STYLE-573: Define event time

Ok, it’s time to try using this for actual style discussion! Since a lot of people probably haven’t made their way to this forum, I’m going to start with a reasonably general topic. That is STYLE-573.

We have events now! :ticket:
We’ve had them for quite a while, but we still don’t have a good definition for many things. One thing that has been unclear for quite a while is “what is event time”. We just say it is “the start time of the event”. For events that have two indicated times, door time and first performer time, what should we use? You can just vote in the poll (assuming it works, it’s my first attempt :smile: ). If you have more to say, write a comment too!

  • Door time
  • First performer time
  • Something else (comment!)
0 voters

Which time is most commonly advertised on posters? Those seem like they’d be the most readily-available source of this kind of information.

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What I tend to see is either doors, or “time” without more info. But for more organised concerts, they’ll often specify starting artist time too, either on the ticket, the website, the Facebook event or the like.

Of course, when there’s only one time available, then that’s the one to use and there’s little doubt :slight_smile:

Is either/both (user selectable) out of the question?

Nope! (it’s a schema change though, if we want to store them separately in different fields)

In my part of the cosmos, the planned start time is given on posters, tickets etc. It’s implied that you’ll be able to go in half an hour or an hour before; sometimes, the door time may be given somewhere in fine print.

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I’m inclined to go for door time, since we can store specific “artist start times” on the Event-Artist relationships, but we can’t store “door time” elsewhere, so making Event’s “time” property be the same as earliest “artist start time” is just duplicating information and we may as well just drop the Event’s “time” then.

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This depends on the kind of event you are talking about. In Germany a live act in a bar will usually start around the time as advertised. In a concert hall the advertised time is doors-time and only sometimes the time when the act is supposed to start is advertised at all. This might or might not be the time when they really start.

I suppose, that in different countries this will be very different. In fact these are just cultural norms.

Then think of something very famous like Woodstock: We know exactly at which time which act did actually start. And frankly, that is the information I’d want to have in MusicBrainz.

So my guess is, a guideline that says: take any official information you have and become more precise the more information you get, would be in order. “more precise” would always mean closer to the factual time that the artist started playing.

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Advertised time (bars, etc.) and open door time (closed rooms, concert halls, etc.) are the same, no?
It’s the norm for all places, no?
For closed room concert halls, the open door time is the one advertised, IIRC.

Would you please give a concrete example for the latter (i.e. a concert in Germany where the advertised time, big on the poster or whatever, is when the doors open)?

Perhaps “advertised time” rather than “door time”?

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Axl Rose has no idea what a clock is… :clock: :runner: :smile:

Grünspan in Hamburg http://www.gruenspan.de often advertizes door time and nothing else. You have to know that concerts start about two hours later.

Gibson in Frankfurt has live bands (the events are marekted as parties with live music) and only advertize the time you can get in: http://m.gibson-club.de/

Orange Peel in Frankfurt has no times on either website or flyers. The FAQ tell you when doors open and a factually wrong time when concerts are supposed to start (at door time) They do start 1 to 1,5 hours later.

Maybe these are rare cases for small clubs. I like the idea of "use the most precise advertized time. And if there is community consensus on the factually true time, that can be stored in the individual takes,no?

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This has been open for a while and it seems reasonably clear looking at the vote that door time is much more popular, so let’s go with that :slight_smile: Happy to see a fair number of people participating on the first style discussion here, let’s keep that up!

Added an event guideline.

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