Over two years ago, Google released a new feature to show concert dates in the search results. Yesterday, Google announced that when possible, Google will pull those dates "directly from that artist's official website when they add structured data markup."
Justin Boyan, Product Manager, Google Search said this is a new way of handling where they source this data. In the past they pulled it from ticketing web sites, now Google wants to go to the source. I guess it makes it easier for Google to pull from the artist versus picking which ticketing sites to use.
Google gives artists three ways to markup their site so they can pull the tour dates:
(1) You can implement schema.org markup on your site. Google supports the new JSON-LD format (alongside RDFa and microdata) for this feature.
(2) You can install an events widget that has structured data markup built in, such as Bandsintown, BandPage, ReverbNation, Songkick, or GigPress.
(3) You can label the site's events with your mouse using Google’s point-and-click webmaster tool: Data Highlighter.
Forum discussion at Google+.
