As Livestreaming Goes Mainstream, It Could Be Survival of the Biggest Billboard 1/29/2021 Tatiana Cirisano
Not even Jennifer Lopez could liven up an empty Times Square this New Year’s Eve, when she headlined the annual ball drop for a handful of shivering crew members and front-line workers. The real party was online, where a parade of flashy pay-per-view livestream concerts rang in the new year around the world: Justin Bieber marked his first performance since 2017 with a Beverly Hills, Calif., show in partnership with T-Mobile; KISS broke two Guinness World Records by setting off $1 million worth of pyrotechnics in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and BTS headlined Big Hit Labels’ three-hour celebration in South Korea with guests Halsey and Lauv. It was a fitting way to cap the year that livestreaming transformed from a niche business to an essential, eight-figure industry amid the coronavirus pandemic, spurring the launch of over a dozen new platforms in a m