Why Spotify Turned a Live Performance into a Full-Length Film with Surround Sound

Live performances are increasingly being experienced outside the rooms where they happen. A song can be clipped from a concert, shared online, and reach thousands of people before the show is even over. But while short-form content can capture a moment, it cannot always capture the experience itself.

Spotify’s Surround Sound is taking a different approach. The live platform format, launching from Sub-Saharan Africa, brings Tems and Runtown together with 1,000 of their top fans for intimate, in-the-round performances in Lagos. But the experience does not end when the shows do. Spotify is turning the performances into full-length concert films, allowing audiences who were not in the room to experience the shows on Spotify.

For Rifumo Mdaka, Spotify’s Content Marketing Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa, the decision to create full-length films is tied to how much of a performance can be communicated when audiences are given the complete experience rather than individual moments.

“It’s so important to deliver these as full-length concert films so that they can really feel the full expression of the show rather than dropping a clip here or like one song there,” Mdaka says.

The idea is not simply to make a longer version of a concert video. Surround Sound was designed around a specific live format that changes the relationship between artists and their audiences.

The performances take place on a circular stage surrounded by 1,000 fans. Unlike a conventional front-of-stage setup, where proximity to the stage can determine how much interaction a fan has with the artist, the in-the-round format puts the audience around the performer.

Mdaka says the intention is to move fans from being passive consumers of a performance to active participants in it. With the artist surrounded by fans, the performance becomes a shared exchange of energy rather than a one-directional experience.

“The fans are no longer just passive audience members receiving the show. They're actually a part of the show,” he says.

That difference also influences how the performances are captured on camera.

Spotify developed a bespoke camera setup to capture the interaction between the artists and their fans, including facial expressions, reactions, and the exchanges taking place around the stage. Rather than relying solely on shots of the performer, the visual approach is built around the proximity between the artist and the audience.

In a conventional concert broadcast, scale can often be the visual priority. Surround Sound instead leans into proximity and immersion, creating what Mdaka describes as a different visual language from a typical concert broadcast.

That becomes particularly important once the performance moves from the physical room to the screen.

Spotify sees the concert film as another expression of being a fan. Mdaka points to the different ways people engage with their favourite artists, from listening to their music and attending live performances to watching them on video. Surround Sound, in that sense, extends the experience rather than replacing the live show.

The film also allows the performances to retain their full emotional progression. Tems and Runtown were selected in part because their catalogues could sustain complete performance arcs. Tems will revisit the origin story of her ‘For Broken Ears’ debut EP released six years ago and take audiences through her journey to the present, while Runtown's performance celebrates his career-spanning catalogue, with his breakthrough song “Mad Over You” at the centre.

For Spotify, the depth of their catalogues makes it possible to build performances that function as complete stories rather than collections of individual songs.

This also means that although the Surround Sound format remains consistent, the resulting performances are not identical. Each artist brings their own catalogue, story, and creative vision into the space, forming a different experience within the same format.

And while the live performances are set in Lagos, the films are designed to take those experiences much further.

Mdaka says Spotify wants audiences watching online to experience as much of the intimacy and emotional depth of the live shows as possible. The physical room creates the connection, while the film allows that experience to reach fans around the world who could not be there.

That wider reach also connects to a larger ambition for Surround Sound. Mdaka sees the project as an example of the capacity within Sub-Saharan Africa to create original, broadcast-quality formats that can innovate in the live concert and music storytelling space, before being distributed to audiences globally.

For African artists, that creates another way to present their music beyond the traditional live show or the individual clip. A concert can become a complete visual work, with the artist's catalogue, performance and relationship with their audience all forming part of the experience.

With Surround Sound, the performance begins with 1,000 fans in a Lagos room. The full-length film gives it another life, allowing audiences elsewhere to experience not just the songs, but the performance as a whole.