The Photos App in IOS 26 Will Tag Concerts and Sporting Events You’ve Attended
Your Photos library is probably full of memories from vacations, get-togethers, and events accumulated over the years. There may be thousands, if not tens of thousands, of photos and videos in your feed, and there’s a new iOS feature that can help you remember exactly when and where a specific photo or video was taken — assuming you captured the moment while livestreaming or gaming. The feature is called “event recognition,” and it’s coming to iOS 26 , which Apple is releasing later this month.
Here’s how it works: The Photos app analyzes the metadata of your photos and videos, as well as information associated with the image, looking for details that can confirm that it was taken at a major event. The app may use date, time, location, and other data to do this, and once confirmed, it adds event information to the photo or video. This feature currently works for both concerts and sporting events.
How Event Recognition Works in the Photos App in iOS 26
Let’s say you went to a Death Cab for Cutie concert, as Lifehacker deputy editor Joel Cunningham did last month in Brooklyn. As you scroll through those photos and videos in your library, you’ll see a concert ticket icon at the bottom of the screen. Tap it, and it’ll open a page with metadata for an image tagged “Death Cab for Cutie Concert.” Tapping that tag will open a page with details about the event, including the date, time, location, venue, and even a list of the songs being played. In addition to information about the show itself, you’ll also get related content related to the artist who performed, like Apple Music playlists and upcoming concerts. The event tag can even extend to what you did immediately before or after the show — in Joel’s camera roll, the nearby restaurant he dined at before the Death Cab show is also tagged with a ticket icon.
If your photo was taken during a sporting event rather than a concert, this feature will show you details like the game score, location, and upcoming events.
The feature is currently active for some venues and events, but not all (Joel hasn’t seen any additional information about the 2018 show at the smaller venue, Brooklyn Steel); hopefully it will become more active over time.
It’s not necessarily a revolutionary feature, but it’s a cool one that makes it easier to remember details of concerts and games you attended long ago. It joins a number of other changes to the Photos app in iOS 26, including a new design, new filters, and a bottom tab bar.