Netflix combined spectacle with strategy in its first livestreamed iteration of its Tudum fan event, showcasing a future driven by live experiences, franchises, advertising and young audiences as it opts to keep its subs numbers to itself.

Sofia Carson hosted Tudum 2025

Netflix’s most recent quarterly membership report, which showed it passed the 300 million subscriber mark at the end of 2024, will be its last as it stops sharing such information – and reshapes the battleground on which the streaming wars have been waged.

There has been much theorising about why the SVoD giant has decided to withhold such figures, which for years added excitement and intrigue to every earnings report.

Many believe it sees a slowdown on the horizon, after its password-sharing crackdown and introduction of cheaper ad-supported tiers reaccelerated subscriber growth. Certainly a plausible argument, although that idea has been potentially rubbished by the leak of internal documents indicating it hopes to add around 110 million additional subscribers by 2030.

Netflix’s stated reason is that it wants investors to focus on other growth metrics, namely user engagement, operating income and advertising revenue, rather than having its stock price dictated by quarter-to-quarter subscribers tallies that are an increasingly ineffective measure of its progress.

Whatever its motives, the move to stop reporting subscribers has felt like an acknowledgment that it no longer sees the likes of Disney+, Max (soon to be HBO Max, again) or Paramount+ as direct competitors. In its post-subscriber-counting era, the game has changed and Netflix is gearing up to duke it out with YouTube, TikTok and even Roblox.

In that context, this past weekend’s Tudum showcase, which marked the first time the Netflix event has been livestreamed, took on a great deal of significance, and provided several key pointers about where its business is headed.

Two weeks before, Netflix was in New York showcasing its wares to Madison Avenue advertisers at the annual Upfronts. And while that event was laden with audience data (Netflix’s ad-supported tier now reaches 94 million global monthly active users) and greenlight/renewal announcements, Saturday’s Tudum was all about building buzz around some of its biggest new and returning shows and promoting its upcoming movie slate. Oh, and Lady Gaga was there to perform too.

Ted Sarandos takes a selfie at Tudum

Around 9,500 people were at LA’s Kia Forum, spanning fans, traditional media outlets and a mini army of influencers and content creators, the latter of whom are becoming increasingly integral to Netflix’s mission.

It is no great surprise that Netflix went all out on this latest version of Tudum, the annual event that started as a fan festival in Sao Paulo in January 2020. Hosted by Sofia Carson (Carry-On, Purple Hearts), the show was heavy on star power from across genres.

Those involved included director Guillermo del Toro, who is remaking Frankenstein for the streamer; stars of WWE, including top draw CM Punk; the cast of Stranger Things, who teased the fifth and final season; an assortment of reality TV personalities from shows including Love is Blind, Too Hot to Handle and Love on the Spectrum, plus the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders; Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, promoting their upcoming cop drama feature The Rip; Adam Sandler, who stars in a Happy Gilmour sequel; Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig, filmmaker and star respectively of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery; and the casts of One Piece and Wednesday.

It closed with a Wednesday-inspired performance from Lady Gaga, who sang two of her new songs and incorporated the show’s viral dance into her act.

Not everything worked. Some of the segments stuttered, but that is to be expected in a two-hour show that, for the most part, sped along and was high on genuine thrills and reveals for fans of the shows, actors and creators.

Squid Game soldiers meet the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders

There are other fan events serving similar functions, including Comic-Con and Disney’s D23. But none are streamed live for a global audience of more than 300 million subscribers.

Outside the main venue, there were activations aplenty. A WWE-style entranceway where guests were given an introduction from a ring announcer; a Happy Gilmour golf area; a giant severed hand (aka Thing) from Wednesday; the ‘red light/green light’ game from Squid Game and more.

It does not appear at this moment that Netflix wants to be in the business of running giant theme parks. It is, however, keenly interested in the physical events space, with these Tudum activations pointing to bigger plans on the horizon. It is set to open two 100,000-square-foot spaces, each dubbed Netflix House, in Dallas and Pennsylvania later this year. Beyond that, the roadmap is not completely clear, but it is conceivable that it will aggressively grow its presence in physical events on the heels of the first Netflix House openings.

One striking element was the relative youth of the audience. It is perhaps unsurprising, given that Outer Banks, Wednesday and Stranger Things were among the main shows being teased, and the fact that Gen Z (aged 13-28) turns up for these events more than any other demo. Still, it highlighted the fact Netflix is increasingly playing in a different world than some of the US studios, whose main profit engine is still cable channels with a median age well north of 60.

But while Netflix looks more and more like a broadcast network as it chases broad-appeal, ad-friendly programming, it is also making an interesting pivot to court the creator economy. Deals with The Sidemen and Ms Rachel and for a live adaptation of YouTube dating series Pop the Balloon are clear evidence that a strategy shift is afoot.

Netflix continued to lean heavily into the creator economy discussion with Tudum, going to great lengths to bring influencers into the equation and to the event. This, of course, is the smart play in today’s media landscape, but there is a clear and growing acknowledgement that Netflix sees influencers as a key piece of its future strategy – whether those influencers are talking about Netflix’s programming online or appearing in it.

World Wrestling Entertainment stars

The purpose of the Tudum event is to keep people streaming and, in turn, convince investors that is has significant scope for future growth. On that front, Netflix is exceeding even the loftiest expectations.

Just three years ago, in the summer of 2022, Netflix’s stock was languishing at less than US$200 per share after it lost subscribers for the first time in a decade. At the time, the signs were ominous and pointed to the fact subs growth might have hit a ceiling. Three years on, after cracking down on password sharing, introducing ad-supported tiers and moving into live programming, the streamer is on a sustained hot streak that seemed highly improbable at one stage.

Heading into this Tudum event, the stock hit a record high of around US$1,200 per share. In the aftermath, the price is up a tad but largely unchanged (US$1,217 at press time). After technical glitches with the Mike Tyson versus Jake Paul fight, the stock price fluctuated as investors digested the implications of Netflix potentially struggling to handle livestreaming. But after that blip in November, concerns around its ability to handle large audiences seem to have been allayed.

Indeed, the prospect of a Netflix crash barely figured in the narrative leading up to Tudum. If anything, the talk today is around whether it can hit a US$1tn valuation by 2030, a target revealed in internal documents in April. Today, the company’s market cap is around US$518bn.

When asked about whether Netflix could achieve the US$1tn target from streaming growth alone, co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in April that he believed it was possible. To achieve that, Netflix has to keep growing engagement, subscriptions, ad revenue and, crucially, its live programming business. Regarding the latter, Tudum feels like it will only grow in importance.

More than anything else, the event served as an example of how vast and effective the Netflix self-promotion machine can be. Its Tyson versus Paul match and Christmas Day NFL games may attract larger audiences, but Tudum has meaningful value in the broader Netflix ecosystem. The ability to generate buzz around upcoming titles – and continue to train its audience that Netflix is now a major force in live television – means Tudum will be an important part of the streamer’s calendar in the years ahead.