Stationhead, the platform where superfans are forged, is announcing a new, fan-demanded feature that builds on its recent e-commerce expansion. Called Collections, it will allow fans to show off all the merch they’ve purchased through Stationhead Shop, be it physical or digital. As Stationhead Shop continues to launch stores for major artists like Nicki Minaj, Zayn, BTS, and more, Collections digital twin of each item is giving superfans a new way to show their devotion.

“We were inspired by what fans were already doing,” explains Ryan Star, founder and CEO of Stationhead. “They would post receipts to prove they were there first — that they didn’t just show up late to the party. We wanted to honor that devotion and make it more fun, meaningful, and permanent.” 

This inspired Collections, Stationhead’s new way for fans to show off all their physical and digital purchases, everything they ever bought via Stationhead Shop, from exclusive merch to one-of-one digital drops. Their Collection will appear as part of their profile on the platform for all other members of a fan community to see. Fans will also get badges for being one of the first purchasers of certain merch items, another sign of true fan devotion. 

This small-sounding innovation is a big deal for superfans, especially those who have grown up in digital environments where accumulated items send important signals about who you are. “In a world where your online identity matters, this is how fandom shows up,” says Star. “If Roblox and Fortnite taught a generation to express themselves through virtual skins and items, we see Stationhead Collections becoming that for music.” 

Looking ahead, Stationhead imagines a world where your favorite artist’s merch takes on a new life outside of fans’ closets. “We see a future when fans can wear a hoodie to a party in real life, but also wear it in their favorite game,” Star muses. “Collections is a major step toward that future.” 

For superfans right now, the urge to collect is strong. Stationhead often sees fans buying everything artists make available through Shop. “For our early adopter artists, Shop has been wildly successful. Now we’re building a better, more expressive experience for fans,” says Star. “Though many platforms and services talk a lot about super-serving superfans, we’re already doing it, and it’s making artists money and making fans happy. That’s how we see our roles, as facilitating this win-win for everyone who loves music.”

About Stationhead

Gen-z's largest fandom platform - Stationhead allows music fans & artists around the world to connect, stream, and shop together. Stationhead’s 20 million user base consists of the most passionate superfans for thousands of artists, with 50% of users between the ages of 18-25. Channels on Stationhead are 24/7 live audio-based parties hosted by superfans. Artists often enter dedicated channels with their fans in order to promote new music, tour dates, merchandise, announcements, or simply just to interact with their fans.

Stationhead, the go-to destination for music superfans, is now letting artists create unique, thrilling Shops, where fans can find must-have merch while gaining increased cred in their fan communities. Stationhead Shop easily expands artists’ existing Shopify stores, linking online fan experiences with e-commerce in a direct, fun way. 

Over the past two decades, the music industry has shifted from offline to online. In that shift, the most important audience has been ignored: the super-fans. Founded to offer fans a place to gather, chat, and stream together online, Stationhead has rapidly become the way to engage with their favorite artists and build communities. It has organically amassed 20 million users across 1,000 fandoms and is used by major artists like Selena Gomez, BTS, and Billie Eilish. 

“We’ve created a shopping experience that combines the excitement of the merch booth with the scale and social currency of a gaming platform. It also offers artists an authentic way to monetize and build direct relationships with their most passionate and loyal fans,” explains Stationhead co-founder and CEO Ryan Star.

By integrating directly with existing Shopify stores, Stationhead Shop creates a new sales channel that is easy to deploy and even easier to manage. The streamlined integration gives artist teams full control of which products they make available on their Shop, which can include superfan-exclusive merchandise. With unique data insights and engagement features like Voice Drops, live streams, and push notifications, artists can directly engage with their most dedicated fans. Artists are also able to capture invaluable, actionable fan data at every point. 

Fans are also incentivized to buy on Stationhead Shop in order to earn supporter badges and to receive live shoutouts from the artist. Fans can showcase their purchases with built-in shareable social assets and soon will be able to build out a digital collection of their merchandise on Stationhead, much like in real life. In combination, these tools drive engagement, sales, and social impressions that ultimately contribute to building a passionate fan army.

Stationhead has already proven to be a powerful direct-to-consumer tool for major artists. In Beta, a digital buying party helped drive Nicki Minaj’s album Pink Friday 2 to #1 on the US Billboard 200 on release. Stationhead converted 20% of online listeners during the party into album purchasers, while also driving off-platform sales and buzz.

