Setlist Fm Scraper

Search public Setlist.fm pages and export concert identity, dates, tours, venues, locations, and complete ordered song setlists. The Actor turns setlist fm pages into analysis-ready JSON without requiring a Setlist.fm API key.

Use it for live-repertoire research, tour comparisons, venue programming, music journalism, fan projects, and recurring concert-data pipelines.

What does Setlist Fm Scraper do?

The Actor supports two entry points:

• search queries for an artist, venue, city, tour, or date;
• public Setlist.fm search, artist, venue, and individual setlist URLs.

For every discovered concert it opens the detail page. This avoids the truncated song previews shown on listing pages and preserves performance order, main-set and encore sections, cover attribution, and available concert notes.

Who is it for?

• Music analysts comparing live repertoires across dates and tours.
• Journalists and researchers building sourced concert timelines.
• Artist teams reviewing tour set variation and song rotation.
• Venue teams studying past programming and performer history.
• Developers feeding concert metadata into dashboards or data warehouses.
• Fans and archivists creating personal, non-commercial research datasets.

Why use this Actor?

Setlist.fm's public pages are designed for browsing, not bulk analysis. This Actor provides one stable event record per concert, with nested ordered songs. It follows listing pages, deduplicates concert URLs, respects a global result limit, retries transient source failures with fresh proxy sessions, and fails clearly when Setlist.fm returns a challenge or unexpected page.

The runtime uses residential US proxy sessions because repeated direct and ordinary datacenter requests can receive an AWS WAF challenge. No browser is needed, so runs remain lighter than browser-based alternatives.

What data can I extract?

Field	Meaning
setlistId	Stable identifier parsed from the Setlist.fm URL
artist	Performing artist
eventDate	Concert date in YYYY-MM-DD form when available
tour	Tour name when listed
venue	Venue name
city	Venue city/locality
country	Country label displayed by Setlist.fm
songCount	Number of listed songs
songs	Ordered song objects with section and cover details
notes	Concert-level note when available
setlistUrl	Canonical public source page
artistUrl	Linked artist page
venueUrl	Linked venue page
discoveredFrom	Query/listing URL that found the concert
scrapedAt	Extraction timestamp

A concert can legitimately have songCount: 0 when the event exists on Setlist.fm but contributors have not added songs. The Actor preserves that event rather than inventing or inferring a setlist.

How to search Setlist.fm

Setlist.fm query syntax can target common research dimensions:

artist:(Radiohead)
venue:(Madison Square Garden)
city:(London)
tour:(European Tour 2025)
date:2025-12-16
artist:(Radiohead) tour:(European Tour 2025)

Put one or more expressions in queries. They are processed independently and results are deduplicated by canonical concert URL.

For precise entity selection, use a known artist or venue page in startUrls.

Input parameters

Input	Type	Default	Description
queries	string array	none	Setlist.fm search expressions
startUrls	URL array	none	Search, artist, venue, or concert pages
maxItems	integer	20	Global maximum complete concert records
maxPages	integer	3	Listing pages followed per query or URL

At least one query or start URL is required. Only setlist.fm URLs are accepted. maxItems ranges from 1 to 5,000 and maxPages from 1 to 100.

Get started

1. Open the Actor input page.
2. Keep the prefilled tour query or enter your own Setlist.fm query.
3. Set a small maxItems while evaluating the output.
4. Click Start.
5. Open the default dataset when the run finishes.
6. Export JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or connect the dataset API.

A useful first input is:

{
  "queries": ["artist:(Radiohead) tour:(European Tour 2025)"],
  "maxItems": 5,
  "maxPages": 1
}

Output example

A current source record has this shape (shortened to two songs):

{
  "setlistId": "34cc517",
  "artist": "Radiohead",
  "eventDate": "2025-12-16",
  "tour": "European Tour 2025",
  "venue": "Royal Arena",
  "city": "Copenhagen",
  "country": "Denmark",
  "songCount": 25,
  "songs": [
    {
      "position": 1,
      "name": "2 + 2 = 5",
      "section": "Main set",
      "encore": null,
      "info": null,
      "isCover": false,
      "coverArtist": null
    },
    {
      "position": 25,
      "name": "Karma Police",
      "section": "Encore 1",
      "encore": 1,
      "info": null,
      "isCover": false,
      "coverArtist": null
    }
  ],
  "setlistUrl": "https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/radiohead/2025/royal-arena-copenhagen-denmark-34cc517.html"
}

Song order, encores, and covers

songs.position is one-based and follows source order. Main-set songs use section: "Main set" and encore: null. Encore markers become Encore 1, Encore 2, and so on. When Setlist.fm identifies a cover, isCover is true and coverArtist contains the linked original artist when available.

No separate charge is made for songs. Songs are included inside each charged concert item record.

How much does it cost to extract concert setlists?

The Actor uses pay-per-event pricing:

• one start event per run;
• one item event per saved concert record.

The exact active tier prices appear on the Actor pricing tab before you start a run. On the BRONZE tier, the price is $0.005 per run plus $0.003992 per saved concert. Proxy and platform usage are paid by the Actor under pay-per-event pricing rather than billed as a separate output event.

Examples at BRONZE rates:

Records	Example charge
1	$0.008992
10	$0.04492
100	$0.40420

Higher subscription tiers receive the exact item price shown on the live pricing tab. The one-time start fee remains $0.005.

