Timbre: Elegantly Simple Local Concert Discovery

As
live concerts continue to be the bread and butter of any musician’s business
model these days, any and all new technologies that comes along to help people
attend more shows are welcomed entries to the space. A New iOS app called
Timbre takes a remarkably simple approach by giving users a quick preview of
exactly what they’ll be hearing at nearby shows should they attend and then
facilitates the ticket buying process – that’s it. It does so without requiring
any logins or social integrations and is completely free.

What
makes Timbre stand out is the fact that is has such a simple interface and user
experience. It provides you with a list of artists performing nearby that
display after allowing it to access to your phone’s location or by
manually entering a ZIP code. The names of the artists are then displayed in a
scrolling “river” of information, showing you concerts organized by date that
begin with tonight and moving forward into the future as the user scrolls down.

Once
you select an artist, a new page opens up that automatically streams one of
their songs along with album artwork and concert details (including buy links).
Timbre does this by using Apple’s free preview API to present 30-second clips
of any given artist’s top tracks for streaming and utilizes Jambase to pull the
concert information.

Click images to enlarge:

Cambridge,
MA-based Intrepid
Pursuits, developers of Timbre, plan on delivering full tracks
and even playlists once they get their licensing deals in order. As of now, the
app generates revenue through affiliate links, specifically by redirecting users
to the ticket selling websites, but the company says that other methods for
revenue generation are in the works, such as partnering directly with publishers and venues, or potentially white-labelling the app.

Timbre faces competition
from apps that are already doing a tremendous job of finding the right shows
for local music fans such as DeliRadio, ThrillCall and WillCall. While each of
these offers their own unique advantages and disadvantages with varying degrees of platform depth, Timbre’s main draw rests in its simplicity and
its user experience.

An Android
version should be expected soon.

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