How to Find People to Go to Concerts With: 7 Real Ways

"Nobody to Go With" Kills More Plans Than Ticket Prices

You had the presale code. The tickets sat in your cart while the group chat produced one "maybe," one "who's playing?" and then silence. The show sold out. You closed the tab and told yourself you weren't that bothered.

Type "how to find people to go to concerts with" into Google and two of the top results are Quora threads, strangers shrugging at each other across several years of replies. No page gives you a straight comparison of the options. This one does: seven methods ranked from lowest effort to highest, the concert buddy apps with their catches listed, and the part the other guides skip, which is how to meet an internet stranger at a venue without it going sideways.

Start With Second-Degree Friends

Before you install anything, run the group chat move. Post the show in your story with "I have a spare, who's in" and let it travel. Then message the two or three friends whose taste sits closest to the artist and ask them to forward it to anyone they know who'd care. Your friends already said maybe. The target is their friends, the ones you've met twice at a birthday and got along with.

Second-degree friends make the best concert companions. Someone you trust has vetted them, they're new enough to be interesting, and the show hands you two hours of guaranteed common ground. One warning: do this the week tickets go on sale, not the week of the show, because the ask has to travel through two group chats instead of one.

Fan Communities: Discords, Subreddits and Facebook Groups

Most touring artists have a Discord server or a subreddit, and the bigger ones have city-specific channels. Across the pages that rank for this topic, the same advice repeats because it works: post an "anyone going to the show at this venue?" thread a few weeks out. Fan spaces are the one corner of the internet where "I'm going alone, anyone want to meet before doors?" reads as normal rather than desperate: the taste overlap is a given.

Facebook groups do the same job for scenes rather than single artists. Search your city plus your genre and you'll find groups for techno, metal, indie, whatever you're into, where people post spare tickets and pre-show meetups. The crowd skews older than Discord's; whether that helps depends on your age.

If your scene is more warehouse than seated venue, the same logic applies with different etiquette. We wrote a separate guide to making friends at raves, where the crowd does half the work for you.

City Threads: Using Reddit Without Being Weird

Your city's subreddit hosts "anyone going to..." threads for most major shows, and the weekly what's-on thread absorbs the rest. The difference between a post that gets replies and one that dies is specificity. "Looking for concert friends" gets nothing. "I have a spare for Thursday at the arena, taste runs toward post-punk, happy to meet at the bar next door at 7" gets replies, because you've done the planning and the other person only has to say yes.

Keep the first meetup tied to the event. You're filling the seat next to you, and the low stakes are the whole appeal.

Meetup and Real-World Music Communities

Meetup is the veteran here: over 10 million downloads and ratings of 4.4 on Android and 4.7 on iOS, with local groups in most cities built around live music, from "concerts and gigs" catch-alls to genre-specific groups that plan monthly outings. The strength is structure. Someone else picks the show, sets the time, and greets you at the door. The weakness is the same structure: you go to what the group picks, and the median Meetup music group leans mainstream.

Use it if your problem is "I know no one in this city" rather than "no one will come to this specific show." The dedicated apps target the second problem.

The Concert Buddy Apps, Compared Without the Sales Pitch

A niche of dedicated apps exists for this exact problem, and if you research them you'll find their own blogs reviewing themselves. The current top-ranking comparison is published by one of the apps, runs about 1,100 words, and awards itself first place with no meaningful cons listed. The field as of mid-2026, constraints included:

• ConcertBuddy is free to join, browse and message, but the app is Android-only and the company itself admits the user base is small.
• GigBuddy is the mirror image: a newer iOS-only app with verified profiles, a map of who's attending an event, and in-app messaging before you agree to meet.
• Radiate is the biggest of the bunch at roughly 260,000 downloads. It grew out of EDM and festival culture and runs event-specific group chats, so expect the crowd to skew that way.
• Beatmatch matches you on your listening history, carries backing from Warner, Sony and Live Nation, and is active in about three US cities: New York, LA and Seattle. Outside those, it's quiet.
• GigMate covers five UK cities.
• EventBuddie, CrowdMate and StageHop all appeared on the App Store between 2025 and 2026. The niche is crowded and fragmented at once.

None of these are scams. Most of them are ghost towns outside their home turf.

