Spotify is shutting down its live audio app, Spotify Live
“We believe there is a future for live fan-creator interactions in the Spotify ecosystem; however, based on our learnings, it no longer makes sense as a standalone app.”
Photo: Dennis Diatel / Alamy
Spotify is shutting down its standalone live audio streaming app, Spotify Live.
In a statement made to Music Ally yesterday (3 April), the company disclosed that the app, previously known as Spotify Green Room, will be shut down.
The standalone live audio app was born out of Spotify’s £62 million acquisition of Betty Labs in 2021. Soon after the deal, Spotify rebranded the startup’s Locker Room app to Spotify Greenroom, before renaming the platform almost a year ago to Spotify Live.
Some of the functionality of the app was also integrated into the main Spotify app.
Speaking about the future of the standalone app, a spokesperson for Spotify told Music Ally that “after a period of experimentation and learnings around how Spotify users interact with live audio, we’ve made the decision to sunset the Spotify Live app.”
“We believe there is a future for live fan-creator interactions in the Spotify ecosystem,” they continued. “However, based on our learnings, it no longer makes sense as a standalone app. We have seen promising results in the artist-focused use case of ‘listening parties,’ which we will continue to explore moving forward to facilitate live interactions between artists and fans.”
The streaming service also spoke to Tech Crunch yesterday, confirming the fateful news. However they wanted users to rest assured that the company will continue to explore live features on its main platform.
This is not the first time that Spotify has had to step back from live music endeavours. In December, Spotify announced that they would be ending the production of several of its live audio shows.
However, considering that other companies such as Facebook have followed suit since the end of the pandemic, as in-person live events returned, Spotify’s move away from live audio in any capacity is not surprising.
