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Bandsintown opens its music event listings to venues and festivals
Bandsintown is helpful if you want to find out when your favorite group is playing nearby, but it's not as authoritative as you might like when the venues themselves have had to resort to targeted campaigns to get the word out. Thankfully, it's about to get much better. The live music discovery service has announced that venues and festivals can set up their official pages, including an option for them to add and modify events. They won't have to wait to announce a new gig or make a last-minute change. And crucially, you could discover gigs you weren't aware of just by visiting the venue page.
Facebook is working on VR 'Venues' for live concerts
Mark Zuckerberg wants virtual reality to be less isolating, so Facebook is working on "Venues." Think of them like VR social spaces where you can meet up with friends to watch concerts like the ones Live Nation is pumping out. Venues make a lot of sense when you consider Facebook's push for live video, sports and putting things like VR streams and 360-degree photos and video into the News Feed. Zuckerberg said that Venues will also play host to movie and TV premieres as well.
Stream Austin City Limits performances live this weekend
Summer might be over, but there's still a couple music festivals on tap. If you can't make it to the Lone Star State, Austin City Limits is partnering with Red Bull TV to stream a weekend of music starting at 3:05 PM ET today with Asleep at the Wheel. The stage keeps rocking through the weekend with Louis the Child, Gorillaz (above), Run the Jewels and Teaxs' own The Black Angels, among a smattering of other performers.
Live Nation’s Messenger bot finds concerts you won’t want to miss
Entertainment company Live Nation is making it easier to find concerts you'll actually be interested in with a tailor-made gig-finding experience that learns your location and musical preferences. Open the Concert Finder bot through Messenger, search your favorite artists or musical genre and over time it'll learn your preferences, so you can consult the bot about upcoming shows that you might actually want to go to, rather than sifting through thousands of maybes. The more you use it, the smarter it gets. And once you've found a show you're interested in you can pull friends into the interface to chat about logistics and tickets, which you can then purchase directly through Messenger (if you've already got a Live Nation account you can link it up for faster check out). There are dozens of Facebook Messenger bots out there that claim to make your life easier, but if you're a live-music fan, this one could prove genuinely useful.
Yale's next concert brings your phone into the performance
Normally, bringing out your smartphone at a classical concert is a surefire way to get kicked out, or at least receive some disapproving stares from everyone in the room. Not so at the Yale Concert Band's next performance, though. When it holds its season-opening concert on October 6th, it'll want you to keep your phone out for a key segment. The band is performing Cody Brookshire's "Honeycomb," which uses any web-capable mobile device as part of the performance -- what you see on stage is just one part of a much larger show.
Spotify's music event picks up where Apple left off
Apple may believe that hosting music festivals is old hat, but don't tell that to Spotify. It just announced Who We Be, an event based around the popular hip-hop and grime playlist (it has 143,000 subscribers) of the same name. The November 30th gathering takes place at London's Alexandra Palace, and will have some of the UK's best-known artists from the scene, including Dizzee Rascal (above), Bugzy Malone and Giggs. If you're intrigued, tickets go on sale 10AM local time on September 11th.
Apple ends its annual music festival after 10 years
Apple's London music festival (first the iTunes Festival, later the Apple Music Festival) has practically become a fixture of the entertainment scene since it got started in 2007. Like it or loathe it, though, you're going to have to say goodbye. The company informs Music Business Worldwide that it's no longer offering the annual London concert series. We've asked it to elaborate on the decision, but it appear to be a reflection of Apple's shifting priorities in the streaming music era.
Coldplay's Chicago concert will stream live in VR on August 17th
If you weren't already convinced that live VR concerts are hitting the mainstream, you might be now. Samsung is partnering with Live Nation (which is no stranger to the concept) to offer a Coldplay concert in VR on August 17th at 9:30PM Eastern. If you have a Gear VR headset, you can watch Chris Martin and crew take to the stage in Chicago with an extra level of immersion. There will also be a replay available "for a limited time" afterward if it clashes with your schedule.
Microsoft powers a DJ’s live show with a Surface Book and Kinects
When it comes to live shows, the visuals are key to making a lasting impression. I'd even argue that what you see is just as important as the quality of the music. It is a performance, after all. Touring musicians employ all kinds of A/V gear in an attempt to offer a unique experience for concertgoers. For years, some acts have turned to Microsoft's Kinect camera to capture movement live, translating that to graphics on a video display, among other things. To make the camera-based setup more portable, Microsoft teamed up with DJ Alison Wonderland to create a simplified Kinect-driven system that runs primarily on a Surface Book.
Watch Ariana Grande's benefit concert live on Twitter and YouTube
Pop star Ariana Grande is hosting a benefit concert on June 4th to help victims of the Manchester terrorist attack, and you'll have plenty of ways to both watch and contribute online. The gig will livestream at 2PM Eastern (7PM local time) on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and iHeartRadio. If you want to pitch in, Twitter will have a dedicated donation tab alongside the concert feed. You can also contribute directly to the British Red Cross' Manchester fund if you'd prefer to skip the concert altogether.
