In the past, attending a live concert often felt like a series of educated guesses. While showtimes were typically available, the precise moment a headliner would appear or conclude their performance was a mystery. Fans expected new album material but uncovering whether old favorites or rare tracks would be played required considerable effort. Discovering surprise covers or lesser-known gems was a challenge that only dedicated enthusiasts could master.
This is where Setlist.fm comes in. Operating like a wiki, the site relies on users to document the songs artists perform at each tour stop. It has blossomed into an extensive, real-time archive that also delves deep into musical history, featuring everything from Mozart’s performances to recent Chappell Roan concerts. Setlist.fm provides a wealth of statistics, revealing which songs are played most frequently, and when a specific track last made an appearance. More recently, the platform has started sharing data on average concert start times and overall set durations.
This readily available information has, predictably, reshaped the entire live music experience. Much like many technological advancements of the internet era, having an abundance of data at your fingertips can be both a blessing and a burden, as the artist Jay-Z once noted.
Artists can leverage Setlist.fm to ensure their performances remain fresh, avoiding repetition for returning audiences in a particular city. For concertgoers, it functions as a practical tool, helping them decide if a show is worth the cost, or to plan logistical details like bathroom breaks or babysitting schedules. Critics, however, sometimes lament how this digital transparency has stripped away some of the inherent mystery and spontaneous thrill of live performances.
Credit: Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
Setlist.fm possesses a curious quality of being both widely known and subtly influential. Information regarding its beginnings is not widely publicized online. However, Live Nation Entertainment, the site’s parent company, states that Setlist.fm was launched in 2008 by Molindo, an Austrian media agency also responsible for Songtexte, a German-language lyric database. Joe Fleischer, the publisher of Setlist.fm and head of a Live Nation studio focused on marketing content, describes the founders as “giant music fans and big data nerds.”
Live Nation quietly acquired Setlist.fm in 2010, publicly announcing the deal two years later. Fleischer, who previously worked as a music journalist, joined the company in 2011 after Live Nation purchased BigChampagne, another music data company he co-founded.
Fleischer explains that the site’s core mission is simply to be helpful: “That’s all it’s ever been, is about increasing utility, increasing our usefulness for fans.”
Lisa Currie, a 56-year-old data analytics expert from suburban Chicago, meticulously preserves her concert history. Her shelves are filled with ticket stubs from hundreds of shows. Since discovering Setlist.fm around 2017, she’s digitally cataloged her entire concert attendance, using the site as a valuable backup. “I was always worried, ‘What if I lost these tickets?'” she shared.
Setlist.fm’s growth was exponential, fueled by continuous user contributions. In 2012, it housed over 400,000 setlists for 24,000 artists, attracting 1.5 million monthly visitors. Today, Live Nation reports that the site boasts more than 9 million setlists for 400,000 artists, with 80 million annual users. A new setlist is added every 20 seconds. Fleischer highlights the deep engagement, noting that users spend an average of eight minutes on the site, indicating a “really heavily engaged community.”
Credit: The New York Times
Setlist.fm operates with a team of about a dozen dedicated to editorial, marketing, and engineering efforts, as noted by Fleischer. The platform expanded its offerings several years ago by introducing news articles, followed by the addition of live set times in 2021. More recently, Setlist.fm launched a “dark mode” feature, enhancing user experience by allowing them to browse content without the glare of a bright screen.
The allure of setlists from major artists has significantly boosted the site’s visibility. Fleischer recalls that during Taylor Swift’s 2023 Eras Tour launch in Glendale, Arizona, approximately 700,000 people were simultaneously refreshing the site, marking its highest traffic surge to date.
Massive stadium and arena shows, like those by Taylor Swift, rely on intricate, unchanging productions involving moving stages, complex lighting, and numerous costume changes. This consistency means fans often know the setlist from opening night. To maintain excitement and offer unique elements, artists such as Swift, Dua Lipa, Lady Gaga, Fall Out Boy, and the Jonas Brothers have started incorporating “surprise” songs or special guest appearances into their performances. Similarly, when Oasis embarked on their sold-out stadium tour this summer, their setlists, rich with B-sides and deep album cuts, generated extensive fan discussion.
John Darnielle, frontman for the Mountain Goats, admits to checking Setlist.fm almost nightly to ensure variety in his solo sets. He acknowledges that his younger self would have fiercely guarded the element of surprise, but he emphasizes that the site alone isn’t responsible for fundamental shifts in concert dynamics. Today, artists can’t simply try out new material onstage without it being immediately recorded and shared widely. “That’s not a Setlist.fm issue,” he stated, “That’s an an internet issue.”
