Gigbox

Summary

Gigbox’s market description sounds pretty exciting:

"Find gigs based on your location, favorite artists, or venues and tweet about them to your friends.
Try the social live section where you can chat, rate, and upload photos during a live gig."

If all of this is true Gigbox really could be an awesome application. Read through this test review in order to find out whether it lives up to what it promises.
 

Okay, enough trying to build up the suspense already: in short, Gigbox doesn’t disappoint! It really does make it easy to find concerts in your area or – using the search function – in any city you’re interested in. You can also search for bands and performers and find out if they’re currently on tour and will be playing a show near you. Or else you can search for venues and find out who is due to perform there. You can bookmark artists and events as well as add upcoming concerts to your calendar. And if that isn’t enough you can also tweet about upcoming events and chat with others before or during concerts thanks to the Gigbox Live feature (provided that others are also using the feauture, of course).

All in all Gigbox offers a whole range of cool options, even though I do have one bone of contention with the app… see below for more details.

In order to get the most out of Gigbox you should start by setting up an account. You can do this using your phone. Alternatively, you could also log into Gigbox via your LastFM account, should you have one. Only once you’ve logged in can you access all the features Gigbox has to offer.

You can access the following via Gigbox’s main page:

• Watchlist Beta (keep track of musicians and their events)
• Attending events
• Bookmarks

Below this list you’ll find the following:

• About Gigbox
• Give Feedback
• Recommend Gigbox

There are three tabs in the lower half of the screen:

• Home
• Search
• Settings

You are within the Home tab. In order to search for concerts and events switch to Search and results will be listed according to your current location.

You will then see the following three tabs:

• Location
• Venue
• Artist

If you click on an event that matches your search criteria or has been recommended you’ll find further information (usually concerning artists, venue, and date) in the upper half of the screen. If you tick on I’m attending this event it will appear under Attending Events on the main screen.

Add to calendar does just that: it adds concerts you’re interested in to your calendar. The exact address of where the event is taking place as well as when it’s scheduled to start will also be indicated. And this is where I have a bone to pick: I don’t see these details anywhere in Gigbox itself. Trust me, I looked for them because I simply couldn’t believe that such important information wouldn’t be viewable at this point. I have to add an event to my calendar in order to see when and where a concert is taking place. At least you can find the address via the Show on map option.

Below this you’ll find the Tweet this event option. If you’ve inserted your Twitter account details you can easily tweet upcoming events.

The last option, Artists playing at this event, gives you some more details about the artists, including links, which I generally found to be quite informative.

The menu button also allows you to bookmark events.

When an event is taking place on the same day (indicated as Live in the events list) the Gigbox Live option becomes available. Log in order to chat with other users or in order to upload or look at pictures.

The Settings tab in the lower corner of the homescreen allows you to adjust details concerning your profile (alias, email, profile picture, password).

Furthermore, you can enter your Twitter account details and switch on the automatic synchronization of your Watchlist.

I like that you can also access your Gigbox via the website, www.mygigbox.com, so that you can look up events online and have the information on your phone.

Bottom line:
Gigbox provides a generous spectrum of options, but I’m not impressed that important practical information related to concerts (which is visible once an event had been added to the calendar) isn’t accessible within the app. However, the app’s general good performance and its über-useful features somewhat cancel out this point of criticism.

 

Perfect performance! No problems to report.

Gigbox can be downloaded free of cost from the Android Market.