How Livescape Group’s Iqbal Ameer is taking live entertainment into the future

Building a tech platform is unusual for a live entertainment company, with Iqbal citing it as a challenge. “We have a wealth of social capital and ideas, but when it comes to building tech solutions, we’re on the ground floor of blockchain and AI methodologies.”

Even so, Iqbal made it his mission to establish a unified repository of fan-aggregated data. “This repository would allow artists, event organisers, venues, labels, independent labels and the rest of this US$750 billion industry to access genuine fan data and use it for good.”

Fan data is a transformative metric that can convince organisers to take risks and get governments on board. It would help local and regional artists connect with their supporters, sustain independent live event venues, and determine fair artist fees and ticket prices. 

See also: How Tough Love Helped Livescape CEO Iqbal Ameer Build His Success Story

AAA runs on blockchain technology, ensuring transparency and preventing data manipulation—a stark contrast to the murky metrics of social media engagement. “If you spent RM100 on social media advertising today, you could net a thousand impressions, but what does that mean, and how does it translate to real-world action?” Iqbal questions while highlighting the need for verifiable data. “At the end of the day, social media platforms control the data and will do what it takes to incentivise you to spend more money. Building AAA on a blockchain ensures data cannot be tampered with or altered.”

“Why can’t everybody win?” Iqbal asks, seeing valuable experiences like meet-and-greets often go to corporate sponsors rather than devoted fans. AAA aims to change the dynamics through a gamified web app where fans can authenticate their fandom by completing quests to earn points for redeemable experiences.

The platform has proven its potential at four previous music festivals in Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Bangkok. A recent Alan Walker show with a 10,000 capacity saw 30,000 fans engaging with the platform to win VIP upgrades, providing valuable insights that more tickets could have sold.

“AI helps customise quests for fans to engage in on AAA, according to their actions, like prompts to invite more friends to a show or posting about the artist on social media. Meet-and-greets, autographed merchandise and backstage passes are all essentially free. They don’t cost anything to the artist or the organiser, so they should go to the fans that have been consistently helping the artists the most and not just those spending the most,” Iqbal says.

AAA recently received an endorsement from Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to continue building the platform. “We have signed 53 music festivals across Southeast Asia and Australia, committed to using the solution. Hopefully, 2025 will see more music festivals and concerts in your area that you can ‘quest’ through,” Iqbal says.

Asked about the future, Iqbal and his business partner plan to give the company away in five years. “We feel that if AAA has reached a stage where it is of critical importance to the industry to access and use, then we should not be at the helm of it,” he explains.

He feels the move will ensure that this solution remains open, transparent and not monopolistic. Blockchain technology allows AAA to be governed entirely by votes from the live entertainment industry stakeholders, including event organisers, venues and artists.

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This democratic approach to governance could help tackle industry-wide challenges. Iqbal envisions scenarios where the collective industry might vote to address issues like ticket scalping through new platform features—all decided by those most invested in the industry. “All Access could theoretically reach a stage where it has accumulated so much fan data that it could reverse engineer that data to set up a ticketing platform, for example,” he says.

Reflecting on the roots of his career, Iqbal remembers seeing Michael Jackson’s 1996 HIStory World Tour on Malaysian TV. “I was amazed by how happy he made everyone else feel, and since then, it’s always been in my interest to make others happy,” Iqbal says.

From organising birthday parties for friends to eventual exposure to event organisers, club promoters and club culture, Iqbal soon found his true calling. “These amazing people were organising underground events with nothing but a sound system and a DJ, and people were having the time of their lives. As they say, music transcends boundaries and brings people together.”

While debating how these events could get bigger, Iqbal met kindred spirits who shared his vision, and Livescape had its start. The journey started rocky as Iqbal recalls sitting in the Malaysian Tourism Board’s lobby, holding a dossier on all the ways one could jumpstart the Malaysian live experience economy.

“I held a detailed explanation and case studies on different cross-genre music festivals around the world, and the impact that these high scale, high production events bring into the economy,” he says. Creating jobs, supporting local businesses and attracting thousands of tourists, Iqbal could see the positive ripple effect that would complement the F&B industry, hospitality and tourism while providing a platform for local artists to perform on international stages.

Admitting perseverance and naivety were his greatest assets, Iqbal sat waiting for an opportunity to pitch across three days before the then-general manager of Tourism Malaysia, Tony Nagamaiah was ready to hear him out (if only to dismiss him). The outcome was that Future Music Festival Asia came to fruition through a grant that generated a return on investment “almost a hundred times over”.

In a full circle moment, the event was inducted into the Malaysia Book of Records for the highest tourist attendance, previously held by Michael Jackson’s 1996 Malaysian concert.

“Persistence and naivety can be a powerful tool. Harnessing it and taking that leap of faith may help you where you need to go,” Iqbal says, adding that at other times, one should bravely resolve to “break the door down.”

We ask Iqbal a series of quickfire questions to learn more about the attitude and views that have fuelled his success. 

How would you characterise your work in a sentence?

Iqbal Ameer (IA): Overwhelming, exciting and it’s work that I’m in a love-hate relationship with. 

Do you have a personal mantra that you live by?

IA: Breathe before you speak.

How would you define success?

IA: By the amount of time you have to follow pursuits.

What's the best advice that you’ve ever received?

IA: I often reflect on these words from my father: “If you think you know everything, you know nothing.”

What’s your best productivity tip?

IA: My best productivity tip is to write your daily accomplishments down rather than tomorrow’s tasks. As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to feel you’ve not accomplished enough or could have achieved more. If you take note of what you’ve managed in a day from the perspective of work, family and personal, you’ll see that you’ve done a lot.

It also helps to identify less productive habits, like binge-watching five episodes of The Penguin in one go, and deciding you need to change that. I think this method is much better than setting a daily task list. This attitude carries into Livescape, to flip conventional approaches because we see and discover that it works better.

Now discover other young leaders in entertainment on the Gen.T Leaders of Tomorrow list.

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