Can gigs just be an opportunity to see an artist live, or do they all need a viral moment now?

Whether it’s surprise songs, a special guest or getting a fan up on stage, there has been a huge rise in these ‘viral moments’ included in tours these days. So where did this all start?

I think the rise in these ‘viral moments’ has been ever since the eras tour. Taylor swift put on an amazing 3-hour-long performance, and included surprise songs for every show. These surprise songs went viral almost every night of the tour, with people either excited about the surprise songs or sad that they missed their favourite. There was even a fan-made app where you could guess the surprise songs each night, as well as what outfits she would wear as an interactive thing for fans to do while watching livestreams of the shows at home. But how has this affected gig culture? With these videos going viral and Taylor’s tour running for a whopping 632 days, other artists needed to come up with their own marketing strategies to get people excited for their own tours. And though not every artist may be able to handle a three-hour-long show, they can find something unique, like the surprise songs, to include in the hopes of going viral.

But these tour traditions didn’t start with Taylor; they have been going on for years, in 2010 to roughly 2012, Justin Bieber had a section of his show where he got a fan up on stage, whilst he would perform One Less Lonely Girl to her. And before this, the Jonas Brothers used to get a young fan on stage to sing Gotta Find You from Camp Rock, where I myself was lucky enough to be chosen to come on stage. Even Taylor has been doing surprise songs for a while, so why has it become such a huge thing now?

The simple answer is TikTok. Artists can get so much engagement from a viral TikTok nowadays, from tour sales to streams, and with artists not getting paid as much as they used to when everyone would go out and buy a CD, this marketing is so important for them to use to their advantage. So let’s take a look at a few of my favourites from recent years:

5SOS Dice

On 5SOS’s 2023 tour, ‘The 5SOS Show’, they had an inflatable dice which would get thrown into the crowd each night. Fans would have 90 seconds to roll the dice around before returning it to the stage, where the rolled song would then be played. This was a great way for the band to include the surprise song concept but in their own unique way.

Sabrina Carpenter’s Juno Positions

A slightly less PG version but very on brand for Sabrina, each night of her tour she would do a different position during her song Juno. From thios Sabrina got her own fan-made app where you could guess her outfits as well as the Juno position of the night. Sabrina has previously done something similar to this where she used to have a different outro to her song ‘Nonsense’ each night of her tour.

Role Model’s Sally

On his latest tour, Role Model would get a different person up on stage to dance along with him to his song ‘Sally When The Wine Runs Out’, this varied each night as to whether it would be a fan or someone famous, with some of the famous names he had on stage being Niall Horan, Lewis Capaldi, Troye Sivan, Conan Gray and Hilary Duff. Fans would guess who they think would be Sally at their show, and for most famous Sally’s, videos would go viral on TikTok. This was a great marketing trick, as a lot of the success of the song is due to these viral moments.

Zara Larsson’s Lush Life guest

The most recent example would have to be the viral Lush Life dance at Zara Larsson’s tour. Though she had been getting fans on stage for a while, this section of the show went viral when a fan had learnt the dance to the song. This then started a trend where everyone would learn the dance from TikTok, and Zara would get someone up to dance with her each night.

Now that we have had a look at a few of the fun ways people have adapted to this new era of Gigs, what has been your favourite concert tradition? I love the creativity with tours coming up with these marketing strategies, however, I do wonder how long it will go on for before it becomes repetitive and basic.