Setting the stage for a flourishing cultural data ecosystem: A spotlight on business models of cultural event platforms

Data ecosystems can generate valuable business opportunities, but research on their emergence within specific industries is limited. The cultural event industry is characterized by a multifaceted cultural landscape and a fragmented and heterogeneous market of cultural event platforms. The emerging German cultural data ecosystem, envisioned to share event data in a data space, could foster data-driven innovation and enhance value creation in the cultural event industry. Yet, following the ecosystem-as-structure view, the platforms’ willingness to participate in the cultural data ecosystem depends on whether their business model aligns with at least one of the focal value propositions of the cultural data ecosystem. In this paper, we develop a taxonomy of cultural event platform business models, and derive six archetypes. Additionally, we interview industry representatives of these archetypes to shed light on the benefits and obstacles when participating in the cultural data ecosystem, and to identify potential focal value propositions, corresponding actor roles, and activities. Our work contributes to the discussion on taxonomies of data-sharing business models and the emergence of data ecosystems in the cultural event industry.