I recently stumbled onto the "Concerts" tab in Spotify, and am now convinced it's one of the best places to find and buy gig tickets. Not only can you find a wide selection of artists using this feature, you can also discover and buy tickets using Concerts in under five minutes.

This won't be the case for everyone. If you're searching for a specific artist, a specific venue, or tickets within a certain price range, you may end up browsing around for longer. We're not telling you to narrow your ticket-buying experience into five minutes. Instead, we're saying it's possible to find gig tickets in five minutes.

So, with disclaimer in place, here's how you can use Spotify to find and buy gig tickets.

My Experience Buying Gig Tickets on Spotify

While listening to Spotify the other day, I noticed the Concerts tab on the main "Browse" dashboard. Note that this tab does not appear if you are using the Spotify Web Player, even if you have a Premium account.

Spotify Concerts Page

When I clicked into the tab, I was expecting to find some tracks of artist live shows. Instead, I found a list of concerts happening near me in the next few days.

Better yet, Spotify recommended specific shows near me based on my Spotify listening history. I clicked into the "Details" for one of the artists. Less than five minutes later, I had the perfect show tickets, and was positively amazed by how smooth the whole experience was.

If you too want to make use of this tab, here are the best ways to explore it.

Find Gig Tickets Near You

This one's pretty simple. Just open your Spotify desktop player and click Concerts, as seen in the screenshot above.

OR pull up the Spotify app on your phone and tap into the Concerts tab there. This is perfect for those nights when you're in a new city or just looking for something spontaneous to do in your hometown. The app will show you concerts happening around you that night or within the next few days.

Check out any recommended shows for you. These will be based off of your Spotify playlists and listening history:

Spotify Concerts Recommended for You

Or scroll down to see what other gigs are popular near you:

Spotify Concerts Popular Near You

When you see a show you're interested in, click Details. A browser tab will open, and you'll be redirected to Songkick, where you can view the gig lineup, see the venue's street address, and buy tickets.

If you have a Songkick account, you can track the event and put off buying tickets until a later date. The site also lets you see how in-demand those particular tickets are so you can plan accordingly.

Depending on the artist, venue, etc. you can buy tickets through Ticketmaster or another ticket provider partnered with Songkick. I purchased my show tickets through Ticketfly and have nothing but good things to say about the experience.

Find Gig Tickets for a Different Location

If you feel like planning a trip around a concert or want to see what shows are scheduled for a trip you already have booked, just click the Change Location button inside the Concerts tab.

Spotify Concerts Change Location

Spotify's Concerts feature is also capable of finding gigs in other countries. However, for the most part it's limited to your home country.

I could find gigs by searching for major cities all across the U.S. But the only show that Spotify could find when I searched for a city in another country was a Justin Bieber concert. I find it difficult to believe that the only show Florence in Italy is staging in the next couple of weeks is one just for Beliebers. Which makes me think that you'd get better results if you were in Italy while running this search.

Find Gig Tickets to See a Specific Artist

If you care less about the location of the gig and more about what artist you're going to get to see, the Concerts tab is also visible from within artists' pages.

Just navigate to the artist's page and click Concerts to see upcoming show details.

Spotify Concerts Specific Artist

Room for Improvement

Overall the Concerts feature works really well and is a great tool for Spotify users to have access to. However, there are a few things that could be improved about it. Mainly, you should be able to click on venue names within the feature.

This could be something that's currently under development. But I found it a little annoying that I couldn't directly click on venues in Spotify to see what other shows were happening there. I was hoping that I would be able to not only see that information, but also get a nice breakdown of recommended artists for me playing at that venue. Or popular artists playing the venue in the near future.

I get that Spotify is a music-listening service and not a ticket-ordering service, but I think further integrating venue information into the feature would improve the overall user experience.

Who Will You See Live Next?

While Spotify Concerts certainly isn't a first-of-its-kind feature, it is an awfully convenient option for people already interested in music. Finding a suitable gig is easy, and the app is all ready to recommend your favorite artists' shows to you. All you have to do is decide which show you'll see first.

So, who will it be?

If you use the Concerts tab in Spotify, let us know what you think in the comments below. Whether you love it, hate it, or don't care either way!

Image Credits: The Art Friday/Shutterstock