Gigs & Bytes: Would You Like Some Music With Your Tickets?

Once upon a time, in the pre-digital analog world of yesterday, people bought albums at brick-and-mortar establishments known as “record stores” and purchased their concert tickets at …. You guessed it – record stores.

But with record stores struggling to keep the lights on and ticket sales moving increasingly into the online arena, the concept of buying your music and concert ducats under the same roof seems almost as temporally distant as 8-track tapes and the original Guns N’ Roses lineup.

Slash and Axl may never play together again, but Ticketmaster and iTunes have launched a new program giving music fans the opportunity to purchase music while they’re ordering their concert tickets on Ticketmaster.com.

All fans need to do is click on the “iTunes Music” tab when buying tickets for any of the more than 700 touring acts involved with the tickets-plus-music program, including Bon Jovi, Keith Urban, Kanye West and Modest Mouse.

As an added incentive to purchase tickets and music under the same digital roof, the Ticketmaster / iTunes alliance is offering ticket-buyers a special, $1-off discount applying to every album download sold on Ticketmaster and delivered by iTunes now through December 29th.

Along with the new Ticketmaster / iTunes hook-up, both sides are offering special Ticketmaster + iTunes gift packs through Target stores nationwide. Each package includes two $25 gift cards, one which can be redeemed at Ticketmaster.com while the other is good for purchasing music from iTunes.

“This Ticketmaster + iTunes program instantly gives our music huge exposure to a very important consumer audience – the people who come to our shows,” Kanye West said. “Touring is the most powerful and sincere connection that we have with our fans, so being able to deliver our music for download during the ticket buying process is a slam-dunk for us, and for all recording and touring artists out there who depend on reaching their live audience.”

So just like the old record store / ticket counters of yore, music fans can once again purchase their concert tickets and music at the same time. Who knows? Maybe someday Axl and Slash will jam together again.

But we’re not holding our breath for the return of 8-track tapes. Some things are meant to remain in the past.