Live Nation At The Concert

Review by eFreeware

If live music is a regular part of your calendar, the Live Nation app is built for you. It is a free Android app from Live Nation Worldwide that handles the whole arc of a concert: finding shows, buying tickets, keeping them on your phone and getting the details you need on the night. Rather than juggling a ticketing site, an email confirmation and a venue page, you get one place to look.

What appeals to me most is the paperless angle. The developer describes mobile entry, where your phone is your ticket at participating venues, and an offline mode so you can still pull up your tickets when the signal is weak. For anyone who has stood outside a stadium hunting for a barcode, that combination is the reason to install it. The app has been available since June 2012 and has more than a million installs, with a 4.5 average across roughly 25,000 ratings, so it is not a niche experiment.

Buying tickets without leaving the app

At its core, this is a ticketing app. You can buy tickets for concerts and festivals from inside it, at any hour, rather than waiting until you are back at a computer. That matters when a show you want goes on sale while you are out to dinner or on a lunch break, and the app is positioned as the quickest route to a purchase.

The feature I would use first is the password-free presale. Presales usually mean tracking down a code in a fan club email or a mailing list before you can buy, and the developer's pitch here is that you skip that step and buy from the app instead. For someone who follows a handful of artists and wants early access without the admin work, that is a meaningful convenience.

Beyond the purchase itself, the app acts as a hub for what is happening. It covers concerts, festivals, livestreams and venues, so it doubles as a way to see what is coming up rather than only a checkout counter. I would expect that to suit people who like browsing listings and deciding on the fly, not just those who already know exactly which show they want.

Your phone as the ticket

Mobile entry is the feature that changes the day of the show most. Instead of printing anything or collecting a ticket at will call, you show the ticket on your phone at participating venues. The developer pairs this with an offline mode, so the ticket is still viewable when the network is slow or limited. Anyone who has tried to load a barcode in a packed arena concourse will understand why that matters.

Tickets are not locked to one person either. You can buy, sell and transfer Ticketmaster verified tickets through the app, which is useful when plans change or when you are organizing a group. That resale and transfer layer is often the fiddliest part of concert planning, so having it in the same place as the purchase is a sensible arrangement.

The asterisk on these features is worth repeating plainly: mobile entry and Premium Seats apply at participating venues, not everywhere. Premium Seats, which the app gives access to, is likewise venue-dependent. So the experience is strongest where the app's partners are, and thinner elsewhere.

Ordering at the venue and Premium Seats

Two smaller features round out the picture. The first is ordering food and drinks at venues from the app, which the developer frames as a way to skip the lines. If you have ever missed the opening song because you were queuing at a bar, the appeal is obvious, though again this depends on the venue supporting it.

The second is Premium Seats access. This is not a feature I can describe in detail beyond what the developer states, but it sits alongside the ticketing tools as another reason to keep the app installed between shows rather than deleting it after each purchase.

Together these features point to a fairly specific idea of the app: not just a store, but a companion for the whole evening. Whether that lands for you depends on how often the venues you visit participate.

What it asks of you

The trade-offs here are mostly about scope rather than cost. The app is free, carries no ads and offers no in-app purchases, which is unusual for a ticketing product and removes the usual friction. You are not paying for the convenience of mobile entry or presale access.

The real constraint is the venue asterisk. Mobile entry, Premium Seats and the in-app ordering all apply at participating venues, so the app's usefulness varies with where you go. If your concert habit centers on small independent rooms, the ticketing and entry features may not come into play as often as they would at larger venues.

There is also the nature of the thing: this is a ticketing app. Transfers and resales run through verified tickets, so it is designed around that world rather than as a neutral listings aggregator. That is not a flaw, but it does define who gets the most from it.

The concertgoer this fits

I would point this app at people who go to shows often enough that ticketing admin has become a chore. If you are regularly buying for arenas, amphitheaters and festivals, and you want presales without hunting for codes, tickets on your phone and a way to hand a ticket to a friend, the pieces line up.

It also suits the planner in a group. Being able to buy, transfer and resell verified tickets in one app means the person organizing does not have to coordinate several tools. For occasional attendees who go to one show a year, the app will still work, but the conveniences matter less.

The recent update is a maintenance one: bug fixes and under-the-hood improvements. Nothing new to learn, which is reassuring for an app whose value is reliability on the night.

A practical pick for regular concertgoers

The Live Nation app earns a place on the phone of anyone who buys concert tickets more than once or twice a year. It is free, has no ads and no purchases, and it consolidates buying, presales, mobile entry, transfers and venue ordering into one place. The offline ticket view is the standout, because it addresses the moment the app is most needed.

The caveat is that its best features depend on participating venues, so your mileage tracks where you see music. If your calendar is full of shows at venues that support mobile entry and in-app ordering, this is an easy install. If your gigs are mostly elsewhere, the app is still a fine way to buy and browse, just with fewer of the extras in play.

With more than a million installs and a 4.5 average from around 25,000 ratings, it has clearly found its audience. For the frequent concertgoer, that audience makes sense.

What's new in version 11.1.1

Under the hood improvements and bug fixes