Eventful Blog

10 Million Users!

World’s Largest Music Festival Meets World’s Largest Source Of Events

Eventful and Summerfest have teamed up to hold a competition for one lucky band to play a set at Summerfest 2009. The competition has been underway for a week and there are already over 450 performers battling for the spot. And, since the competition goes until 2 pm PST on June 3, 2009, it still looks like anyone could win the coveted spot.

Summerfest 2009 will take place June 25 – July 5 from noon until midnight daily. The World’s Largest Music Festival and Milwaukee’s cornerstone summer celebration attracts the music industry’s hottest stars, emerging talent and local favorites. The Marcus Amphitheater and 10 additional stages, along with a diverse selection of food and beverage vendors, marketplaces and interactive exhibits, are set against the Lake Michigan and downtown backdrops, creating a festival experience like no other.

Once a band is registered for the competition, the rest is up to the support of their fans. Regardless of their location, fans across the nation can increase their favorite acts’ chances to play at Summerfest by using Eventful’s Demand service. The performer with the most Demands will see the opportunity of a lifetime come alive to set foot on the stage of The World’s Largest Music Festival this summer!

To give an idea of the caliber of this festival, here’s a list of just a few of the performers scheduled to hit one of the numerous stages: Talib Kweli, Gavin DeGraw, Barenaked Ladies, Kid Rock with Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Fray with Jack’s Mannequin, No Doubt with Paramore, Kenny Chesney, Chicago with Earth, Wind & Fire just to highlight a few of the huge acts.

Any band is eligible to join the competition. To register or learn more about the contest, go here. There, you’ll also have access to a custom-made widget to place on your websites that will link your fans directly to the competition to make voting simpler.

May the best band win!

KISS + Eventful = Groundbreaking Tour

Eventful’s latest Demand competition is less than a week underway, but is already generating a fan response that’s exceeding any expectations. Perhaps that’s because in the center of the spotlight is one of the most successful, longstanding rock groups in history. KISS announced that their upcoming North American tour will be completely routed by their “Army.”

Fans will Demand where KISS will perform on their latest trek across the top-Demanded North American markets beginning this September. No matter where the fans say – from stadiums to cornfields – if there are enough Demands, KISS will be there. And in order to keep the competition fair for smaller cities, final site selection will weigh population size versus total Demanders.

The competition was announced live in front of a sold out crowd during their current South American stadium tour on Monday. Immediately following the video’s debut run, fans across the U.S. and Canada could begin casting their votes on Eventful to have their town included on the KISS 2009 North American tour. Fans will be able to vote, and check the tally of what cities are in the lead, 24/7 across the Web at the previous sites; as well as on KISS’ MySpace and Facebook, Ticketmaster’s KISS page, VH1Classic.com, and many more.

“KISS has never followed the rules – we have always broken them. KISS has never listened to critics – we have always listened only to the fans,” said Gene Simmons. “It's time to give back to the fans with bigger shows and longer set lists. And for the first time anywhere, we want our fans to tell us where they want us, and when.”

Said Paul Stanley, “No band has ever given their fans the power to decide what cities they play, and no fans deserve it more than ours. We're leaving the next U.S. and Canadian tour up to the Army. When they stand up, they will be counted!"

As if more incentive is needed, all participating KISS fans will have the opportunity to purchase pre-sale tickets prior to the general on-sale. After only one week, this is looking like the Demand competition all others will be compared to. To make sure KISS plays your town, Demand here.

Accidents and Accidental Discoveries – Reflections on SXSW

By Jordan Glazier, CEO, Eventful

They say that life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. After a few intensely packed days at SXSW the things I remember most are the accidents and accidental discoveries along the way.

The accident…

Paul J and I bumped into our friends Nathan and James from McGhee listening to one of their new acts, Nico Vega, as the band was chanting “fe-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an American.” In the midst of their final tune, the vocal mic died – a cord was unplugged, somewhere – and the band rocked on before an appreciative crowd. After a minute, Aja, the lead singer tried the other mic’s on stage – found that the floor mic from the bass drum was working – and cranked out the final verse bent down in front of the drum. The small crowd went wild. A cord unplugged, dedication to play on, thinking on your feet without a hint of fluster, frustration or defeat. It’s how you handle difficulty that sets you apart. The guy standing next to me said, “People are going to see dozens of artists this week – but this is the one they’re going to remember.” He was right.

