Heavy metal band Iron Maiden has found a unique way to decide where to perform its next tours. The group has teamed up with a U.K. music analytics service called Musicmetric to find out where their music is pirated the most and performs there. It’s the main reason why they’ve been performing in South America in recent years.
Musicmetric tracks social media, BitTorrent traffic and any other statistics the music industry may need. After seeing that Iron Maiden LLP, the group’s holding company, was doing well in the U.K., the company decided to look specifically at Iron Maiden’s stats.
The company’s CEO, Gregory Mead, told CiteWorld that their services are usually called in to help the music business make decisions. “If you know what drives engagement you can maximize the value of your fan base. Artists could say ‘we're getting pirated here, let's do something about it,’ or ‘we're popular here, let's play a show,’" he said.
Iron Maiden decided to use Musicmetric’s data to find places to perform. They found that their music is pirated the most in South America and that several countries there are in the Top 10 for most Twitter followers. So, the group decided to perform there. According to Billboard, the move has paid off, with ticket sales on the rise and more fans on social media.
Mead noted that their services can help bands find other revenue streams to make up for falling CD sales. “If you engage with fans, there is a chance to turn a percentage into paying customers. You can see that through various bands using the BitTorrent network in a legal way to share content,” he told CiteWorld.
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