We’re going to keep going,” he says.
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