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AGM
Futures-
What if the real challenge wasn’t just selling tickets — but holding attention? On May 15 at OnSale Live 2025, AGM’s Chief Strategy Officer Adam Cunningham will deliver a keynote on the five structural shifts redefining how live and ticketed experiences must market in the attention economy. From cultural signal to strategic trust, discover what it takes to win demand before the first ticket is ever sold.
Check out the latest posts from AGM Leaders
TL;DR
In a hurry? Here's our pick of the top news items of the week.
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Apple is looking to add AI search engines from OpenAI, Perplexity and Anthropic to Safari. (The Verge)
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Disney announced plans for a new theme park and resort with Miral in Abu Dhabi. (Disney Parks)
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Apple has “made progress” on a chip for potential smart glasses that would be competitors to the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. (The Verge)
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Fewer than half of Americans plan to travel for summer vacation this year. Just 46% plan to travel, 38% domestically and 15% internationally, with some overlap between the two. (Bankrate)
Audiences
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Black Americans are 65% more likely to head to the movies during opening weekend than non-Black Americans, according to a recent Nielsen report. (Nielsen)
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70% of U.S. adults select a streaming service as their default TV viewing choice ahead of cable, satellite and broadcast. (Media Play News)
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U.S. mobile audio app listeners spend an average of 32.3 hours with Spotify a month, compared with 3.5 hours with Amazon Music, and 0.9 hours with Apple Music. (EMarketer)
Platforms
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Instagram launched its first official use of lockable Reels, which enable creators to share Reels that can only be viewed by those who have a code. (Social Media Today)
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Pinterest added 17M more monthly users in Q1, raising the total number of active users to 570M. (Social Media Today)
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LinkedIn is rolling out a new AI-powered job search process, which will enable users to describe their dream job in basic terms, and then be matched to actual roles and opportunities. (The Verge)
Content
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Fandango reports that the live-action take of "Lilo and Stitch" posted the best first-day ticket presales for a PG title year to date. (Deadline)
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YouTube TV is expanding its multiview feature to support select non-sports content soon, letting users combine streams from multiple channels. (MSN)
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Youtube was the single biggest channel for Australian election spending during the 2025 campaign, netting close to $26M in advertising. (Mumbrella)
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Ad revenues for this year's Indian Premiere League reached $600M, showing a 50% growth YoY. (Campaign India)
Tech &
AI-
Anthropic is launching a new API that allows its Claude AI models to search across the web. (Tech Crunch)
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French AI startup Mistral is releasing a new AI model, Mistral Medium 3, which it claims performs “at or above” 90% of Anthropic’s costlier Claude Sonnet 3.7 model on “benchmarks across the board." (Gadgets 360)
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Microsoft says that it’s embracing Google’s recently launched open protocol for allowing AI “agents” to communicate with each other. (Tech Crunch)
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Google announced the launch of Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview, an updated version of its flagship Gemini 2.5 Pro AI model that the company claims tops a number of widely-used benchmarks. (Tech Crunch)
Location-based
entertainment-
Six Flags America announced it will close permanently at the end of its 2025 operating season. (Attractions Magazine)
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Merlin Entertainments announced July 5th, 2025 as the new opening date for the world's largest Legoland, Legoland Shanghai Resort. (Blooloop)
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The Federal Trade Commission's policy to ban hidden fees on live event tickets and rentals goes into effect this week. (PC Mag)
Travel &
hospitality-
Wendy’s is planning to implement AI drive-thru ordering systems at over 500 restaurants by the end of the year. (Restaurant Dive)
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International hotel bookings by Chinese travelers during the May Day holiday have more than doubled YoY, with a 103% increase compared to 2024. (Dida)
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Station Casinos opened its first full-scale sportsbook on the Las Vegas Strip at Treasure Island Hotel & Casino. (Travel Weekly)
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Expedia announced the beta release of Expedia Trip Matching, a new feature that uses AI to reel travelers in through Instagram Reels. (GeekWire)
Gaming
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Rockstar Games released a trailer for the highly-anticipated "Grand Theft Auto VI" just days after announcing a year-long delay. (Tech Radar)
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Tripledot Studios acquired AppLovin’s mobile game business for $800M. (Games Beat)
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Nintendo said it expects to sell 15M Switch 2 units and for operating profit to rise 13% to $2.22B in the coming year. (Reuters)
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The UK games market decreased by 1.8% in 2024 to £7.6B, mostly due to a decline in console sales. (gamesindustry.biz)
