How to Find Out What Concert You Went To

1. Start with the band and a rough year

Most people remember the band and about how old they were. That is usually enough. A band plays one city a night, so a year narrows it to a list of dates you can scan for your city.

If you only know your age, work out the year: the year you were born plus your age then. If you were 15 and born in 1982, look at 1997, and check 1996 and 1998 too.

2. Check your ticket account

If you bought the tickets online, the order may still be in your account.

• Ticketmaster: sign in and open My Tickets. Ticketmaster says online orders show up there. It also says receipts are not available for events more than 90 days in the past. So the receipt may be gone. Look for the order itself.
• Eventbrite: sign in with the email you used to buy, then open Tickets.
• Other sellers (AXS, StubHub): look for an orders or tickets page in your account.

Not there? You may have bought it with another email address. Try your older addresses.

3. Search your email

Search for the band name plus the word "tickets". In Gmail you can also limit the search to a year. For example:

stone temple pilots tickets after:1997/01/01 before:1997/12/31

Gmail's own help page lists the after: and before: search words. You can also try from:ticketmaster.

4. Look at your photos

If you took pictures that night, the photo itself may hold the date and place.

• In your phone's photo app, search for the city or the venue name.
• Scroll to the year and month you think it was.
• Google Photos lets you search by place, like "Denver".

How does Apple Photos know what concert I was at?

Apple does not say that Photos spots concerts. Its help page says Photos search can find "people, places, objects, or events." Your phone saves the time, and often the location, with each photo. So Photos can group the pictures from one night in one place. To find the exact show, take that date and city and look it up in the finder above.

5. Check old bank or card statements

A ticket charge shows the date you paid, which is often weeks before the show. It can still tell you the year and the seller. How far back you can look online depends on the bank:

6. Ask the friend you went with

Text them. They may have the ticket stub, a photo or a better memory of the date. Ask who opened, too. The opening act is one of the best clues there is.

If you only remember the opener

Search for the opening act and the year, then look at whom they opened for. Each night page in the finder lists the full bill.

If you only remember the city

Type the band, the city and a rough year, like "Journey Oakland 1983". The finder puts nights in that city first.

Other places to look

• setlist.fm lets you search shows by artist, venue, country and year. It is best for the songs that were played.
• Wikipedia tour articles often list every date of a big tour, with the city and venue.
• Newspapers.com has scanned papers going back to 1690. Concert ads and reviews ran in local papers. It is a paid site with a free trial.

Still can't find it?

Tell us what you remember, and we'll look it up by hand. Ask us to find the night.