Introduction

Like many music fans I’ve made some of my best memories at live events, starting in 2000 when I saw one of my favorite bands, The Cranberries. What was a rare and exciting event growing up in Puerto Rico became a common (yet still exciting) occurrence as an adult. My goal for this project was to learn more about my concert attendance over the course of my life. I used two questions to guide my research:

• Who are the artists that I’ve seen live, and what trends can I find among them?
• How has my concert attendance varied through time, and what factors could be driving it?

Beyond satisfying my own curiosity, I’d like to share my findings with friends and new acquaintances as a way to get to know me better.

The Data

Most of the data I collected was gathered through my Setlist.fm account with additional entries added for events where Setlist.fm had no data. Setlist.fm is a crowdsourced collection of concert dates and setlists with proof of attendance required for users to add or edit entries. Additional information was gathered from artist pages and my own experiences. Each record in the dataset consists of one artist’s appearance on a specific date. For concerts and festivals with multiple artists, each artist appears as an individual observation.

Who are the artists I’ve seen?

Hover over each circle on the chart below to view artist details. Use the controls to the right to filter by artist type and favorites.

Each circle on the chart above represents one artist. The size and color of the circle represent the number of times I’ve seen that artist. Out of 63 total artists, 42 are groups and 21 are soloists. 9 of them are among my favorite artists.

The “favorite artist” variable represents whether an artist has ever been one of my favorites, regardless of how I feel about them now. Considering I’m working with data from more than 25 years, it felt significant to include my past favorites alongside current ones. 6 of my most seen artists are among my favorites and feature prominently on the chart, which is something I wanted to look into further.

The two pie charts above show the proportion of artists I’ve seen who are favorites vs. the proportion of shows I have seen featuring a favorite artist. Despite having seen most of my favorites multiple times, I was still surprised to learn that they represent nearly half of my concert attendance.

The map above shows the countries of origin of all artists I’ve seen. In the case of groups with various nationalities, this is the country where the group is based. Altogether, 13 countries are represented. It wasn’t surprising to find that South Korea had the largest number of artists as I’ve attended multiple k-pop festivals with friends over the years. On the other hand, I was disappointed to see that I haven’t seen many artists from Central and South America despite Spanish being my first language, or any from Africa. I will take that as an opportunity to diversify my listening and seek out more artists from those regions.

How has my concert attendance varied through time?

The bar chart below shows my total concert attendance by year, categorized by decade. To put these numbers in the context of my life, I included a second annotated view with personal details.

To view notes, open the chart in full screen mode using the button on the lower right, then toggle the on/off switch on the chart.

Through the 2000s, I attended a total of 11 concerts, nine of which happened while I lived in Georgia. In the 2010s, a decade I spent almost entirely in NYC, the number more than quadrupled to 48. So far in the 2020s I’ve tracked 19 concerts. While that number is not on track to match my attendance in the prior decade, it already is almost double that of the 2000s.

Location and timing appear to be key factors in my concert attendance. Growing up in Puerto Rico, I was lucky to attend two concerts for one of my favorite bands despite the rarity of those events and my young age at the time. Moving to Georgia for college gave me more access, though my location, bank account, and student schedule were still limiting factors. Predictably, moving to NYC made it much easier to find shows to attend, and with better employment I was able to afford tickets and travel for bigger events. Though the 2020s began with a concert-free year due to the pandemic, it surprised me to realize that I’ve gone to multiple shows every year since 2022 despite how much I enjoy staying home since then.

An additional factor that’s not evident in the data but I was able to infer from my experiences is friendships. In each decade, the years with higher concert attendance were typically those that involved friend trips, visits, or spending time with new acquaintances. In the future, I’d like to expand my data and find ways to quantify this effect. While I tracked whether I attended each concert with friends or on my own, it turned out there were not that many in the second category, so the information was of limited use.

With my location emerging as such an important factor, I wanted to know how my attendance in New York compares to other places. The map below shows each state and territory where I have attended at least one concert.

Prior to now, I didn’t realize I have been to concerts in 11 different locations, or that I had seen at least one my favorite artists in each one. Upon reflecting on this last point, however, I realized that seeing a favorite artist is probably the only reason I’d travel out of state for a show.

I have spent 15 of the last 25 years in New York, and predictably, I have attended more shows here than all other locations combined – 54 out of 78 shows. Despite that, I was still surprised to find that I’ve seen all nine of my favorites in New York, including The Cranberries, who I had a chance to see one last time in 2012.

Limitations & Final Remarks

My dataset was built based on past events. I did not create my Setlist.fm account until early 2025, and in order to populate it I relied heavily on my memory and existing records of ticket purchases. Some errors and biases may exist as result:

• It’s a possibility I may have omitted concerts due to no record or recollection. This is less likely to have happened with favorite artists, which may skew the data in their favor.
• In noting which artists have been among my favorites over time, it’s possible that I may not accurately recall my level of enthusiasm for some, thus some past favorites may not be marked as such.
• Many openers were omitted from the dataset which mainly reflects headliners, but some were included, particularly if I have strong memories of their set and perhaps even became a fan. This leaves out all the less memorable openers. Data for openers is much more difficult to track down years later.
• Lastly, data collected through Setlist.fm is crowdsourced, which could result in inaccurate or incomplete entries. I reviewed each data point for accuracy to the best of my ability.

An additional source of bias pertains to the artists’ countries of origin. In the case of groups, this is the country where the group is based. As result, not all artists’ nationalities are represented. An example of this is i-dle, one of my favorite groups, which has members from South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Thailand, but only South Korea is represented in the data.

Not all of the data I collected is presented in this analysis. In particular, I recorded details about venues and their capacity, which due to time constraints I did not get to cover at this stage of the project. Additionally, new questions emerged that I’d like to explore further. As mentioned prior, I’m interested in finding ways to quantify the influence of friendships in my concert attendance, as it’s not a factor I had considered at the start of my research. I would also like to spend more time learning about my favorite artists, including when I have seen them and who was with me at the time.

I enjoyed reflecting on the past while working on this project and gained a stronger appreciation for all the events that I’ve been lucky enough to attend. It also made me aware of regions of the world that I’ve yet to explore musically. I plan to continue collecting data for future concerts and track how my attendance trends continue to change.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.