The Empty-App Problem

Even concertsremembered.com, one of the guides ranking for this query, concedes the point: most concert buddy apps die because too few users are in the same city wanting the same show at the same time. One-to-one buddy matching needs a coincidence. Two strangers, same city, same artist, same date, both on the app that week. Each extra condition thins the pool, which is how an app with a quarter of a million downloads can still feel empty for your Tuesday gig.

Evaluate any app in this space on two questions instead of the download count. Can I see activity around my specific event before I commit? And does the app do anything in groups, where one flaky stranger doesn't sink the whole night?

How Muse Does It Differently

Muse is our app, so weigh this section however you like, but the design answers the coincidence problem. The app shows you the whole room in advance: each event carries a group chat and a live count of who's going, including who's going solo, so you know before buying whether the show has people in it. A live map surfaces nearby music people by approximate area (never anyone's exact location), and matching runs on two signals at once: your music taste, built from a short music quiz, and the gigs you attend. One-on-one still exists here, minus the coincidence: spot someone going to the same show, Wave, and if they Wave back you've matched and can sort the meetup. If you'd rather skip the pairing pressure entirely, join a crew for the night, or start one, each with its own chat. The community is 18+, which matters once the plans involve club nights and raves. It's free to download, the core features stay free, and a group chat survives the one flaky stranger who would have sunk a buddy match.

From Match to Meetup: The Safety Part

The guides in this space stop at "download the app." The part that deserves a checklist is the meetup itself.

• Keep the conversation in-app until you're comfortable. Moving to personal numbers early is the oldest pressure move there is. Anyone decent will wait.
• Meet at the venue or a public spot nearby, not at someone's flat and not in a car. Doors, bar next door, a coffee before the show. Public, bounded, easy to leave.
• Tell a friend the plan. Name, event, venue, when you expect to be home. Share your live location if that's normal in your group.
• Sort your own transport home. Never depend on a stranger for the ride back. That one decision keeps the whole night reversible.
• Watch your drink and pace yourself. Standard nightlife rules apply harder with new people, and the legit communities in this space are 18+ for a reason.
• Trust the mismatch feeling. If the person at the venue doesn't match the person in the chat, you owe them nothing beyond "enjoy the show."

Treat the list as the admission price for turning internet strangers into gig friends: five minutes of planning, and after the first meetup you'll run it on autopilot.

Can't Find Anyone in Time? Go Anyway

Sometimes the show is Thursday, the group chat is dead and the subreddit thread got two upvotes and no replies. Go anyway. Solo gig-going is common, the crowd has better things to watch than your group size, and we wrote a full practical guide to going to gigs solo covering where to stand, what to bring and what to do between sets. The same holds at the bigger scale: going to a festival alone is its own skill with its own payoffs. The worst outcome on the table is skipping a show you wanted to see over an empty seat.

FAQ: Finding Concert Buddies

Is there an app to find people to go to concerts with?

Several, each with a catch as of mid-2026: ConcertBuddy is Android-only with a small base, GigBuddy is iOS-only, Beatmatch runs in about three US cities, GigMate in five UK cities, and Radiate skews EDM. Muse runs both modes on iOS and Android: Wave to match one-on-one with someone going to the same show, plus event chats, who's-going counts and crews, so one flaky match never sinks the night.

Is it weird to go to a concert alone?

No. Solo attendance is common and accepted, and once the lights drop the crowd watches the stage, not you. Our solo gig guide covers the practical side.

How do you meet people at a concert once you're there?

The GA queue, the bar line and the gap between sets are the natural openings, and a comment about the support act beats any rehearsed line. We wrote a full guide to making friends at concerts if you want the long version.

Are concert buddy apps safe to use?

Yes, if you follow the basics: keep chat in-app at first, meet in public at the venue, tell a friend your plan, and control your own transport home. Prefer apps with verified profiles and group features, and treat any 18+ policy as a good sign rather than a hurdle.

How do I find out who else is going to the same show?

Fan Discords and subreddits run "anyone going?" threads for most tours, which costs nothing but takes digging. Muse shows it as a number on the event itself: how many people are going, how many are going solo, and how many are in the chat before doors.

Pick the method that matches your week: a story post for second-degree friends, or an event page that shows you the crowd before you buy. Then go, with company or without.