The accidental discoveries (two artists that stuck in my head)…

Paul J and I were on 6th street and saw a crowd gathered - and drawn by human instinct we joined the huddle. In the middle were four women singing a bluegrass/folk tune. One played the accordion, another a mandolin, another a bass balalaika, and the fourth was on her knees on the asphalt, drumming on a beat-up metal lunchbox. Turns out the gals are a band called Katzenjammer from Oslo, Norway. They played with exuberance and joy, sang in perfect English accents (but chatted in Norwegian amongst themselves between sets). Their joy was infectious; everyone there was smiling ear-to-ear.

That night I showed up at Stubb’s to hear the Decemberists, while the prior act was still playing. I caught a couple powerful acoustic ballads, performed dramatically to a mesmerized crowd. Turns out they’re the Avett Brothers from Concord, NC. For their finale, the two brothers sat alone on stage and sang Murder in the City. It echoed in my head for days. They’re coming to The Belly Up May 10th – I’ve already bought my tix.

The Indie Band Survival Guide

Eventful is always working to help tens of thousands of performers grow their fan-base, connect with their fans, get their name out, get the bookings they want, and fulfill their dreams of success and stardom! We recently partnered with St. Martin’s Press to put out an abridged online version of The Indie Band Survival Guide. This e-book is a fantastic tool for up-and-coming acts.

Published by St. Martin's Press, The Indie Band Survival Guide is the manual for musicians that want to succeed independently, keep control of their music, and take advantage of the abundance of free tools and services available to them. The e-book contains substantial excerpts from the highly-praised print book, including secrets of how to get booked and play live. It also includes an exclusive bonus chapter that’s not available in the published book that teaches the musicians how to use Eventful’s marketing tools for the ideal results.

"I've seen a lot of books over the years; I've worked on every side of it…[This is] the most up to date reference book for young musicians," said Matt Pinfield of radio and MTV/VH1 fame.

The authors of The Guide saw the partnership with Eventful as a natural one. "Eventful is an excellent example of one of the exciting new tools that has changed the music industry," says Randy Chertkow, co-author of the book. "Their Eventful Demand service is re-writing the way musicians book shows by letting musicians know where their fans want them to play."

Over 65,000 performers use Eventful to determine where to tour based upon where their fans demand them. They also use Eventful to grow their fan-base, increase demand for live performances, promote their gigs and get bookings by demonstrating to venues that they have local demand for a show.

The Indie Band Survival Guide, helps any musician with a dream and the desire to learn the business.

Best of all, the e-book can be downloaded for FREE right here!

Hitting The Road With Little Big Town

Back in January ‘09, Little Big Town and Eventful worked closely to develop a competition leveraging Eventful’s unique Demand service. LBT and their management wanted to fully engage their fans in helping craft an unforgettable 2009 tour and wanted to give up-and-coming artists the opportunity to shine.

“In the past Little Big Town has had amazing opportunities as an opening act,” states Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild. “We’ve had the honor of opening for John Mellencamp, George Strait, Martina McBride, Sugarland, Keith Urban and more. Because of our experiences, we wanted to find a way to give back to some bands that are just getting started in their careers. It’s even more special because the fans get to choose. I can’t wait to see who the fans select.”

The fans have spoken and Little Big Town has four fresh opening bands that will no doubt add to the success of their current A Place To Land tour.

Of the 300+ performers nationwide competing for these once-in-a-lifetime spots on stage with one of today’s most celebrated country music acts, only four will see the spotlight. The four winners are 32 Below from Fargo, J.W. Cudd from Nashville, Josey Greenwell from Bardstown, Kentucky and Corinne Chapman from Nashville. Each act will open the show for Little Big Town at a different sold out stop throughout March. For full event details on each of the winning band’s performances, see http://eventful.com/littlebigtown.

“Congratulations to the winners and their fans for voting and making this event a success!” said Philip Sweet of Little Big Town. “We are excited to see up and coming talent emerge and are grateful to share our fans and our platform with them in this unique way. Each of the four winners is very different from each other and has something special to bring to the show. We’re a band that believes in perseverance and building a strong base of fans in a grass roots way, and this is a cool way to nurture that spirit of independence by creating this opportunity.”

