Mastodon + Clutch + Red Rocks and tickets with depth

M

Mastodon.Ticket.Red.Rocks

Back on May 3rd, I attended my first metal concert in many many moons. The show featured Mastodon + Clutch. (Two sounds that are VERY different. Prog Rock ≠ Funk Metal.) I don’t listen to metal any longer but definitely appreciate the culture. Metal fans are a tightly knit community and I saw many who appeared to be old friends. (The average age of the audience was 30+ and I saw very few teens.) The show was at Red Rocks, which is the best place in the world to see a concert. Being there made me nostalgic for concerts and reminded of a little ritual I had.

When I was younger I kept the concert tickets to the shows I’d been to.  I’d put them in the tape cases/CD cases. This was something I started doing pretty early on after my first show in 81. (Yes kids. There was rock back in 81.) I was excited when I received my Mastodon + Clutch tickets in the AXS app. The ticket is to the right and is an great combination of the concert poster artwork, QR code to get into the show, the ability to share the tickets if you bought more than one – which I did – an option to listen to a track by Mastodon. This got me to thinking about tickets, specifically tickets to events. Events are arguably the most important part of social media these days with mobile reigning supreme. Of course – not being one to leave well enough alone – I started to think about what this ticket should be. Here’s what I would do.

  • I love the concert poster at the top of the ticket. Concert posters are an amazing art form. (I need to buy Art of Rock: The Poster Explosion.) I would make it a higher res image that could be saved and made a background image for a mobile phone. I would also give the user the option to buy the concert poster. I would have gladly bought one. It would be cool if you could swipe left/right on the poster and see other versions of their concert posters for sale. If you bought one, you could pick it up at the venue or have it shipped to your home.
  • The “ticket” is next and it should be a barcode along the bottom of the concert poster. (Narrow in height.)
  • Right below that would be the option to share the tickets you bought. Sharing would be done by mobile number(s) and painfully easy to revoke if someone fat-fingered the number.
  • The details around the event should still come next but you would have the option to turn on push alerts to remind you or the concert date. 2 weeks out, 1 week out, 3 days out and the morning of the concert. (Of course this would go to your smartwatch as well.) Also, it should put something in your calendar. I’d also make the font bigger. Mobile can be about artfulness but in this section, it’s about information.
  • The next section would let you decide which band you’d like to hear: Mastodon or Clutch. Once you selected one, it would have a songs from Soundcloud or YouTube: wherever the best version is. Of course you’d have links to be able to buy any songs that you heard.
  • Lastly, I’d allow people to attach content they’d created, liked and/or shared to the ticket. Instagram photos, Vine videos, etc. Once the concert was over, I’d let users upload it to the social venue of their choice. Facebook, Twitter or SoundCould. This little data nugget would be pretty cool to share.

And now, for the soothing sounds of Mastodon. (The drummer is unreal.)

By Michael Myers