I was thinking of creating an anonymous ticketmaster account using public wifi since they block VPNs and just have them email me updates, but they required a phone number for the sign up so I scrapped that idea.
Edit: I decided to sign up for songkick as someone else here mentioned. It seems pretty polished and its entire purpose is concert discovery. It never asked for any unnecessary extra information either such as first and last name and phone number, just an email and a password and boom.
Actually it’s super easy.
Step 1: be poor
Step 2: come to terms that you don’t have, and likely will never have, enough disposable no income to afford 50 dollar tickets to a concert
Bonus optional step 3: be poor enough that you’ll be unlikely to live in a city where musicians will come, even if you found some money. Then you definitely won’t have gas money to drive there and see them. :)
It’s fool proof.
Even better, the tickets are nowhere near $50 most of the time anymore
I remember buying concert tickets for me and my gf for under $20. For both.
Fuck Ticketmaster.
Depends on the artist and venue. I very rarely pay 50€ or more. 20-35 is my usual price range.
Being poor is sad. The are always cheap or free local performances, they’re pretty cool. Also, I come from !fuckcars to tell you to get a bike.
Free perhaps, not really local. I love an hour from the nearest city. Lol.
I do have a bike… but it’s more reserved for riding up and down my own road for weight loss purposes. My county is rural, and does not have side walks or bike lanes, and the nearest store to me 15 miles. I am not capable of making of that ride, even if it were safe to do so.
But in principle, I fully agree. Fuck cars, fuck car culture, and fuck the governments for not doing more to make bikes a feasible option.
the nearest store to me is 15 miles. I am not capable of making that ride
Shitty bike infrastructure aside, depending on what your local geography is like (sorry if you’re in a very hilly area) you might be surprised how quickly you can build up to that if you make it your goal.
I’m fat, in my 30s, and until just about this time last year I had basically never ridden a bike (rode one a little bit as a kid, took the training wheels off, did a couple quick laps around an empty parking lot, then didn’t touch one again for 20-some years, I would not really have counted myself as someone who could ride a bike with those credentials) and I recently did my personal longest bike ride of over 17 miles. I haven’t been trying too hard, I get out maybe once or twice a week if I’m lucky, took basically the whole winter and a good chunk of the spring off from riding, and I just try (not always successfully) to push myself a little harder every time I get out.
I still have a long ways to go, that ride was mostly flat, if I come across any significant hill I’m still mostly getting off halfway and walking the rest of the way up, and I was definitely feeling pretty beat-up by the end, but I’m pretty impressed with the progress I made over the last year, especially since I don’t really feel like I had to put in a whole lot of effort to get here.
Doesn’t do much for being able to use your bike for actual transportation if the roads aren’t bike friendly (and I feel that, I’m in a semi-rural area myself, if it weren’t for the fact that I live very close to a decent bike trail that goes a long way in either direction and even links up with a few other trails, I wouldn’t feel comfortable riding more than about a half mile from my house with the way roads are near me) but it does still open up your options a bit. I’m starting to bring my bike places with me and using it to get around once I’m there and looking into bike sharing options for when I go on longer trips and can’t bring my bike with me.
That’s amazing! Honestly, as someone who struggles with weight, I understand how difficult that kind of task can be. Congratulations, and I am proud of you, internet stranger. Keep it up!
And I’m in the hilliest part of TN, sadly. I live on a road that has about 400 feet of flat enough ground for me to ride on, but luckily it’s just us out here, and one neighbor who has a visitor/leaves maybe twice a week, so I get to ride there 400 feet (120 meters in new money, if you’re so inclined) fairly embarrassment free, which is nice. But but unfortunately, the head of my road links up with a main thoroughfare that brings traffic from the nearest city for people coming from/going to work and such. Apart from that, there’s a bike trail that I use sometimes, but it’s only about 3 times the distance I can ride before I have to get off the bike. I’m hoping to build up to the hills, but to be honest with ya, I’m just not up to even minor hills yet. :/ I’d like to get a stationary bike to help build up to that in an embarrassment free environment. I’m super self conscious being the fat guy out there huffing and puffing because of a 4 foot incline. :/
Try songkick.com or bandsintown.com to watch for upcoming shows. You can track artists, venues, and cities. Song kick is more flexible for tracking multiple cities. They have mobile apps or just plain old email alerts.