In order to land in the winner’s circle, these four acts had to garner the most Demands through Eventful.com. To ensure their fans knew to take action, the bands utilized Eventful’s marketing tools designed for artists of all trades and posted widgets, banners and blogs to their official websites and social networking sites, such as Myspace, to encourage their fans to Demand.

Once the polls closed, members of the Eventful team carefully examined each contestant’s Demands to ensure every last one was legitimate. With the Demand tallies guaranteed and the winners declared, all that remains is to reward the fans with some fantastic performances. Possibly Eventful’s most successful Demand competition to date is in the books.

Customizing Your Eventful Experience

Personalization

We believe personalization is an essential part of providing an incredible service for our users. We continue to put a ton of creativity and energy into product offerings that enable a highly personalized experience. This philosophy and the personalized event discovery features we provide clearly distinguish Eventful from all other event and entertainment discovery services. Here are three features and services we’ve rolled out that help users make Eventful and event discovery personally relevant…

My Eventful
Within “My Eventful” (http://eventful.com/my) users keep track of their favorite events, performers, & venues, stay informed when their favorite performers are coming to their city and see a comprehensive list of all of the events that are on their Eventful “Friends” watch lists (this essentially automates the old “hey – what do you guys want to do next weekend”).

Artist Tracker
Eventful launched its “Artist Tracker” service last fall (www.eventful.com/tracker). Artist Tracker provides instant notification to users whenever one of their favorite performers schedules an event in the user’s city. Users are notified via email alerts, onsite within each user’s My Eventful, through the Eventful MySpace app “My Top Artists”, and via the Eventful iPhone app.

Artist Tracker makes it simple for users to list which performers they like by…

• Automatically importing the artist list from the user’s iTunes and/or Last.fm libraries

• Choosing artists through Eventful’s collaborative filtering recommendation engine, or

• Inputting their favorites directly via a type-ahead selector

Profile builder
We recently rolled out a new way for users to easily indicate their preferences to Eventful so we can more fully personalize their experience. Check it out at http://eventful.com/join/venues. Users can now mark their favorite venues, performers and categories, customize your Eventful profile and find friends all in one place.

Our recommendation technology helps users find their favorites in just a few clicks. If you like it, click 'Add' - if not, click 'Nope' and you won't see it again. If you don't see what you're looking for, you can easily add any venues / performers by typing in the name.

Eventful keeps users updated with all the happenings at their favorite venues and will let you know whenever your favorite performers are coming to town. Marking friends as favorites helps users track what their friends are interested in doing.

8 Million Users!

Competing for Little Big Town Love

Eventful’s latest competition is underway and it’s gaining a ton of traction. Country musicians across the nation are competing through Eventful’s Demand service to land a spot as the opening act on Little Big Town’s upcoming A Place to Land tour. The top four acts will perform at different stops on the tour during March.

We’re only two weeks into the approximate five-week competition and this is already one of Eventful’s most successful yet. There are already hundreds of acts registered for the chance of a lifetime and tens of thousands of Demands have come in. The top four spots have changed hands numerous times and it still looks like it’s anyone’s game.

Eventful has held dozens of Demand competitions for leading artists to enable fans to influence where (and with whom) the bands tour. Little Big Town is on fire. The band was recently nominated for a Grammy for “Best Country Collaboration with Vocals” and was nominated for a CMT online award for “Number One Digitally Active Group or Duo,” among other accolades.

“In the past, Little Big Town has had amazing opportunities as an opening act,” states Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild. “We’ve had the honor of opening for John Mellencamp, George Strait, Martina McBride, Sugarland, Keith Urban and more. Because of our experiences, we wanted to find a way to give back to some bands that are just getting started in their careers. It’s even more special because the fans get to choose the winners through Eventful. I can’t wait to see who the fans select.”

The competition will continue through 2:00 p.m. PT, February 27, on Eventful. The lucky bands will be announced the same day.

2008 Most Eventful Cities

Full press release here.

