How do you keep informed about upcoming concerts and theater?

August 27, 2006 11:06 AM

How do you keep informed about upcoming concerts and theater.

Dang it! I missed Steely Dan 'cuz I didn't even know they were touring. Is there a web site or email list with comprehensive coverage of tour annoucements, with the ability to filter by region?

Since I live in a rural area and am willing to travel to 4 different cities (Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas) for some shows, it would be especially useful to filter based on multiple cities or a region.

Most ticket websites allow only a single city/category search, so I have to do 8 different searches (4 cities X 2 categories). Oh the agony :) Also, ticket sites usually only list acts *after* tickets are already on sale, so I miss getting a shot at face-value tickets.

So I'd really like to catch the initial announcements before tickets go on sale, but I'd even settle for a good ticket resale site with excellent search customization.

posted by redunzl to media & arts (19 comments total)

Pollstar is pretty good for concert listings. You can even get them to send you an e-mail when the listings of one of your favourite five artists is updated. Or, if you're willing to pay $10/year for a "premium" membership, your favourite ninety-nine artists.
posted by Johnny Assay at 11:16 AM on August 27, 2006

Well, there's upcoming - but that requires that users submit listings.
posted by tommorris at 11:17 AM on August 27, 2006

I would suggest finding websites for your favorite venues. Most of them will have email lists that send out updates. Concert venues are usually pretty decent about having websites.
posted by ninjew at 11:29 AM on August 27, 2006

JamBase is great for smaller shows at small local venues, but it also has the best festival guide and pulls up larger shows too. It originally catered to jam bands, but it covers almost everything musically interesting. They'll also email you local updates.

Steely Dan is definitely covered by JamBase.
posted by trinarian at 11:50 AM on August 27, 2006

podbop, and you can get RSS feeds per city it looks like
posted by misterbrandt at 12:02 PM on August 27, 2006

Most bands have a mailing list, and they're usually pretty good about not spamming you too much. For example, Steely Dan has a newsletter. Plus, if there are any special presales, you'll find out about them first.

Ticketmaster will e-mail you when a band is coming to your town, but only use them as a last resort. They'll spam the hell out of you ("Hey, guess who's coming to your town! A band you told us you hate!"), and it's virually impossible to get them to stop.

When I miss a presale for a band I really, really want to see, I usually end up buying from eBay. I pay heavily for it, but it's easy, and there are usually plenty of good seats for sale.
posted by Sibrax at 12:13 PM on August 27, 2006

In New York, I find the Gothamist is pretty good for concerts and theater although they do not give much notice...In your area, they have a version for Houston and Austin (that also have a lot of links to other local info sources for entertainment).
posted by extrabox at 1:08 PM on August 27, 2006

I second the podbop recommendation. You can also get mp3s downloaded as podcasts, which really helps if you're looking to get into less well-known artists.
posted by bohdel at 1:20 PM on August 27, 2006

Some of your favorite venues may offer an RSS feed of their calendar of upcoming events. I subscribe to Burlington's Higher Ground feed to keep up with who is coming to the area.
posted by terrapin at 4:11 PM on August 27, 2006

I second upcoming, particularily if you are in a larger metro area.
posted by rsanheim at 4:51 PM on August 27, 2006

I like flavorpill a lot. it's free and available for a bunch of major -mostly US- cities.
posted by krautland at 5:34 PM on August 27, 2006

well there's this new service called tourb.us. jwz had it on his blog. i signed up but i havent had too much time to play with it.
posted by joeblough at 5:47 PM on August 27, 2006

I just started using tourfilter and it seems to work pretty well (it's only been abot a week of using it for me). They definitely cover Austin, not sure about the others.
posted by jdl at 6:15 PM on August 27, 2006

podbop doesn't seem to be working...
posted by gottabefunky at 10:04 PM on August 27, 2006

Try the tour promoter's websites. I'm on a few of their mailing lists and get emails about upcoming comcerts the day the are announced.
posted by cholly at 10:20 PM on August 27, 2006

Is it just me, or does Upcoming.org kinda suck? I mean, it's nice that they've got links out to maps and google calendar and stuff, but it kinda takes a multitude of clicks to do anything. The rss feed for a place is pretty crappy, too, requiring you to click through to the page on the site and then click the event again to see the information. Eventful.com seems much better.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 7:34 AM on August 28, 2006

I've been using Tourfilter in Boston and Portland and it rules.

It's incredibly simple to set up. You just type in the names of any band you want to see and your email adddress and it sends you mail when the show is announced.

I also subscribe to the ical thingamagig of my concerts. I know thay have some kind of sidebar script for your blog, too, which will show the next ten shows you might go to, for people who wish they were being stalked.

Anyhow, Tourfilter, Tourfilter, Tourfilter
posted by tracy_the_astonishing at 9:45 AM on August 28, 2006

The link to Tourfilter in the comment above mine is borked.
posted by tracy_the_astonishing at 9:46 AM on August 28, 2006

Thanks for the great recommendations - to give back here are my reviews of the suggestions:

Pollstar - Just what I needed for advance notice of touring shows. A bit noisy with "enterainment news" bits but not bad. Nice RSS feed which I dropped into my Bloglines reader -- a quick check every week or so and no great show will ever sneak past me. Comprehensive listing of tour dates in one place is handy.

Jambase - Looks to be the cream of the sites listing local/regional shows (at least for my area -- YMMV). Nice that you request the listings for an entire state and get them in one page -- something I was really looking for. This seems best for the "whaz happening 'round here this month" queries.

tourb.us - Seems really promising (especially the ability import your list of bands to watch from iTunes!) but right now is really light on content. Keep an eye on.

TicketsNow - The only ticket seller I've found that has an email subscription service that lets you filter on multiple cities and subcategories of music, sports, and theater (e.g. comedy->yes! ice capades->NO!!!)

Again, thanks for the great feedback.
posted by redunzl at 12:02 PM on August 28, 2006