Music Tectonics
You Don't Know Your Fans (And It's Costing You)
Published: 4 May 2026 at 22:36 Europe/London
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Episode notes
Most artists have no idea who their fans actually are. They know follower counts and streaming numbers, but they don't own the relationship, and according to Rob Sealy, that single problem is costing the music industry billions.
Rob is the co-founder of OpenStage, a platform helping artists from emerging talent to global icons like Paul McCartney, Oasis, and Lana Del Rey reclaim their fan data and build businesses that don't depend on platform algorithms. In this conversation, he shares why the music industry is massively undersized compared to sport, what it looks like when artists go directly to fans before they even book a tour, and how knowing your fans changes everything from ticket sales to merch to revenue you didn't know you were leaving behind.
Also in this episode: part two of our AlgoRhythms series where we asked conference attendees "Does AI make you hopeful about the future of music tech?"
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There's now a collecting society just for AI-generated music
The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!
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