Songkick Now A Viable Ticket Alternative

Social concert and ticketing app Songkick recently announced that it passed the 10 million user per month mark who have purchased $100 million in tickets via the app since 2007. The service is growing rapidly and expects to sell another $100 this year alone.

Songkick has diversified its partnerships to YouTube, Google, BBC, Spotify, Vevo and other music related sites, which may account for its recent growth. The London-based company also reports that 60% of its traffic comes from mobile devices, and half of its users are in the United States.

This is an increasingly competitive section of the business, especially with band-oriented sites like ReverbNation, BadsInTown and Bandpage offering show listings, but the company not only offers personalized concert tracking, but retail and aftermarket sales, which makes it different from most other services.

The site lists more than 100,000 upcoming shows and over 1 million artists. The app is available for both iOS and Android, and provides a Facebook app as well.

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YouTube Introduces The Merch Store

It was only a matter of time for this to happen, but YouTube has launched a store for selling songs, concert tickets and merchandise. Named "The Merch Store," it features some very strong 3rd party partners who will supply the infrastructure:

• Topspin allows artists to sell merchandise, concert tickets and experiences
• Songkick provides the concert listings
• iTunes and Amazon provide the music downloads.

YouTube has also made a few changes to make it easier for indie labels to become YouTube partners and share revenue when their music is played, even with user generated content. You can get the signup form here.

I think this will be a great boon to artists and bands at all levels. Why? Because you can never have too many ways to distribute your product. Since so many fans use YouTube every day (they say 800 million!), your fans can now find your products within the YouTube infrastructure instead of having to navigate out to another site. It's much the same as with digital music. You don't trust your product only to iTunes, right? You spread it all around to any distributor that will have you. Same thing with merch, which is why The Merch Store should be a no-brainer for every artist and band.

One of the unknowns yet is the financial deal between YouTube, the affiliate partners, and artists. Hopefully we'll get more details soon.

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10 Cities With The Best Music Crowds

Songkick, the site that tracks live music, just released the ten best cities to listen to music, and perform it as well. This was based on the number of gigs available, audience sizes, and ticket prices. Based on these criteria, the cities were given a "Rock" score (the survey was more about rock music), with 100 being the best. There are a couple of surprises here.

1. Austin (Rock Score: 100; average ticket price $23.30)
2. Madison (78; $13.05)
3. New Orleans ( 57; $16.89)
4. Las Vegas (51; $62.76)
5. Denver (44; $33.24)
6. Milwaukee (38; $17.66)
7. Twin Cities (36; $11.36)
8. Seattle (35; $11.75)
9. Portland (OR) (35; $10.33)
10. Nashville (34; $20.13)

Although great music towns, I never would've expected Madison, Milwaukee, Portland or the Twin Cities to appear this high.

If you're an unknown band, that doesn't mean people will come to hear you play in these cities. You still have to do all the grunt work to build your visibility and audience. But if you're getting some traction already, these are definitely places to visit on your next tour.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.