“Just like social commerce changed the retail industry, Stationhead Shop will be the next evolution in online music commerce. It is the first online space where artists can sell highly sought-after physical and digital goods directly to their biggest fans in an engaging environment. This will unlock entirely new revenue streams for the music industry,” says Stationhead co-founder and COO Murray Levison. 

About Stationhead
Gen-z's largest fandom platform - Stationhead allows music fans & artists around the world to connect, stream, and shop together. Stationhead’s 20 million user base consists of the most passionate superfans for thousands of artists, with 50% of users between the ages of 18-25. Channels on Stationhead are 24/7 live audio-based parties hosted by superfans. Artists often enter dedicated channels with their fans in order to promote new music, tour dates, merchandise, announcements, or simply just to interact with their fans. 

Have you ever wondered what your favorite artists have to say? Stationhead, the world’s largest streaming service and hub for fandom, now invites artists to speak up and reach their followers through the platform’s all-new Voice Notes feature. With this new tool, artists can record voice memos and publish them in their Stationhead channels–a new point of connection between creators and their most loyal fans.

Voice Notes by artists will enable artists to reach tens of thousands of fan-run stations and in turn tens of millions of fans across the Stationhead network. These recorded notes will play intermittently throughout a stationhead listening experience, providing new engagement and meaning to traditional playlists. Voice Notes can also include custom banner assets that will drive fans to an artist’s latest promotion - tour announcements, merchandise, new music, etc. 

“Stationhead was developed to be fully fan-centric, a place where they could gather together online to listen to music from their favorite artists and connect with each other. As fandoms exploded on the platform, artists organically followed–stopping in to thank fans and hang out with them in a live environment,” says Stationhead Co-Founder and CEO Ryan Star. “Voice Notes is our fan-first platform’s next step in building tools designed to help artists connect with their loyal fans and provide meaning to the online music experience.”

For artists who constantly feel pressure to sell more merch or promote their latest release, Voice Notes offers a new, exciting avenue to do so–and one that feels more fun and personalized to the fans, not just another link-in-bio. Similar to a pinned tweet, Voice Notes sit at the top of an artist’s page where they can easily be found and listened to by their fans on Stationhead.

Voice Notes aren’t just limited to promotion though, also offering an opportunity for artists to give back to fans. Artists can give shoutouts, tease a snippet of an upcoming release, talk about their favorite song on their latest album, or even leave a funny message for their most loyal fans to find. The possibilities are endless.

South Korean boy band NCT 127 debuted the Voice Notes feature for their new album “Walk.” Fans listening to the group’s channel were pleasantly surprised when they heard an exclusive message from the band discussing their new album. This feature engaged fans in Stationhead in the lead up to the official release party hosted by the band on the platform. 

“Voice notes offer artists and labels a fresh way to authentically monetize the massive fandom that they’ve cultivated on Stationhead without being another ‘link-in-bio’,” says Stationhead Co-Founder and COO and Murray Levison. “For busy artists, sharing Voice Notes is an easy lift considering the great impact it will have on their fans.”

In the same way Stationhead revolutionized buying MP3s and streaming parties, Voice Notes is set to completely change the way artists promote to their best fans. As part of the playbook, Voice Notes aims to turn passive followers into superfans and increase engagement among artists’ biggest fans—ultimately monetizing the top 20% more efficiently.

About Stationhead
Gen-z's largest social music streaming service - Stationhead allows music fans & artists around the world to connect, listen live, and stream together

Fans want to feel special and to connect to each other and their favorite artists. Artists want an enjoyable, low-lift way to interact with their fans, something that feels like a hang, not a forced marketing initiative. Both sides have found their groove on Stationhead, the innovative social audio platform where millions of superfans regularly create must-join moments with some of the world’s biggest stars, from Billie Eilish to Zayn to Nicki Minaj. 

Now, Stationhead is giving these fans the credit they deserve with All-Access. This new proof-of-fandom tier is rolling out across Stationhead’s 1,000+ fan communities after a successful beta test with several household-name artists. In beta alone, over 150,000 users have unlocked All-Access.

“It’s easy to toss around the idea of superfandom, to say that we need focus on superfans, but it’s hard to create something that really serves fans and gives them what they want,” explains Stationhead founder and CEO Ryan Star, himself a successful artist and songwriter with several big hits under his belt. “We’ve done that at Stationhead by focusing on the fun and rewarding side of online events, instead of merely trying to extract value from passionate music lovers. All-Access builds on this and makes fandom feel even more engaging and rewarding, by highlighting the most enthusiastic people in an artists’ community.”

