How to get tickets for Apple Music Festival 2016: a step-by-step expert guide
Here's how to get tickets for Apple Music Festival 2016: Elton John, Britney Spears, Robbie Williams and more, live in London, for free!
How to get tickets: Apple Music Festival 2016
Gone are the days when the iTunes Festival was a small but perfectly formed gathering of emerging artists and old cronies making come backs.
Now in its tenth year and rebranded as the Apple Music Festival 10, the 2016 line-up is like a who's who of pop royalty: Elton John, Robbie Williams, Britney Spears, Calvin Harris and more.
Rarely, perhaps ever, do fans get a chance to see such big names in such a small venue, and that – plus the fact that it’s free –means that tickets are in pretty great demand.
How to get Apple Music Festival Tickets
But that doesn’t mean getting hold of said tickets is impossible. Entries for any gig can be made via the iTunes store with winners being announced five days before each concert.
Using an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, all you need to do is go to the iOS App Store, where you’ll find a specific iTunes Festival section/banner in the carousel at the top of the Featured page. If you’re using a computer (Mac or PC), you’ll find the same link at the top of iTunes. Then click through to the iTunes Festival page, where you’ll see the fairly self-explanatory ‘Win Tickets’ button. Click this to take yourself through to the next stage.
Here, you need to tap the ‘+’ icon next to each and every artist you would like to see.
There is no limit to how many artists you can select, but given that you can’t win more than five pairs of tickets across the whole festival, we’d recommend taking a more discerning approach and only applying for the ones you truly want to see. Particularly as the tickets are completely non-transferable, so you cannot sell them on. Each time you tap the ‘+’ icon, it will transform into a tick, and when you’ve chosen all the artists you want to apply for, tap ‘Submit’.
The final stage is a very basic form to fill in, then make sure you tap to confirm you’ve read the Terms and Conditions and there you have the basics of the ticket application process. But to give you a head start, we've collated a few key pointers below...
Tips and Tricks
- Follow not only the headliners, but the support acts on Twitter - each act is given tickets, a proportion of which have to be given away in a competition. While these days it seems the support acts are just as big as the headliners, there will always be the odd smaller band to target. So check their tweets regularly, join their mailing list, and generally keep on guard for pre-Festival giveaways, and you'll significantly up your chances of winning.
- Apple partners with big publications and companies, including the Evening Standard and Global Radio, to give away tickets, so make sure you pay attention and apply for any ticket offers from these outlets.
- Your entry is based on your email address, so enlist family and friends to give you their email addresses to enter via several sources, and increase your chances of winning. (But remember, tickets cannot be transferred, so make sure they’re willing to take you along with them! And you'll need to be over 14 to enter for tickets, with a valid iTunes account).
- Though the iTunes Festival terms and conditions are notoriously vague, there has been talk of those who are picked in a ballot once not being able to win tickets for future gigs. So if you apply for everything, chances are you’ll be selected for one of the less desirable shows and you may not be able to see anything else. Though it’s not explicitly stated, it is a suggestion, and therefore applying for everything just isn’t worth the risk.
- And if all else fails, the entire thing can be streamed live for Apple device users.
Now in its tenth year and rebranded as the Apple Music Festival 10, the 2016 line-up is like a who's who of pop royalty: Elton John, Robbie Williams, Britney Spears, Calvin Harris and more.
Rarely, perhaps ever, do fans get a chance to see such big names in such a small venue, and that – plus the fact that it’s free –means that tickets are in pretty great demand.
How to get Apple Music Festival Tickets
But that doesn’t mean getting hold of said tickets is impossible. Entries for any gig can be made via the iTunes store with winners being announced five days before each concert.
Using an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, all you need to do is go to the iOS App Store, where you’ll find a specific iTunes Festival section/banner in the carousel at the top of the Featured page. If you’re using a computer (Mac or PC), you’ll find the same link at the top of iTunes. Then click through to the iTunes Festival page, where you’ll see the fairly self-explanatory ‘Win Tickets’ button. Click this to take yourself through to the next stage.
Here, you need to tap the ‘+’ icon next to each and every artist you would like to see.
There is no limit to how many artists you can select, but given that you can’t win more than five pairs of tickets across the whole festival, we’d recommend taking a more discerning approach and only applying for the ones you truly want to see. Particularly as the tickets are completely non-transferable, so you cannot sell them on. Each time you tap the ‘+’ icon, it will transform into a tick, and when you’ve chosen all the artists you want to apply for, tap ‘Submit’.
The final stage is a very basic form to fill in, then make sure you tap to confirm you’ve read the Terms and Conditions and there you have the basics of the ticket application process. But to give you a head start, we've collated a few key pointers below...
Tips and Tricks
- Follow not only the headliners, but the support acts on Twitter - each act is given tickets, a proportion of which have to be given away in a competition. While these days it seems the support acts are just as big as the headliners, there will always be the odd smaller band to target. So check their tweets regularly, join their mailing list, and generally keep on guard for pre-Festival giveaways, and you'll significantly up your chances of winning.
- Apple partners with big publications and companies, including the Evening Standard and Global Radio, to give away tickets, so make sure you pay attention and apply for any ticket offers from these outlets.
- Your entry is based on your email address, so enlist family and friends to give you their email addresses to enter via several sources, and increase your chances of winning. (But remember, tickets cannot be transferred, so make sure they’re willing to take you along with them! And you'll need to be over 14 to enter for tickets, with a valid iTunes account).
- Though the iTunes Festival terms and conditions are notoriously vague, there has been talk of those who are picked in a ballot once not being able to win tickets for future gigs. So if you apply for everything, chances are you’ll be selected for one of the less desirable shows and you may not be able to see anything else. Though it’s not explicitly stated, it is a suggestion, and therefore applying for everything just isn’t worth the risk.
- And if all else fails, the entire thing can be streamed live for Apple device users.
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