- Apple Music just added a Concerts page
- Showcase upcoming live concerts in your local area.
- You’ll find links to a ticket page and can listen to a music station from the artist.
With its latest app update, Apple Music just added Concerts, a place to find concerts happening in your local area. It’s not a perfect addition, but I instantly love it.
This feature appears in two locations. The first is through a new page dedicated to Concerts in the Search tab of the Apple Music app, and the second is on an artist’s page if they have live concerts coming up.
When you go to the Concerts page, you’ll be asked to share your location with Apple Music so it can recommend live performances nearby, and the range seems far but reasonable. For example, I live near Brighton on the south coast of England, but the site will also show me concerts taking place in London, which is an easy train ride away.
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On an artist’s page, like RAYE, which I’ve used as an example, you’ll see a subtle ‘Gigs Nearby’ tag on their image, which, if you tap, will scroll down to their upcoming gigs, with Gigs Nearby and All Upcoming Gigs listed.
Regardless of how you find a gig, the page shows you all the key information. There’s a quick link to find out where to buy tickets, with options to select your preferred seller if artists use some services, as well as a button to listen to a station of their music if you’re not too familiar with their work (which will be perfect for finding new artists performing near you).
There are also options to add a concert directly to your Calendar and view it in your Maps app, and as an Android user, I can confirm that this works perfectly with Google Calendar and Google Maps on my phone.
Plus, there are options to see other concerts if you find this one is sold out. However, this leads to my biggest complaint with the new service.
Some frustrations
Concerts is a great addition to Apple Music, but it’s also flawed in some ways that I hope will be fixed soon.
First of all, the popular tab at the top of the general Concerts page seems almost useless. Tickets to see popular artists sold out quickly, and browsing through some of the recommended concerts, I couldn’t find a couple of seats at any of them.
I’d remove this entire bar, but if it’s going to stay, some “SOLD OUT” notice in the Apple Music app is essential, with options to join a waitlist or receive resale notifications, rather than a link to buy non-existent tickets.
Although I prefer it to become a link to artist tours in your playlists. By grouping concert dates together, you could look at our options for gigs both near and far, as while I’d prefer to see a show in Brighton or London (which are cities close to me), I don’t mind traveling (I previously went to Liverpool for a gig), and especially for less popular acts, there’s a better chance that upcoming gigs will have some tickets left.
On this note, I’m surprised there isn’t a way to filter acts based on whether they’re on your playlist; currently filtering is only by date and gender. I also wish the general feed could offer some advice on what an act might be like before clicking on their station, especially how it compares to music I like; With all its listening data, Apple Music must surely be able to provide information like ‘People who like this band also listen to Florence + The Machine’ or something like that.
Criticisms aside, this seems like a great feature for planning a date night on short notice. Live music is always great, and scrolling through the general selection of feeds, I found many dates with tickets remaining, which I could easily browse using the station button on the screen.
Concerts on Apple Music have just been launched. Over time, this tool should only get better, and with a few tweaks, it will go from great to perfect for live music fans.
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