[Austria] Setlist.fm, a popular music service striving from Austria but operating from Liechtenstein, have released an API that enables developers to gain access to more than 96,000 concert setlists and a host of other concert-related data.
The site itself comes as a wiki-style free repository of a wide range of setlists, which are made shareable with a nifty and well-designed widget that keeps the spirit of a seemingly handwritten setlist.
Setlist.fm has yet to take investment but claims to be the “world’s biggest collection of setlists” and contains various social features, offering its users a rewarding online experience even if they haven’t attended a specific concert. Additional features include lyrics that pop-up (which are pulled in from the startup’s other online property songtexte.com) or a statistics tool, showing which song has been played, how often and at which venue. Besides the user-generated content, they are also utilising some data from Last.fm.
For developers rather than concert-goers there are numerous possibilities offered by the setlist.fm API. Not only access to the setlists themselves, but also additional data such as tours, artists and venues. With the lauch, the startup has also managed to get some known and not so known brands to integrate their API, most notably US-based Bands in Town, a service that gives you a decent overview of what’s happening in your hometown in terms of gigs.
Successful competitors, such as well-funded Songkick, show that tracking and suggesting concerts on the web is both a viable business and relevant to consumers. However it also shows that setlist.fm might need to start adding a broader range of features if they ultimately want to compete with the likes of Songick et al, which offer its users a more complex overview of artists and their concerts.