As the streaming space continues to evolve and exclusives become more and more important for differentiation between services, we are beginning to see trends. A couple of years ago, Netflix chose to become the streaming home of Comedy with its Netflix is a joke promotion. It appears that right now Hulu is trying to do the same when it comes to major music and cultural festivals. Following a successful turn as the official streaming destination of Lollapalooza in 2021, Hulu announced today that it is extending its collaboration with Live Nation to serve as the official streaming destination of three of C3 Presents’ biggest music festivals – Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and Austin City Limits Music Festival – in both 2022 and 2023. This marks the first time that a platform has had streaming rights to all three of these iconic live events. See what’s on Hulu this July here.
There will be select performances for all three festivals livestreamed exclusively to Hulu SVOD subscribers at no additional cost. Additional special footage and behind-the-scenes looks will also be available, and the specific livestream schedules will be announced in the weeks prior to each event. Two different live feeds will be available Friday through Sunday of each festival, with one feed for the Thursday shows from Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza (Austin City Limits Music Festival does not have programming on Thursday).
Hulu also announced this week that it will be the official streaming destination of the 2022 ESSENCE Festival, which will take place in person in New Orleans, and virtually, from June 30 – July 3, 2022. This marks the first time ever that ESSENCE has made programming from its iconic Festival available on a streaming platform. Select daytime programming including panel discussions and evening musical performances will be available.
After Hulu’s parent company, Disney secured exclusive rights to Hamilton industry watchers began to wonder if the company should spend more capital to bring other stage performances to the service. While it has yet to make a big investment in that space, it certainly appears that Disney has a direction in mind for at least part of its streaming empire.
