BandsinTown Plus: Bringing Live Music to You
Musicians and fans alike thrive on the live music experience. Seeing your favorite artist walk out on stage while you’re surrounded by thousands of people with the same excitement as you is an incomparable feeling.
Unfortunately, Covid-19 has put a pause on most in person live music for the foreseeable future. Bandsintown, the app that helps one find concert dates and live music events in their areas, is working to bring live music to the virtual world since it is difficult to imagine life without concerts and festivals.
Bandsintown is now offering a new feature called Bandsintown Plus. While Bandsintown already offers a Bandsintown Live feature on their Twitch account where you can watch select live videos for free, for $9.99 a month Bandsintown Plus gives users all-access to 25 virtual live shows per-month.
Local Natives, The Dirty Nil and Phoebe Bridgers are just a few of the artists that have performed on Bandsintown Plus. Each week multiple artists use this platform to stay connected to their fans and keep the live music experience alive.
Many college students are taking the opportunity to subscribe to the plus feature, so they can still have the “live music experience” even if it’s not in person. Hannah Gonzales, a political science junior, said that her and her roommates share one account and split the cost of the subscription.
“There’s a few artists I really like that have been doing concerts through Bandsintown. My roommates and I all have similar music taste so we just decided to split one account so we could watch them together,” said Gonzales.
However, while Bandsintown is doing their best to make the most of their virtual concert series, not everyone is on board with this online “live” setting. Animal science junior, Cameron Wyman, said she just doesn’t think it’s worth it to pay for shows online.
“I feel like if I really want to see them ‘live’ I can watch old concert videos of them performing. There’s just no artist I like enough to pay for a virtual concert right now,” said Wyman.
Gonzales on the other hand is trying her best to embody the in-person experience with her roommates as best as she can.
“We’ve made it a whole thing, where we get ready like we’re going to a real show even though it’s just in our living room,” said Gonzales.