Aphex Twin's first concert livestream includes online-only visuals
Aphex Twin (aka Richard D. James) may have a reputation as a tech-savvy artist, but he hasn't exactly embraced livestreaming. You've usually had to attend one of his concerts to see him venture beyond his album cuts. At last, though, you'll get to see him perform live... and then some. He's hosting his first-ever livestreamed concert at London's Field Day Festival at 8:55PM local time (3:55PM ET) on June 3rd, and this isn't just the usual feed that shows the stage performance and nothing else.
Ticketmaster shows you the view from any seat in the house
When you buy a ticket to a concert or sports event, you want to make sure your view is a good one. The days of peering at a line drawing of a venue's seating plan to figure that out could soon be a thing of the past. Ticketmaster confirmed to Engadget today that its new Virtual Venue technology is ready to roll out. Created by Io-Media, Virtual Venue uses gyroscopic and panoramic views to show you the view from any seat in the stadium or concert hall. The technology is now integrated into Ticketmaster's desktop and mobile sites. There are currently 110 venues across North America with the capability.
A 'Purple Rain' concert film may be the next streaming exclusive
The Prince estate is trying to interest a major music streaming service in the exclusive rights to an unreleased concert film. It was recorded in a Minneapolis nightclub just prior to, and containing songs from, his 1984 movie Purple Rain. There's additional footage on the table, too -- enough to make a documentary about the filmed show. The potentially multimillion-dollar deal hasn't been finalized, but the estate is shopping the goods around to non-Spotify streaming providers like Apple Music, according to Billboard.
Raise the horns for Anthrax and Killswitch Engage in VR tonight
There really isn't anything like being on the floor during a heavy metal show. The smell of sweat, spilled beer and, ahem, greener substances combine to form one of the more unique aromas in live music. But as enticing as that may be, sometimes you just can't make it to a concert for one reason or another. If you're a fan of thrash, Live Nation and NextVR have something right up your alley planned for 9pm Eastern tonight: an interactive broadcast of Anthrax and Killswitch Engage's show from the House of Blues in Texas.
'Zelda' concert tour to celebrate 'Breath of the Wild'
If you love The Legend of Zelda, or appreciate top video game tunes, there's nothing like a Symphony of the Goddesses performance. The live, orchestral concert series has dazzled fans of Link and Hyrule for the past five years, with epic renditions of classic tracks from A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time and more. Today, concert organiser Jason Michael Paul Entertainment has announced the dates for the 2017 Tour. It's also teased some set list changes, including a new piece from Breath of the Wild, an "all-new movement" from Skyward Sword and an updated overture.
Kanye West says Facebook and Google 'lied to you'
You're not the only one upset that the internet might have misled you. Kanye West cut short a Sacramento concert with an epic 15-minute speech where he railed against the state of the music industry, politics, and... the internet. The superstar says that people feel like they lost (due to the election, among other issues) because Facebook and Google "lied to you." He even calls out Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg by name around the 12-minute mark. Supposedly, the internet mogul reneged on a promise that he "would help" Kanye and then decided to "look for aliens." We're not sure where that last part comes from, since Facebook's out-there projects are largely limited to Earthly concerns like solar-powered internet drones.
Justin Timberlake's concert film debuts on Netflix October 12th
As the streaming wars rage on, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix and others continue to add to their libraries. Today, Netflix announced via Twitter that Justin Timberlake's concert film will debut on the service October 20th. Officially titled Justin Timberlake and The Tennessee Kids, the title is the performance from the Las Vegas stop of the singer's 20/20 Experience Tour. This only pads Netflix's music-focused exclusives, following A Very Murray Christmas, Keith Richards: Under the Influence, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead on Steve Aoki and What Happened, Miss Simmone.
Bowie tribute concert at Radio City will be streamed on Skype
A pair of concerts will offer a tribute to David Bowie in New York City this week, and you'll be able to stream one of them. Due to "unprecedented interest," concert organizers are teaming up with Skype and Ammado so that Bowie fans around that world can watch live performances from Radio City Music Hall on April 1st. This is actually the second show, added after the response for the first event that's set for Thursday at Carnegie Hall. The Carnegie Hall date for "The Music of David Bowie," a tribute show that will raise money for music education, was announced just before the singer passed away in January. Both nights sold out immediately.
'Minecraft' gets its first live concert
Minecraft has had its share of real-world crossovers, but nothing quite like this. Norway's annual The Gathering tech conference is hosting a live concert both in real life and in Minecraft tonight at 9PM local time (4PM Eastern), with volunteers mimicking the artists in Minecraft as they parade around the stage. And this isn't a small production, either -- AlunaGeorge, Broiler and Lemaitre are on deck, so you should be in for a good time whether you're looking at the real artists or their blocky avatars.
Watch Intel's record-setting drone light show
Intel talked a big game when it said that it set a Guinness World Record for the most drones controlled by a single person, but it now has the evidence to back up that braggadocio. Guinness has posted a video of the feat, which saw 100 drones perform a light show (coordinated by Intel software, of course) while humans played Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 on the ground. Is it a publicity stunt? Absolutely. But it's still fun to watch, and it's proof that drone swarms are easier to control than ever.