If you connect songkick to last.fm you will get notifications for any artists you listen to, without explicitly following each one.
I believe you can also connect Spotify
Second this. Every few months, I go on songkick and look through all the artists dropping by my city and nearby areas for the next 3 months, then buy tickets for whatever shows I’m interested in from there.
This but I just gave them my email to let me know when bands I like are in my area. Super easy to use and very reliable. Even has tiny shows in community centers listed for me
I use Bandsintown and while it’s worked well most of the time I’ve encountered a few screw ups. Always confirm before buying tickets
It usually goes “Cool! That band is gonna… Oh it was last week… Fuck…”
Followed by “who are the cool bands now?”
I subscribe to email newsletters of local venues and production companies as well as a few of my favorite bands.
Most bands I care about have a website and an email distribution list. Most venues I enjoy also send out their upcoming events by email.
Now excuse me, there is a cloud I must go yell at.
Yup this is the way.
What makes you think I’m willing to pay to stand in a room full of people?
I went to a concert once, I am glad to announce that I’m willing to pay not to stand in a room full of people
Their website. I don’t have that many favorite music artists. Checking them out once a year to see that they won’t be performing anywhere close to me satisfies this desire 100%.
I hate concerts. I don’t want to be hard of hearing later in life. Drinks cost too much. Bathrooms have a line and smell awful. Thousands of people.
I’ve been to 5 or so in my life and each time I regret it and hate the whole experience. Even artists I really like. They just sound better in a quiet studio.
I don’t understand the appeal. Can someone explain it to me please?
Some artists perform really well live. My first concert was Rush when I was 14 and that was amazing. Also they sell earplugs for concerts that lower the DB to a safe level while still maintaining clarity. You can always pregame too so you don’t spend too much on drinks
You can always pregame too so you don’t spend too much on drinks
I suspect being drunk an arrival is a large part of being able to tolerate the experience.
Live a little
Being surrounded by a bunch of people that are all excited about the same thing as you can be a really great experience for some people. It can make you feel like you’re a part of a community. Add in music you really like, some friends or people you might meet, perhaps a mind-altering substance of some sort, and for a lot of people, that’s a really fun time. If you just generally don’t like dealing with people though, yeah, it’s not gonna be your thing.
Being around the people who enjoy the same thing as you and having a good time together. It’s a social event.
I dont, lol.
I only ever listen to stuff online and then buy it if I really enjoy it.
BandsInTown
I love the efforts you all go through to ensure you never lump reddit and lemmy in with the rest of is peers.
Neither Reddit nor lemmy meet the actual requirements of social media.
- Knowing the people you are talking to. Both Reddit and lemmy are anonymous
- Status updates on some sort of timeline.
Lemmy and Reddit are forums of forums, and if you want to get more specific they’re link aggregators. Nobody ever called the car forum you visited to ask for car help “social media” because it wasn’t and still isn’t. Same applies to lemmy and Reddit.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
"I’m not on social media just (insert social media company name).
I don’t. Thanks for reminding me that I should check from time to time. I usually used to use goout.net.
Browse the event listings of venues i frequent
Yep they often have mailing lists.
And Bandcamp if the artists are on there.
When I have anywhere near enough time or money free to worry about shit like that I start googling it and then maybe 8 months later I can make something happen.
My wife tracks them for me. I’m not a fan of live concerts. But my wife enjoys them, so she actively searches for concerts in our area and notifies me when a band we both like is passing through.