The new All-Access fan tier rewards the dedication of these superfans, one of online music’s first genuine attempts at “proof of fandom.” All-Access is simple: As fans participate in streaks, streaming, and release parties on Stationhead, the data-driven feature distinguishes top superfans. After a 7-day streak, fans unlock the All-Access membership tier for 30 days, which can be extended for each consecutive 7-day streak. Once unlocked, these fans gain access to meaningful perks.

These perks include a badge in fans’ profiles that validates their fandom, an addition that has proven really important to fans. Fans also unlock the ability to create posts in their fandom’s threads, which ensures threads are posted by true fans, something fan communities care deeply about. These superfans also gain priority placement on guest call-in lists when artists and hosts call people up to speak during a live event. This also gives fans access to “All-Access-Only” chat, which is very popular during crowded livestreams. 

All-Access status has already become a mark of pride within the Stationhead fandom communities that took part in the beta test. So far, community hosts have used the new feature to organize ticket giveaways and other exclusive offerings. For example, Zayn Malik created a VIP experience for All-Access fans with an All Access-only chat during his release party for his new single “Where I Am.” Other artists have worked to replicate this strategy, with aespa, a popular K-Pop group, launching their incentivized "Better Things" (RAYE Remix) Challenge. Artists using Stationhead benefit from this feature being built in, removing the significant time and expense of creating their own similar marketing campaigns. 

“In the ocean of online fandom, Stationhead empowers the best fans,” says Co-Founder and COO Murray Levison, “With All-Access, Stationhead identifies and rewards artist’s super fans and turns fandoms into fan armies.” 

About Stationhead

Stationhead (www.stationhead.com) is the world’s leading fan engagement platform where artists and fans can connect, stream, and host global release parties. Just like twitch did with gaming, Stationhead has evolved music streaming into a global community with over 20 million users. Artists like Nicki Minaj, Billie Eilish, & Zayn use Stationhead to engage with their fans, drive streams, sales, and build global communities. 

As the entire music industry races to develop the best platform for leveraging superfans, Stationhead’s rapid growth proves that open, fan-first platforms create healthier, stronger online communities. With over 17 million users across 1,000 fandoms, the popular hub for global fandoms to stream, chat, and connect has quickly evolved into the connective layer of music, organically attracting chart-topping artists to the app to interact with their most loyal fans.

Unlike more siloed fan experiences, Stationhead’s fandoms are open, fan-driven communities where music and connection is core to the experience. Fans can host release parties and drive their favorite bands to the top of the charts. Individual release parties have had over 1 million attendees. For artists, Stationhead provides an authentic, real, and lasting place that fans themselves love–and for that reason, artists feel safe and supported too. The by-product of this engagement is premium streams, music sales, and a closer connection to the most lean-in fans in the world. Stationhead drove over $15 million of revenue for the music industry in 2023 through incremental streams and with further monetization plans rolling out this year.

Stationhead Co-Founder and CEO Ryan Star has lived the ups and downs of the music industry–signed and dropped from four major label deals throughout his career. Ryan’s high school band had early success, signing with Madonna’s label, Maverick…just before the Napster fiasco. Before long, Ryan began his solo career, navigating the new digital landscape while learning the ropes of radio promotion and touring. By the end of his fourth major record deal, Ryan was exhausted, but he knew that the fuel that kept him going for so long was the connection to his fans–the ones waiting in line at merch tables and meet-and-greets.

"As a touring artist, I remember thinking ‘I know that in the real world, my real fans are waiting to see me at my bus at 2AM after the show. But where are they on the internet?’" says Ryan Star. “That was the inspiration for Stationhead.”

Originally designed to be an online space for fans to gather, chat and enjoy music together, Stationhead’s rapidly growing user base caught the attention of several artists like Nicki Minaj, Camila Cabello, Olivia Rodrigo, Cardi B, and Zayn Malik. While many brands catering to superfans pay artists millions to livestream or interact with fans on their platforms, all artists make their way to Stationhead organically. And it has paid off, as release parties have proven to drive significant value for artists–driving the first week sales of Nicki Minaj’s Red Ruby Da Sleeze by 50%, Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” by 14%, among many other new tracks on the charts.

“Artists love Stationhead because their fans love Stationhead,” says Stationhead Co-Founder and COO Murray Levinson. “We provide an authentic, real, and lasting place for fans that therefore makes artists feel safe and supported too.”

“This is a special place because fans know that their favorite artist isn’t being paid to make an appearance on Stationhead. They are doing it out of their own volition because they want to interact with you,” says Star. “Artists love it because their fans love it, and all of the streams are nice too.