Top 25 Most Eventful Cities

1. New York, New York
2. Los Angeles, California
3. San Francisco, California
4. Chicago, Illinois
5. Seattle, Washington
6. Phoenix, Arizona
7. Dallas, Texas
8. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
9. Las Vegas, Nevada
10. San Diego, California
11. Atlanta, Georgia
12. Boston, Massachusetts
13. Houston, Texas
14. Washington D.C.
15. Miami, Florida
16. Tucson, Arizona
17. Minneapolis, Minnesota
18. Denver, Colorado
19. Austin, Texas
20. Nashville, Tennessee
21. Orlando, Florida
22. Tampa, Florida
23. Baltimore, Maryland
24. Albuquerque, New Mexico
25. St. Louis, Missouri

Rankings: Most Eventful Cities by Category

Top Cities for Pet Lovers
1. Los Angeles, California
2. Phoenix, Arizona
3. New York, New York
4. Dallas, Texas
5. San Diego, California
6. Cincinnati, Ohio
7. Austin, Texas
8. Chicago, Illinois
9. San Francisco, California
10. Houston, Texas

Top Cities for Bookworms
1. Los Angeles, California
2. New York, New York
3. Seattle, Washington
4. Las Vegas, Nevada
5. Chicago, Illinois
6. Charlotte, North Carolina
7. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
8. Atlanta, Georgia
9. Phoenix, Arizona
10. Houston, Texas

Top Cities for Wheelers and Dealers

1. Los Angeles, California
2. New York, New York
3. Phoenix, Arizona
4. San Francisco, California
5. Atlanta, Georgia
6. Chicago, Illinois
7. Dallas, Texas
8. San Jose, California
9. Miami, Florida
10. San Diego, California

Top Cities for Family events
1. New York, New York
2. Los Angeles, California
3. San Francisco, California
4. Dallas, Texas
5. Chicago, Illinois
6. Houston, Texas
7. Las Vegas, Nevada
8. Seattle, Washington
9. Tucson, Arizona
10. Phoenix, Arizona

Top Cities for Night Crawlers

1. Los Angeles, California
2. New York, New York
3. Boston, Massachusetts
4. Chicago, Illinois
5. Detroit, Michigan
6. Dallas, Texas
7. Cincinnati, Ohio
8. Washington D.C.
9. San Francisco, California
10. Atlanta, Georgia

Top Cities for Music Lovers

1. New York, New York
2. Branson, Missouri
3. Chicago, Illinois
4. Los Angeles, California
5. Seattle, Washington
6. San Francisco, California
7. Nashville, Tennessee
8. Boston, Massachusetts
9. Las Vegas, Nevada
10. Dallas, Texas

Top Cities for the Outdoors

1. New York, New York
2. Los Angeles, California
3. Seattle, Washington
4. Chicago, Illinois
5. Houston, Texas
6. San Francisco, California
7. Denver, Colorado
8. Miami, Florida
9. Phoenix, Arizona
10. Dallas, Texas

Top Cities for the Performing Arts

1. New York, New York
2. Las Vegas, Nevada
3. Los Angeles, California
4. San Francisco, California
5. Chicago, Illinois
6. New Orleans, Louisiana
7. Dallas, Texas
8. Miami, Florida
9. Seattle, Washington
10. Boston, Massachusetts

Top Cities for Singles

1. New York, New York
2. San Francisco, California
3. Los Angeles, California
4. Las Vegas, Nevada
5. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
6. Phoenix, Arizona
7. Chicago, Illinois
8. Boston, Massachusetts
9. Seattle, Washington
10. Raleigh, North Carolina

Top Cities for Sports

1. Seattle, Washington
2. Denver, Colorado
3. Albuquerque, New Mexico
4. Atlanta, Georgia
5. Baltimore, Maryland
6. St. Louis, Missouri
7. San Antonio, Texas
8. Dallas, Texas
9. Hartford, Connecticut
10. Los Angeles, California

Eventful Passes 7-Million Registered Users

Another major milestone today as we signed up our 7 millionth user!

New! Eventful for iPhone and iPod Touch

Today we're announcing Eventful for iPhone, our new native iPhone application that is available from Apple's App Store -- for free!

More details coming soon.

Here's our press release.

And here's a screen shot:

And here's the video!

6 Million Users!

Today Eventful celebrated reaching its 6th Millionth Registered User. Thanks to our customers for their continued support!

A Word About "Event Planning"

This one goes out especially to writers and reporters doing stories on Eventful. :-)

Dear reporters: far too often I see Eventful described as follows: "Eventful, an event-planning site, etc."

I would like to take this opportunity to explain what event-planning is, and why Eventful is not, and never has been, an "event-planning" site.

What better source to turn to than Wikipedia, which, I am delighted to discover, has a clear definition of what event-planning is. So without further ado, here are the first four paragraph's of Wikipedia's entry on "event planning":

Event planning is the process of planning a festival, ceremony, competition, party, or convention.

