The impact of Popronde on listening & following.

I’ve had this one sitting in drafts for a while, but with Popronde in full swing, now feels like the right time to share it.

It’s often assumed that playing live immediately translates into more streams and followers. But the relationship between live shows and online growth is less straightforward than many think. That’s exactly why I wanted to look into the impact Popronde has had on its yearly selected artists.

What is Popronde?

For international readers: Popronde is a traveling music festival in the Netherlands that takes over dozens of cities every fall. Emerging Dutch artists get to perform in pop venues, bars, bookstores, cafés, and even galleries. The idea is to expose developing talent to a bigger audience, and it has worked in the past. Alumni include Froukje, Racoon, De Staat, Dotan, Chef’Special, John Coffey, Blaudzun, The Vices, EUT, Rondé, MEAU, Haevn, and more.

How I Measured Impact

I scraped the Popronde website (2019–2024 editions), matched artists to Spotify, Chartmetric, and YouTube IDs, and pulled the following metrics:

• Spotify: monthly listeners, followers, popularity score

• Instagram: followers, engagement

• YouTube: views, subscribers

The goal: track where artists stood at selection, how they developed during Popronde, and what happened in the 1-2 year(s) after.

Why Spotify Listeners Matter Most

Many selected artists start from very small numbers. That means percentage growth can look huge, even when absolute numbers remain modest. Of all metrics, Spotify listeners turned out to be the most consistent benchmark, because it exists for nearly every artist, unlike YouTube or Instagram, where many had no baseline at all. Please, make sure you have socials (or have them linked to Popronde’s website) before participating. 🤷‍♀️

What the Data Shows

To smooth out release spikes and playlist effects, I looked at median growth in Spotify monthly listeners (and IG/YT) across three moments:

• After participation (two-week average after the tour)

• One year later (two-month average)

• Two years later (two-month average, where available)

Here’s the pattern that emerges:

• 2020 (Covid year) → essentially no growth

• 2021 cohort → ~35–40% growth during Popronde, with the year after showing little additional lift

• 2022 cohort → ~40% growth during Popronde, followed by a strong ~60% increase the year after — the clearest case of Popronde creating longer-term momentum

• 2023 cohort → ~35–40% growth during Popronde, ~50% growth one year after

In other words: Popronde does help artists grow their audience, but the effect varies. For most cohorts, the real step change comes not during the tour itself, but in the year(s) that follow — provided artists keep releasing and building on the momentum.

Zooming In: Individual Artist Growth

The averages hide a wide spread. Some artists blow up, others barely move the needle. You can see the top 10 growers per year in the charts below, they tell the story better than any table.

Should Spotify Do More?

Here’s another angle: editorial support. If Popronde is supposed to be a launchpad, shouldn’t Spotify help amplify that?

Now, I’ll be honest, I’m not the biggest fan of New Music Friday. To me, it feels more like an industry-facing playlist than something regular listeners engage with. It blends every genre together, has a low threshold for inclusion, and rarely builds a long-term audience for emerging acts.

That said, it’s still one of the easiest entry points into Spotify editorial. So at the very least, you’d expect Popronde artists to get some visibility there.

Looking at New Music Friday Netherlands placements:

• 2019: 41% featured

• 2020: 35% featured

• 2021: 51% featured

• 2022: 46.5% featured

• 2023: 44.9% featured

• 2024: 39.2% featured

In other words: roughly half of Popronde artists don’t get playlisted at all.

If Popronde is already filtering and curating talent, then why not give these artists more dedicated editorial spotlight?

Conclusion

Popronde does move the needle, but not in a straightforward way. For most artists, the biggest growth in listeners happens after the tour, once they release new music and capitalise on the momentum.

It’s a reminder that live exposure and streaming growth don’t always run in sync — and that turning early buzz into lasting fanbases still takes strategy, time and not less important: $$$.

That's a wrap for this week! Let me know what you think by voting in the poll below. Catch you next time! 👋

For all the annoyed data-analysts out there that disagree with the discontinuation of the related artist endpoint in Spotify’s API - here’s a Python scraper that gets you the same results.