Songkick launches comprehensive guide to gigs

Today saw the launch of the industry’s first comprehensive live music recommendation site targeted at the live music events market.

Songkick is a easy way of keeping track of what bands are playing where. It scans the internet and your music library and lets you know when a band or artist you like is playing in your area.

Handily enough it also provides you with a link to a ticket vendor.

Songkick.com is a website focused on providing a concert resource online, meeting fans’ live music needs. It aims to keep fans informed about live acts in their area but also aims to broaden their musical taste by suggesting gigs it thinks the user might enjoy.

Founded by three young entrepreneurs that love music but found a surprising lack of online tools for discovering live shows, Songkick founders hope to make going to gigs as easy as going to the cinema.

“Just about everyone enjoys music, yet so many people don’t go to concerts regularly because it’s tedious to keep up with local show listings, tour dates and where to buy tickets,” says Ian Hogarth, Songkick CEO and co-founder. “Songkick wants to change the way people think about their Friday nights by making it as easy to find a good show as it is to find a good movie.”

Some of the features on Songkick include, concert recommendations, tour tracking, one click tickets (which includes direct links to ticket inventory from 16 vendors across the US and UK, providing a decent price comparison) and a Battle of the Bands feature that graphs a band’s popularity based on their MySpace page, Amazon sales and blog buzz.

Unfortunately it doesn’t include Ireland but UK readers can visit Songkick here.