Live Nation Pulse isn’t just another pay-to-play influencer program: it’s a cultural shift in how live music reaches fans.
In an increasingly noisy digital landscape, tour announcements were struggling to stand out — especially with Gen Z and younger millennials who resist traditional advertising and expect authenticity from the brands they engage with. Paid media alone wasn’t enough to spark excitement or cultural relevance.
For Gen Z and younger millennials, live music is identity and community. They don’t just attend shows, they document them, shape the narrative in real time, and trust peers and creators over top-down marketing. This insight shaped Pulse: the creation of a creator-powered advocacy community designed to empower fans to tell the story themselves. By amplifying diverse voices, tour announcements became cultural moments rather than marketing messages. Creators were reimagined as partners and storytellers.
Pulse brought together a diverse community of creators ranging from DJs and festival-goers to comedians and lifestyle creators, who reflect the breadth of genres, subcultures, and identities shaping the live music scene, while giving emerging artists the visibility they need alongside global headliners.
The objective of Pulse was threefold: to make tour announcements feel unmissable by grounding them in real fan voices; to champion emerging talent alongside major acts; and to reach younger audiences through social-first, culturally credible storytelling.
Pulse positioned Live Nation as the heartbeat of a new era where fans don’t just attend shows but shape how live music is announced, shared, and celebrated.
Instead of a one-off influencer campaign, we built Live Nation Pulse — a creator advocacy community that turned creators into collaborators, not paid amplifiers. Pulse flipped the traditional pay-to-play model, replacing transactional fees with a value exchange built on early access, creative freedom, and real cultural currency. In return for content, creators received in-demand tickets, VIP experiences, travel opportunities, and access to an exclusive community.
We began by hand-selecting a diverse group of creators across Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland. Passion mattered more than follower count. Our community spanned 10K–500K followers and included DJs, musicians, festival-goers, comedians, lifestyle creators, and LGBTQIA+ voices, representing a wide range of genres, cultures, and subcultures.
To ensure Pulse felt genuinely special, we designed a high-touch onboarding experience. Creators completed surveys to match them with relevant shows, received welcome kits with personalised touches and handwritten notes, and gained early access so their content could go live the moment tours were announced. The community launched with VIP experiences at artists like Dua Lipa and Nelly, creating instant emotional buy-in.
Each month, 1000heads receives dozens of Live Nation tour announcements and turns them into concise creator briefs with key info and inspiration. In return, creators earn tickets and Pulse Points toward premium experiences. This ensures content stays authentic, driven by genuine fans, and helps Live Nation tap into fandoms and niche communities from pre-sale to encore.
Pulse was able to elevate creators as partners vs paid promoters through:
By empowering creators, we built authentic advocates who generate buzz and spark meaningful conversations about upcoming shows.
Pulse proved that when fans lead the conversation, live music marketing doesn’t just cut through — it takes over.
Between Q1–Q4 2025, the program generated 23M+ total views across TikTok and Instagram, powered by 1,400+ creator-led posts that drove excitement from announcement through to encore. Creator content sparked 1.8M+ engagements, reflecting strong audience resonance and cultural relevance.
Performance consistently exceeded industry benchmarks. Selective paid amplification delivered an average 3.4% click-through rate, with standout campaigns achieving up to 14.5% CTR — a 205% uplift compared to prior efforts. These results showed that creator-led storytelling drives stronger engagement and action than traditional paid promotion.
With a limited total paid boosting budget of under $30K, Pulse scaled content across 58 Australian and New Zealand tour announcements, reaching over 5M fans and generating 11M+ impressions. Using our Creator Effect framework, Pulse delivered a $1,182,928 in Creator Effect value and a 2.7x ROI, reflecting strong audience resonance while working within a limited budget.
Beyond the numbers, Pulse changed how Live Nation shows up in culture. Tour announcements became moments fans actively shared, discussed, and shaped themselves. By putting fans at the centre of the story, Pulse positioned Live Nation not just as a concert promoter, but as a brand embedded in live music culture — driving momentum, credibility, and sustained engagement show after show.