Recurring repertoire research

Schedule the Actor daily or weekly with the same artist or tour query. Save each run's dataset ID and compare setlistId, eventDate, and songs downstream. A source event with no songs today may contain a contributed setlist later.

The Actor does not maintain cross-run history or send alerts itself. Use Apify Schedules, webhooks, dataset exports, or your own database for monitoring.

Spreadsheet and database exports

Use the dataset export controls for CSV, Excel, JSON, XML, or RSS. For nested song analysis, JSON preserves the full structure. In a warehouse, store the concert row and flatten songs into a child table keyed by setlistId and position.

Webhooks and integrations

Common workflows include:

1. schedule an artist or tour query;
2. trigger a webhook when the run succeeds;
3. download the default dataset;
4. upsert concerts by setlistId;
5. flatten songs for repertoire-frequency analysis;
6. retain setlistUrl for attribution and audit.

Apify integrations can send results to Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, Slack, and other services. Keep nested-song limitations of the destination in mind.

Run with the Apify API

Replace APIFY_TOKEN with your token.

cURL

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~setlist-fm-concert-setlists/runs?token=APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"queries":["date:2025-12-16"],"maxItems":3,"maxPages":1}'

JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/setlist-fm-concert-setlists').call({
  queries: ['artist:(Radiohead) tour:(European Tour 2025)'],
  maxItems: 5,
  maxPages: 1,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("automation-lab/setlist-fm-concert-setlists").call(run_input={
    "startUrls": [{"url": "https://www.setlist.fm/setlists/radiohead-bd6bd12.html"}],
    "maxItems": 2,
    "maxPages": 1,
})
items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items
print(items)

Use with MCP and AI assistants

Add the Actor to Claude Code through Apify MCP:

claude mcp add --transport http apify \
  "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/setlist-fm-concert-setlists"

Claude Desktop, Cursor, and VS Code setup

Use this equivalent MCP JSON configuration in Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/setlist-fm-concert-setlists"
    }
  }
}

Example prompts:

• "Run the Setlist.fm Actor for Radiohead's European Tour 2025 and summarize song rotation."
• "Extract two recent setlists from this Setlist.fm artist URL."
• "Export concerts on 2025-12-16 and list which records include songs."

Reliability and retry behavior

Setlist.fm protects public pages with AWS WAF. The Actor uses a small pool of coherent residential proxy sessions and retries a failed request up to five times, changing the session identity on each retry. Requests are sequential and paced to reduce challenge frequency and unnecessary transfer.

After retry exhaustion, the run fails instead of returning a misleading empty dataset. Rerun later if Setlist.fm is temporarily unavailable.

Limits and source behavior

• Search relevance is controlled by Setlist.fm, not this Actor.
• Plain artist-name searches can include tribute acts; combine filters or use an artist URL for exact entity selection.
• Future events commonly exist before songs are contributed.
• Source edits can change fields between scheduled runs.
• Very large limits take longer because every event detail page is fetched.
• The Actor does not download images, audio, video, ads, or analytics assets.
• It does not use private accounts or the credentialed Setlist.fm API.

Responsible use and legality

This Actor accesses public pages only. Use the data in accordance with Setlist.fm's terms, applicable database/copyright rules, and local law. Respect attribution, source licenses, privacy, and reasonable request volumes. Do not use the Actor to republish protected content deceptively, identify private individuals, or bypass access controls.

You are responsible for the purpose, frequency, retention, and redistribution of your datasets.

Troubleshooting

The run says no input was provided

Add at least one string to queries or one supported URL to startUrls.

My artist search includes a tribute act

Setlist.fm applies its own search matching. Use the exact artist page URL in startUrls, or combine artist and tour filters for a narrower result.

A concert has zero songs

The event page exists but currently has no contributed songs. This is valid source data, not a parser error. Choose an older tour or known concert if your workflow requires repertoire.

The run failed after proxy retries

Setlist.fm challenged every bounded session. Wait and rerun rather than raising concurrency. If failures persist, verify that the URL is public and current.

My run stops before all history is collected

Increase both maxItems and maxPages. maxItems is global; maxPages applies separately to each listing input.

Data quality tips

• Use artist URLs for exact artist identity.
• Use historical tours when song completeness matters.
• Keep setlistId as your stable upsert key.
• Preserve setlistUrl for attribution and change audits.
• Treat null location/tour fields and zero-song events as source state.
• Start with a small run before collecting a long artist history.

FAQ

Does this require a Setlist.fm API key?

No. It extracts public server-rendered pages.

Does it scrape complete songs or listing previews?

It opens every discovered concert detail page and extracts the ordered list available there. It does not rely on the truncated listing preview.

Can I search by venue, city, tour, or date?

Yes. Put the corresponding Setlist.fm expression in queries, or provide a public venue/search URL.

Can I monitor changes?

Yes, by scheduling repeated runs and comparing datasets externally. The Actor does not itself retain snapshots or send alerts.

Are empty setlists charged?

Yes. One item is a useful concert event record even when contributors have not added songs. The record retains the event identity, artist, date, venue, and source URL.

Can I increase concurrency?

Concurrency is intentionally conservative and is not exposed as an input. Sequential requests improve reliability on the protected source.

Related Automation Lab Actors

For adjacent public music and event research, consider:

• Bandsintown Events Scraper for upcoming artist and venue events.
• Billboard Music Charts Scraper for dated chart rankings and artist performance.

These Actors use different sources and record contracts; they do not replace Setlist.fm's contributor-maintained concert setlists.