Some of the pandemic’s first alarm bells came from the music industry. In early March 2020, South by Southwest was canceled. In short order, so was popular music festival Coachella. Soon after, the entire live events ecosystem collapsed, pulling the rug out from under the music business.
The problem with that, says former Salesforce COO Mary Kay Huse, is that those social platforms are not optimized for music. If people are going to pay to watch a concert at home, the actual audio needs to sound the same as it is in person. So in June 2020, she teamed up with music attorney Robert Meitus and tech executive Steve Caldwell to found Mandolin, a livestreaming platform that would do the concerts justice.
A year later, Mandolin is thriving. The Indianapolis-based company has contracts with venues like City Winery and firms like Red Light Management, whose clients include Brandi Carlile and Brittany Howard. In February, it hosted the Tibet House Benefit Concert with performances from Phoebe Bridgers and Eddie Vedder, and will be the streaming partner for Lil Wayne’s Uproar Festival in August.
Mandolin’s new suite of products, called Live+, goes beyond streaming shows to allow for in-app merchandise purchasing and mobile VIP experiences like virtual meet and greets. These types of features could allow artists to be less reliant on in-person events if ever touring is not an option, says Huse.