Local Events Map

Hey yall. Raleigh native here, longtime dweller on this sub and many other local subs. I've been seeing a ton of local events websites getting posted recently over the last few months, and while I realize this is just adding to spam, I figured I would toss my personal project from the last couple of years into the mix.

Anyone who uses the weekly ThingsToDo919 post that gets pinned over on r/raleigh has probably seen my comments there, and can feel free to dismiss the rest of this post. TTD919 curates a great local list as-is!

For everyone else who hasn't seen it (which seems to be a pretty large group), or those who may want their list in a different format/filtered, I'm the developer/admin over on 919 Events. I started the website a couple of years ago after following the weekly pinned post and having the idea of sorting the list spatially. It started out as just a map view with a static list of events that I manually uploaded every week, but now its a full-stack platform that scrapes events, sends weekly personalized events digest emails (and soon push notifs for mobile...), and even learns your preferences over time to curate recommendations lists.

I'm the sole developer on it and its still a constant work-in-progress, so things will change, break, and evolve over time. The data scrapers, for example, will sometimes pull duplicate events due to how many sources I utilize - something I'm planning to address soon though. Keep in mind that the data sources I pull from really only target the Raleigh and greater Triangle area. Charlotte, Greensboro, Asheville, and even some VA cities will have some events populated, just not as many.

Some notable features:

• Using a spatial database, each query will return closest proximity events
• Weekly personalized digest emails sent every Friday for the following week (opt-in)
• Chat feature that lets you search events on any criteria (i.e. "concerts happening near me in July" or "free family events this weekend")
• Text embeddings drive recommendations based on event views and saves
• Anyone can suggest edits or submit events

That last bulletpoint brings me to my point in posting here, I would love to get more users submitting events and editing whats already on the platform. I already have a few authors that upload their venues events regularly, and some good traffic on users anonymously submitting and editing events. I can always use more help though, and its 100% free!

Please feel free to reach out with any suggestions and please report any bugs you find to me. Like I said, I'm developing this on my own outside of my day job, sometimes things slip past my attention. I hope this can atleast help some people here find things to do!