If you’re sick of spending more time deciding where to go with your friends than actually out enjoying yourself, ShowMango could be your new best friend.
It’s a newly launched website in the UK that gives you access to unlimited gigs, club nights, exclusive parties, raves, day festivals and events in London for a monthly fee of £25.
Noting the success of subscription-based companies such as Spotify and Netflix, ShowMango wants to bring that ease of access to real-life entertainment.
The service is only available in London at the moment, with a particularly strong relationships in the electronic music scene showcasing venues like Village Underground and Electric Brixton.
It also boasts partnerships with Fabric, The Hoxton Bar, Notting Hill Arts Club, Proud Camden, and more.
While it’s not the only one of its kind in the UK, it is one of very few events-focused subscription services. The company evolved out of the Seedcamp accelerator programme where it was first known as Fluttr.
I spoke to ShowMango’s CEO James Kay to find out a bit more about the service and its future endeavours.
TNW: Where did the idea for ShowMango come from?
James: Our team combines years of experience promoting and producing music events worldwide. In 2014, we created a mobile app called Fluttr to make personal recommendations for events based on your music and going out tastes.
We looked at many different ways we could optimise event discovery through digital products and considering the strong success of similar subscription models in other areas of the entertainment industry, we thought that it could be replicated to live music.
What competition do you have?
We’re the first platform offering a subscription model for live music in Europe and we do think that other players are doing a great job in the same sector (BandsInTown, Songkick, YPlan) but we don’t consider them to be direct competitors.
What’s challenging for ShowMango in London?
The live music scene in London is very diverse and people love so many different kinds of music events. We need to take that into account when curating the shows that we offer on our platform.
What are the plans for expansion with ShowMango?
We will soon open up to new cities in the UK and Europe. We’re currently working on establishing our road map and preparing for our expansion.
Could you see your app being incorporated into other services? Or is that something you are open to?
We are open to every partnership that creates value for our customers. We’ve already established strong partnerships with several types of big players and wouldn’t rule out any other smart collaborations.
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