Despite its popularity, Setlist.fm has drawn criticism from some corners. Roger Daltrey, the lead singer and co-founder of The Who, expressed last year that readily available setlists have “ruined” live shows for him, lamenting the “no surprises left” aspect of modern concerts, as he told Billboard. In a similar vein, Jack White publicly responded to fan demands for longer sets during his recent tour, asserting on Instagram: “There’s no setlist, and it’s not a Marvel movie. It’s rock and roll and it’s a living breathing organism.”
In a subsequent statement, Daltrey clarified that the broader impact of social media and the internet has diminished a band’s ability to create unexpected moments for audiences. He suggested that before the digital age, “the power of word of mouth left people more room for imagination, and enjoyment.” Jack White’s spokesperson declined to provide further comment.
Credit: Carl De Souza/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Addressing the loss of mystery in live music, Fleischer acknowledged it as an “existential” concern but noted that his team receives few complaints on the matter. He lightheartedly added, “One of the things we hear is, like, we’re good at the bathroom-break planning.” While respecting Daltrey’s “valid position,” Fleischer suggests that fans who wish to preserve the element of surprise can simply choose to consult setlists only after a performance.
While Setlist.fm does feature advertisements, this revenue likely constitutes only a minuscule fraction of the $896 million profit reported last year by its parent company, Live Nation. As a corporate giant, Live Nation stands as the world’s largest concert promoter and also owns Ticketmaster. The company does not disclose specific revenue or earnings for Setlist.fm. A Live Nation spokesperson affirmed, “The Setlist.fm core focus is on deepening fan engagement around concerts, which we believe fuels greater interest in the live experience, leading to increased attendance.”
(It’s worth noting that Live Nation is currently embroiled in legal battles, including a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission concerning alleged illegal ticket resale tactics, and an antitrust suit from the Justice Department accusing the company of operating as a monopoly that stifles competition and inflates ticket prices for consumers.)
A dedicated team of volunteer moderators ensures the accuracy and organization of Setlist.fm’s vast user-generated content. Martin Lefebvre, a 28-year-old government statistician in Paris and a moderator for nearly a decade, expresses his passion for data: “I love putting numbers on everything.” He dedicates about 30 minutes daily to meticulously checking setlists for errors, even minor ones like incorrect capitalization. “Why I do this is because I want the site to be perfect,” he explained.
This level of detailed tracking, which Setlist.fm has popularized, has a long history among fans of jam bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish. For decades, dedicated fan communities maintained meticulous records, from pre-internet publications like DeadBase to unofficial websites like Phish.net.
Aaron Stein, a 51-year-old nanoscientist from Brooklyn who founded the NYC-Freaks email list—a forum where approximately 1,000 concertgoers exchange hundreds of emails daily—maintains a personal spreadsheet detailing every concert he’s attended over three decades. He commends Setlist.fm for democratizing access to information once exclusive to devoted fanbases like Deadheads, making it available to enthusiasts of any artist.
“It’s become one of those resources that you almost take for granted,” Stein remarked, highlighting the significant impact of the added set times.
Credit: The New York Times
Stein offers a nuanced perspective on how public setlists affect the concert experience, suggesting that documenting a show post-performance can actually prolong the communal enjoyment. “It does take some of the magic out, but it adds a different kind of magic,” he mused. “What’s wrong with things changing over time?”
The Australian “jammy” band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are known for their ever-changing setlists. Lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Stu Mackenzie finds Setlist.fm incredibly useful for this challenging endeavor, even though a Gizzard-specific fan site (KGLW.net) also tracks their performances. “It’s genuinely very, very helpful,” Mackenzie states. “What blows my mind is that we’re doing a show and then by the time we get offstage, generally our setlists are on there.”
The utility of Setlist.fm extends far beyond jam bands. Mac McCaughan, the singer and guitarist for the indie group Superchunk, relies on the site to prevent repeating too many songs from previous performances in the same city. “It’s a super useful resource for me that way,” he affirmed.
Stuart Braithwaite, guitarist for the Scottish instrumental band Mogwai, has also adopted Setlist.fm, especially after a Mogwai-specific fan site became inactive. “I like the idea that it probably shames bands from playing the same set every night, which I think is the height of laziness,” he candidly admitted.
Braithwaite also uses Setlist.fm as a fan. He recounted, “A couple of years ago, I went to see a lot of Cure shows, and I’d just check it every day and see what songs they played, like a total dork.” He dismisses the notion that Setlist.fm diminishes surprise, arguing instead that “It spreads the experience out from just the single night that the concert takes place.”
Ella Shipman, a 20-year-old junior at Emerson College, describes herself as a “huge fan of Taylor Swift and Setlist.fm,” using the site to prepare for upcoming concerts. “I want to know what songs I’m going to be screaming at the top of my lungs,” she explained. Shipman closely followed Setlist.fm for updates on surprise songs during Swift’s Eras Tour, often alongside live video streams on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
“You didn’t have to be in the stadium to know what was going on,” she concluded.