concert listings site

September 13, 2005 1:02 PM

After days of searching for a decent site of concert listings for my area i have decided to make my own. Everything i've seen is a mess and either very unclear or incomplete. What would be a good way to do this?

I've had a look at php nuke templates but know nothing about php though i'm not adverse to using flash or html and i don't mind having to learn something new to make it decent.
Or does something simpler exist like a blog for this type of thing....searchable by band name, date, venue etc...
Thanks!

posted by quantumonkey to computers & internet (8 comments total)

This is not an answer, but have you seen Upcoming.org built by our own waxpancake?

As to your idea, you've got to think it through a bit more. A single blog is not exactly the best model for being able to see what's coming up, near you, in the near and far terms. There are too many variables for this to work well -- imagine a blog with a category for every band name. Would this work for an Austin Texas / Indie Rock specific blog? Maybe. Would this work for a Seattle / CandyRaver specific blog? Maybe. But adding it all together is just a recipe for "very unclear" and probably also "incomplete," as you say.

Answer this question first: What kind of view would I want to see by default? Then answer: How would I want to change it / modify it / query it?

Also, there's a bitch of a data management problem that you've got. 1,000 monkeys / college students / romanian data entry clerks still wouldn't be able to keep up with adding stuff to a nationwide or worldwide database. However, if you, like upcoming, and like CDDB, sucker fans of bands to watch for and then post the upcoming shows, you've really got something.
posted by zpousman at 1:12 PM on September 13, 2005

one site: pollstar.com

get alerts on your fav bands- I've been using this site for 5 years now, can't live without it!
posted by phredhead at 1:23 PM on September 13, 2005

Quantumonkey is in northern Ireland, so Pollstar won't work.

You're welcome to use Upcoming.org to list all events in your area. Anyone can add an event, share them with everyone else, and you can then syndicate them out to your website in a number of ways. Let me know if you have any questions.
posted by waxpancake at 2:41 PM on September 13, 2005

Good luck, man. I'm in Exeter and all of the listings are partial and wafer-thin. The more extensive listings there are outside of London, the more exposure both gigs and heralds are going to receive.
posted by NinjaPirate at 2:57 PM on September 13, 2005

Are you just looking for programming and web design advice, or advice as to how you go about consolidating all the details from all the venues in your town into an easy-to-maintain database?
posted by cmonkey at 5:38 PM on September 13, 2005

disclaimer: I know little to nothing about how this site was implemented.

St. Paul and Minneapolis used to have a show list that was updated by one person (I think). People would email shows to that person and he did all the legwork. When that sort of died, someone else got a little smarter and made a wiki instead. It's nice...I added a show that wasn't up there, and felt a little better afterwards. It just seems a lot easier than doing everything yourself.

Oh, and reading your question again...I tried the search function...it's not the best, but it is sorted by date.
posted by jetskiaccidents at 8:14 PM on September 13, 2005

cmonkey raises a good point which I'd like to rephrase. Displaying the data on the Web is the easy part of this sort of thing. (If nothing else, and you're not a programmer or Web designer, it will be a matter of hiring someone.)

Hard parts that I would recommend solving before addressing the easy part include how you are going to get and verify all of the data, how you are going to fund the site's hosting until it's self-supporting (through ads, presumably), and how you are going to promote the site to local venues (for data) and concertgoers (for users).

In short, you're practically putting together an online business, even if it isn't for profit. Get those ducks in a row before you waste time developing a front-end for data that never arrives!
posted by mendel at 10:07 AM on September 14, 2005

Jambase is a pretty good resource and anyone can add to it.
posted by mic stand at 1:29 PM on September 17, 2005