Revolutionizing Fan Engagement with Jeff Kohn

Most artists are living a founder’s worst nightmare: millions of “users,” almost zero usable data.

On this episode of the Predictable Revenue Podcast, host Collin Stewart talks with TopFan CEO Jeffrey Kohn about how Ticketmaster and Live Nation own the fan relationship end-to-end, pricing, access, and data, while artists just rent the rail for a night. Kohn lays out a different path: a direct-to-fan model where artists own the data, identify the top 20% of fans who drive 80% of revenue, and build touring, ticketing, merch, and community on top of that.

If you’re a founder, this isn’t just a music story. It’s a masterclass in what happens when you outsource your customer relationship to a platform, and how to take it back.

Ticketmaster Owns the Relationship, Not the Artist

At most major shows, the artist isn’t in control. Ticketmaster and Live Nation are. They act as a de facto monopoly, controlling the venue, the ticketing system, the fees, and the data. The artist just plugs into their rails.

That setup creates all the wrong incentives:

Scalping thrives: Limited supply, high demand, and opaque rules turn resale into a business model, not an accident.
Prices spiral: “Dynamic pricing” and stacked fees push costs up, but artists don’t see most of that upside.
Best fans lose. Bots and resellers grab prime tickets while true fans refresh a browser or pay 2–3x on secondary markets.

At the center of it all: artists don’t own their fan data.

Ticketmaster knows exactly who bought, what they paid, and how often they show up. The artist usually gets none of that. No list. No profiles. No way to reward superfans or even talk to them directly.

So artists can’t:

Decide who gets first access.
Influence what fans actually pay.
Reliably reach their top fans for the next tour.

The platform owns the relationship. The artist just rents it for one night.

The Economics of Fandom

Music revenue isn’t democratic. It’s a power law: around 20% of fans drive 80% of the money, the ones who hit multiple shows, buy vinyl and merch, and stick with you across albums.

If you don’t own your fan data, you can’t find those people. So you end up paying for publicity and advertising just to reach fans who already care about you, hoping algorithms and ticketing platforms put the right people in front of the right offers. Most of that spending is wasted on the casual majority, not the core few.

Why Direct-to-Fan Matters

Direct-to-fan changes the game. When artists own their data, they can see who the real supporters are, talk to them directly, and design the business around them, better access, better seats, better experiences. It’s a shift from “how do we reach everyone?” to “how do we treat our best fans unbelievably well?”

From Big Tech to TopFan

After years of working with tech giants, Jeffrey saw the same pattern over and over: platforms owned the data and the relationship, while creators and brands did the work. TopFan is his answer to that problem in music, a way for artists to stop renting access to their own fans.

What TopFan actually does is simple:

Gives artists ownership of fan data: names, emails, behavior, purchase history, all in one place.
Surfaces and nurtures top fans: the 20% who drive most of the revenue.
Extends the relationship beyond a ticket: ongoing community, content, offers, and access, rather than a one-and-done sale.

Building a Direct-to-Fan Engine

Economically, that changes everything. When artists can talk directly to their best fans, they don’t have to pour money into broad P&A just to stay visible. They can run targeted campaigns to people who already care, improve conversion rates, and keep more of every dollar, with higher margins and less wasted spend. It’s the same principle founders use in SaaS: own the relationship, build your own system around it, and use technology to enable a process you control, not someone else’s.

Beating the Ticketing Monopoly from the Inside

The question Jeffrey gets a lot is, “How do we kill Ticketmaster?” It’s the wrong starting point.

A better question is: “How do we make Ticketmaster less critical to our business?” That’s something artists can work on today.

Here are real levers artists and teams can pull now:

Build a real fan club, not just a mailing list: Memberships, communities, and private spaces where fans raise their hands and opt in. This is your owned demand layer, your “fan club advantage.”
Tie access to engagement, not just credit cards: Pre-sales and early access based on actions: shows attended, merch bought, time in the community, content consumed. Reward behavior, not bots.
Use your own data to reward loyalty: When you own fan data, you can segment into top 1%, top 20%, and casuals. Then you can prioritize the right fans for tickets, experiences, and offers.

Government and antitrust action might eventually reshape the ticketing landscape, but artists can’t afford to wait for that. The way out starts with shifting power back to where it belongs: building an owned, direct path to your fans so no single ticketing company can hold your career hostage.

Designing a Better Concert Experience Around Fans

Once artists own fan relationships, a ticket stops being just “entry” and starts looking more like a product you can design.

Instead of a single flat experience, you can build tiers for your best fans: early entry, soundcheck access, limited-run merch, private Q&As, or digital communities that keep the energy going long after the show: same tour, exact dates, completely different level of connection.

Data is the unlock.

When you know who shows up, where they live, and how often they buy, you can:

The route shows where the demand is real.
Protect loyal fans from punitive pricing.
Offer the right bundles and experiences to the right people.

Some artists, like Tool, already treat concerts as crafted experiences, not just nights on a calendar. Direct-to-fan tools let more artists do the same at scale.

The endgame: artists with leverage, fans who feel seen and rewarded, and middlemen reduced to infrastructure instead of toll booths.

The Future of Ticketing and Artist Empowerment

The next decade in live music will reward two types of players: direct-to-fan platforms and artists who know how to use data.

As ticketing, streaming, and social platforms get noisier and more expensive, the artists who win will be those who treat fan data as core infrastructure, not a nice-to-have. Owning that data becomes the backbone for everything else:

Touring strategy: Decide where to play, how big to go, and what to price based on real demand from real fans, not guesses or vanity metrics.
Releases: Test songs, bundles, and formats with your core audience first. Use their behavior to shape what you put out and how you launch it.
Merch: Design and stock products for the fans who actually buy, not the hypothetical ones. Higher conversion, less dead inventory.
Community: Build spaces where fans can talk to you and each other directly, instead of hoping an algorithm surfaces your post.

Ticketing is just the entry point. The fundamental shift is from “playing inside someone else’s system” to running your own, with platforms like TopFan as tools, not gatekeepers.

Conclusion

In the end, this isn’t just a Ticketmaster problem. It’s an ownership problem.

Artists can’t control pricing, access, or experience if they don’t own the relationship with their fans. The next decade will favor the ones who treat fan data like infrastructure, using direct-to-fan platforms to find their top 20%, design better shows, and keep more of the value they create.

Founders will recognize the pattern: don’t build your business on someone else’s rails if you can help it. Own the customer, own the upside.

To go deeper into how TopFan is doing this in practice, listen to the full conversation between Collin Stewart and Jeffrey Kohn on the Predictable Revenue Podcast.

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