Event planning includes budgeting, establishing dates and alternate dates, selecting and reserving the event site, acquiring permits, and coordinating transportation and parking.

Event planning also includes some or all of the following, depending on the event: developing a theme or motif for the event, arranging for speakers and alternate speakers, coordinating location support (such as electricity and other utilities), arranging decor, tables, chairs, tents, event support and security, police, fire, portable toilets, parking, signage, emergency plans, health care professionals, and cleanup.

Event Planning is a relatively new career field. There is now training that helps one trying to break into the career field. There must be training for an event planner to handle all the pressure and work efficiently. This career deals with a lot of communication and organization aspects. There are many different names for an event planner such as a conference coordinator, a convention planner, a special event coordinator, and a meeting manager.

In a nutshell, that's not Eventful. Indeed, that description inolves way too many atoms, and far too few bits. In other words, we are about information, not the physical "heavy lifting" of putting on actual events and dealing with all the logistical headaches. Nah. No worries about decor, tables, chairs, tents, let alone police, fire, portable toilets, and whatnot. We're geeks. We work with computers. :-)

So if Eventful is not, so I dare to claim, an "event planning site", what is it?

It's the best way on the Internet to discover, share, track, create, and demand events. Since day one, Eventful's mission has been, in three words, to "maximize event discovery", something that I felt the Internet had done a poor job doing in the years prior to a service like Eventful being available. "Event discovery" is the act of discovering events that are interesting and meaningful to you such that you want to go to them and hopefully do wind up going to them.

How does this act of discovery take place? By finding out what your friends are doing. By sharing what you're doing with your friends. By having the system recommend events to you based on your interests. By browsing through the site and discovering events you might never have heard of before. By joining groups whose members share an interest, and, together, all of you can find events related to that interest. This is what discovery is all about. It is very powerful.

So what about "share"? Sharing means taking those discoveries you've made, and telling others about them, that simple! Getting the word out. Making your discovery someone else's discovery, and so on, and so on.

What do I mean by "track"? I mean tracking things down -- having the system work on your behalf to automatically and regularly search for people and subjects you are interested in, and when it finds events that match those people and subjects, it lets you know in as much advance time as possible. Did you know that whenever you search Eventful, you can save the search results as an RSS or iCal feed, and then re-run those feeds any time you wish, to get fresh results? That's tracking. Did you know that you can save a search, give it a name, and have it listed in your My Eventful page, and tell the system how often you wish to receive email notifications whenever the system finds items that match your search terms? That is tracking. Did you know that you can use My Eventful's iTunes / Last.fm importing feature to instantly import all of your favorite musical artists, and then Eventful will email you whenever any of them announces they're coming to your town for a performance? That's very powerful tracking.

By "create" I mean two things -- first, simply posting new event listings on the site, either via our Add Event page or the Eventful API for the developers out there. Second, by using Eventful Demand to create a groundswell of interest and support for an event in your town that you and your fellow demanders really, really, really want to have happen. When events come about because of Eventful Demand, you can truly say that you've helped "create" them.

And finally, "demand" -- using our world-famous Eventful Demand service, unique on the Internet, you can connect to performers and get them to come to your town for an event, be it a concert, comedy show, political rally, interview, public appearance, speech, book signing, film screening, or whatever other type of event you wish. Ask, ask loudly enough, and you shall be surprised at how often you can receive . . .

So. Not "event-planning." When you see that in a published news story about Eventful, you know somebody has not done their homework. :-)

Meanwhile, invite your friends to come on in and together use Eventful, especially the My Eventful feature inside Eventful, to its fullest -- indeed, the very best way to get the most out of Eventful is when your friends use it too. That way, each of you doesn't have to do much to get all the recommendations and event discoveries from the others.

Vote for Eventful for a WebWare 2008 Award

Last year we won a WebWare 2007 award thanks to all of the votes we received from supportive fans. Time to vote again this year!

They've re-arranged the categories this year, and we're in a very crowded group, "Commerce and Events", which they describe as including "Retail, auctions, travel, real estate, concerts, conferences" (yikes!). So, more than ever, we need your votes and your friends and family's votes so we beat out the likes of Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, Google, and others!

Click on the logo here to go vote, or, click this link!

Voting Ends March 31st! Be sure to get your friends and family to vote for us too. Thanks!