In 2017, it was revealed over half of young people aged between 18 to 24 attended a gig alone. 38% of those said it was due to their friends not being free, with 37% stating it was due to their friends differing music tastes. Ruaridh Currie and his team are revolutionising the live music scene and addressing this burning problem in the industry with their latest platform, Rockifi.
Rockifi is a new social networking and ticket comparison site for fans of rock, metal and alternative music, offering unique features that have never before been on the market for music fans.
You simply create your profile, like you would on Facebook, and the hybrid ticket comparison and social network site does the rest with its unique algorithm, matching you with other profiles with similar taste in music. Don’t want to attend a gig or festival by yourself? Rockifi will find you that gig buddy in your area and the best part is, it’s 100% free.
Rockifi is partnered with some of the biggest names in tickets and events, selling rock concert and festival tickets first, at the best price. Once signed up to Rockifi, you can not only match with other people that like similar music, but you can track your favourite artists, be updated when their new tour dates or simply hanging out with other music fans.
We caught up with co-founder Ruaridh Currie about the project and more!
So how has the response been for the website so far?
It’s very early days, but so far positive with a healthy amount of suggestions for new features and improvements (we want as much feedback as possible early on to ensure we develop a site fans will like). We’ve only just begun marketing our initial launch and aim to keep adding features and enhancing the user experience as we go – for this we need passionate rock fans to sign up and let us know what they think!
So how did the idea come about in the first place?
As a lifelong fans or Rock & Metal, we’ve been waiting for a social/music based app or website exclusively aimed at the music we love, but it’s never happened until now. It seemed strange to us that their are a plethora of magazines and online news channels aimed at Rock & Metal fans, but there doesn’t seem to be much else in the way of social or ticket sites. There are a few Rock/Metal based dating websites that can be found on Google, but nothing that ties in dating with the social/ticket features.
Do you think this could revolutionise the way people plan gigs in the future?
Maybe, but if it doesn’t that’s not a problem – it’s just one of many great features on Rockifi we want to keep on developing, getting feedback and seeing how we can improve it. We’ll see if the demand is there once we have a large enough user base, or if other areas of Rockifi prove to be more popular.
Sometimes it’s nice to go to a gig on your own, what would say to people who have that outlook?
Go! – have fun! – I’ve been to several gigs in the last few years on my own, that in itself, can be a great experience – I do always have a moment where one of my favourite songs is being performed and I want to share the experience with someone else. I often see friends on Facebook who have a spare ticket for a gig and have no one to go with, so hopefully there are enough other people with the same predicament!
Are you looking to have any major bands, record labels involved in project?
Yes, we’d love to get a major band or record label involved. We are actively looking for the right band to work with on long term basis – we’ve only just begun looking into what this might look like for us and any band we work with, so if any record label people are reading this, feel free to get in contact!
What was the first gig you ever went to as a kid?
Good question! – it was actually an Edinburgh based rock band called Chicane. At school I had a supply teacher who’s brother was in the band, I guess he wanted to bulk out the audience, so took some of his students along! – great band, I think they were signed to Sub Pop’s UK label at the time.
Now the website is dubbed as The Tinder for Rock Fans, would you say there is a chance of people finding love too?
We hope so, but we’re not just about finding love, we want to make sure Rockifi is as inclusive as possible. We do see ourselves as more of a mixture of Bands in Town & Tastebuds.fm for rock fans to ensure casual rock fans (or rock fans in long term relationship) also enjoy using Rockifi as a place to find new music, buy tickets & make friends.
Is there any new features from the website that is in the works?
Yes! – we’ve a huge list of new features planned and some of them being carried out at the moment based on feedback from our initial launch. The initial feedback we’ve received so far is beginning to shape our short & medium term future. We’re actively working on additions to the gig buddy feature, adding the ability to add other members favourite bands to your own profile, and add some more fun gamification elements (you’ll have to wait and see what those are as we don’t want to give too much away!).
Are you looking forward to making a APP for this too?
We have plans for an iOS app down the line – our priority this year is getting the website & mobile web experience perfected and add new regions/languages (at the moment we are primarily marking to the UK and US regions only),