This might be old news for some of you who actually frequent the Scene, but we recently retooled our whole events portal, and if you check it out, I think you’ll agree that it is quite useful, and it maybe even rules a little bit.
Here’s the deal. About a month ago, we added new tools for users to easily add three new classes of events to our database: recurring events (referred to as “nights” in the argot of promoters, just pretty much any weekly event with the same DJs, themes, specials, etc. Here are some examples.), happy hours (you know what those are), and other specials (basically any special deal on food or drank that couldn’t accurately be described as a happy hour, so everything from all-day or all-night specials to lunch specials to student/military discounts).
We immediately got to work adding events and specials to our database, but for the past couple weeks, the only place you could find these events was on the upper left part of the city portal, under “Things to Do,” or on the calendar pages of the venues themselves.
Now, however, those events and specials are searchable and browsable here.
That is the Los Angeles events portal, obviously. Since we’re based in L.A., and we have our biggest user base here, I’ve been concentrating on adding as many L.A. happy hours, specials, and recurring events as I can. Notice on the left sidebar you can filter down to just happy hours, just beer specials, just one event category, etc.
You can also filter by neighborhood, which is nice, as obviously you work in a neighborhood and are therefore probably interested in finding a happy hour in that very neighborhood. You also live in a neighborhood, so … useful feature. (After casting a wide net all over the city to collect events initially, I’ve recently turned my attention to filling out certain popular neighborhoods, as determined by user traffic. I did Venice and Culver City last week, and am now concentrating on the East Side, so if you live or work in those areas, you’re in luck!)
Also, clicking on the calendar in the upper right corner will (obviously) allow you to browse events by day, week, and various other hott timespans.
So, anyhow, I hope you check it out and I hope you find it useful.
There’s still more updates and improvements planned, including: making it possible to add recurring events that don’t recur every week, but instead happen maybe every first and third Wednesday, or something (like a personal favorite, Awesometown at the Shortstop); and being able to switch the venue of a recurring event if it moves (for instance, LAX’s long-running Sunday night party Banana Split just moved to Bardot. This happens pretty often, as clubs will offer successful DJs/promoters better terms to move their popular nights.) Also, we’re going to make recurring event categories non-exclusive, so an event can be classified as both “music” and “nightlife,” for instance, and it will surface under both searches. Another improvement will be additional categories to choose from. We haven’t nailed them down yet, but chances are karaoke will get its own category, since karaoke nights seem to be so prevalent these days, and we’ll probably add something like “fun & games” for things like trivia nights and the increasingly popular Wii and Rockband nights.
Anyhow, I’m very excited about this new site feature, as it gives the Scene somethign that no other nightlife platform has. Sure, you can find sme events on other sites, but searchable and browsable happy hours? Specials? Nope. The events portal also looks freeaking awesome on our new iPhone app, which will be out shortly.
-PETE
