Mandolin and Ground Control Touring Announce Exclusive Partnership

Suzi Pratt / Getty Images – Waxahatchee
Livestreaming platform Mandolin announced an exclusive partnership with Ground Control Touring, which represents artists including indie-rocker Waxahatchee, on Tuesday.

Livestreaming platform Mandolin and booking agency Ground Control Touring announced an exclusive partnership on Tuesday.

The partnership, Mandolin’s first with an agency, will see the platform hosting, producing and marketing select forthcoming shows from Ground Control’s expansive roster, which includes Waxahatchee, Angel Olsen, Parquet Courts, Hop Along and many others.

“Fans cannot wait for the return of live music,” Mandolin CEO and co-founder Mary Kay Huse told Pollstar. “In partnering with the pioneers of Ground Control Touring, Mandolin’s helping booking agencies amplify in-person shows with unforgettable, exclusive digital fan experiences: uncapping room capacities for venue partners, driving additional revenue streams for roster artists and connecting fan bases around the globe to the live acts they love most.”

Huse, a Pollstar Women of Live 2021 honoree, launched Mandolin last spring with a distinctly tech-oriented focus, and the platform’s Ground Control partnership follows other exclusive deals with the Ryman Auditorium and City Winery.

“Like the rest of the touring industry, Ground Control Touring saw the nearly-overnight launch of the livestreaming industry during the first few months of the pandemic,” Ground Control vice president John Chavez told Pollstar. “With so many new players entering the space and the wide variety of deals being thrown around, we felt as an agency that creating our own in-house solution to simplify the process and have access to the data generated was a no-brainer.”

Last month, Ground Control began its partnership with Mandolin by streaming a Waxahatchee concert celebrating the first anniversary of the artist’s 2020 album Saint Cloud. On April 14, Waxahatchee announced a physical tour that begins at Headliners Music Hall in Louisville, Ky., on Sept. 2, and concludes at Boston’s Royale on Oct. 16, hitting stops from Los Angeles to Brooklyn along the way.

“As traditional touring continues to ramp up, it was important for us to find a flexible partner to power GCTV streams while our agents could focus on getting their bands back on the road,” Chavez explained. “Mandolin and their team provide the perfect solution for Ground Control Touring as we navigate the restart of the touring world, providing a flexible backend toolset and data complimentary to the years of experience that our agents have with their clients.”

Upcoming shows under the partnership include Current Joys and Haley Heynderickx, though a press release noted that “shows hosted on Mandolin through GCTV will not be limited to Ground Control Touring clients and will include non-GCT bands, festivals, and other partners as well.”