Tamber iOS App Finds and Suggests Live Concerts Near You

Just by the nature of the iOS ecosystem, the Apple App Store sees the release of numerous third party applications with a wide array of uses and features. Apps come out every single day – many that offer the exact same slate of features, making competition difficult. And given the density of apps available – games, efficiency apps, health apps, and more — not all are successful. Some see moderate success, some sell 50 million or more, and others are downright failures.

Tamber, a concert recommendation and booking app, is fresh out of the App Store gate (as of June), and with so-far glowing reviews and high user ratings hooked to its belt. Labeled as “the first suggestion engine built for live music,” Tamber builds upon the features of suggestion platforms like Bing, but molds it into a functional experience for live music junkies.

And like most iOS apps, it’s completely free.

Getting started with Tamber is an elegant and simple process. All the app really wants out of you is a few straightforward answers: genres you listen to, artists you specifically enjoy, and where you’re located (but it does that automatically through GPS if you have it enabled). You even have the option to import your band ‘likes’ from Facebook (it added 45 artists for me, which is far easier than manually searching for them).

Thankfully, manual search is also a breeze. Any artist I looked up was found quite snappily, and bands that didn’t share a similar title with others automatically loaded up instead of appearing alone on a search page.

And while Tamber helps you find the big-name artists and their shows, it also suggests up-and-comers that might be of interest to you – and does so in a pretty remarkable way.

“We worked hard to make Tamber a super straightforward tool to find all the great music we’ve been missing, even though it’s playing right around the corner” says Alexi Robbins, Tamber’s CEO.

“The tickets to the big concerts are getting more expensive, so we also want to help people find the shows that are closer and have newer artists who charge a lot less. These can actually be the best shows to go to, but finding them takes a lot of work or connections.”

Finding these up-and-coming artists is possible by what the company calls their “secret sauce” for Tamber. When a recommendation is created for you, it’s created from not just a similar artist or song, but other artists who perform at concerts with that band, how close or far you are to the show, and more.

As a fan of Irish and Folk music, I’m continually disappointed that bands like Mumford and Sons, Flogging Molly, and miscellaneous folk groups hardly come to my town. But, with Tamber, I was notified within minutes of installing the app that an indie folk group was playing at a venue 20 minutes away, this weekend.

I bought tickets. That’s what Tamber is about. And I’m so onboard.

It’ll take time to see how and if Tamber takes off in live music lovers circles, but it certainly seems to be going about it in all the right ways. And since you can share concert details with anyone – even those who don’t have the app, it doesn’t get much easier to find, purchase, and share concerts with folks.