Release notes
What we shipped to the live site — in plain language, focused on what matters if you browse events in the 860.
Sharper crawls, venue links, Facebook permalinks, and Alfred stability
June 25, 2026
- Event source links — Facebook events only publish with a real event page (`/events/{id}`), not a generic page calendar. Cross-publisher links (venue site + Facebook + Eventbrite) show together again after recrawl.
- Venue names on events — linked curated venues display consistently on browse, homepage, and event detail when we have a venue record.
- Event images — “No Image Available” shows on placeholder heroes; chamber and DMO listings should pick up better photos after recrawl.
- Merged duplicates — old duplicate event URLs redirect to the winner instead of 404.
860 Takes on browse, venue links, faster admin, and sharper crawls
June 23, 2026
- 860 Take on browse cards — listing tiles show the first line of the host Take when we have one (not just on the event detail page).
- Event detail images — Switch image no longer repeats the same photo at different CDN resi
Venue-owned crawls, enrich UX, and 860 Take room callouts
June 22, 2026
- 860 Take — When a listing names a hall, room, or stage inside a larger venue (e.g. Mortensen Hall at The Bushnell), the Take mentions it. Simple single-room venues stay as-is.
- Venue-owned listings — Events from venue-owned calendars bind to the correct curated venue names (e.g. Elicit Brewing Company) so wrong-venue labels are less common after recrawl.
Alfred Crawl 2, Jobs lane UX, and admin polish
June 19, 2026
- About — Page stays up when the database is briefly unreachable (empty stats/town browse instead of a broken page).
Crawl discovery guardrails, Jobs UX, event detail polish
June 18, 2026
- Home — Mobile hero is shorter so headline copy sits closer to the image.
- Event detail — Venue and host website links look external (muted + icon); browse links (“More in town”, more at venue) stay on-site accent links.
- Trivia — Bar Rated and other known hosts show logo/site on venue-calendar trivia rows when the listing omits `organi
Trivia crawl fixes, Hartford Theater, event detail polish
June 17, 2026
- Header — Logo shrinks faster on scroll so it clears the nav bar before links overlap.
- Event detail — Other dates lists only upcoming showtimes (no past performances). Hartford.com Sweeney Todd shows Hartford Stage as venue with TheaterWorks Hartford as host (co-production).
- What Trivia — `/where` listings publish reliably with correct venue towns and trivia category inference.
Browse by town, event polish, scrape sprint, admin Jobs
June 16, 2026
- Browse by town — `/events/towns` groups upcoming events by county with village breakdown (e.g. Broad Brook under East Windsor); homepage widget links use canonical town labels.
- Homepage carousel — Thumbnail cards show venue + town again (matches event listing).
- Event images — Duplicate mytheatreland hero si
Admin sprint — Sources, Venues, Jobs, and layout
June 15, 2026
No public-facing visitor changes in this promote — admin and enrichment tooling only.
Trivia Near Me, admin sprint, and event timing polish
June 14, 2026
- Trivia Near Me — `/connecticut/trivia-near-me` with This/Next week, single-select day filter, Near me location picker, Cards/Tiles/List/Map views, sorted by date; shareable URL filters.
- Events & home — Urgency badges (Happening Now / Today / Tomorrow); listing cards keep clock times and show end time when the source states it; homepage taller mobile hero, glow-map About block, and brighter Behind the Scenes stats.
- Event detail — Compact When / Venue / Host row when a separate host exists; Add to calendar in the When box; venue box shows name, address, logo, and links only (no scraped promo copy); faster navigation with loading skeleton and card prefetch.
- Browse pages — Intro copy uses full page width on events, categories, explore, venues, sources, and related hubs.
- Help us grow — Submit Feedback tile; admin Bugs & feedback tab for reports and `/feedback` intake.
- About — Drops hero logo; uses the same glow 860 map as home.
Scroll header polish, scrape quality sprint, and submission guards
June 13, 2026
- Site header — Logo and nav bar shrink smoothly as you scroll on every page; logo lines up with page content and settles into the compact top bar.
- Events browse — Location filter uses short town labels (e.g. West Hartford, CT), matching the home widget.
- Help us grow — Share tile matches the other action buttons with larger icons.
- Suggest a site — Accepts Facebook profile pages with an Events tab (e.g. Day Shift); blocks exact duplicate URLs already in Sources or pending review.
Stored map coords, category browse, and home Happening now
June 12, 2026
- Homepage — Server-rendered event carousel respects your saved location; Happening now on live listings and the Today chip; short town labels (e.g. Beacon Falls, CT); rolls to Tomorrow when Today is empty late in the evening.
- Today browse — Museum-style and long-running listings respect venue opening hours, not just calendar dates.
- Category browse — `/events/category/*` uses the full events toolbar (dates, town, Near, price, search) with topic filters locked per page; shareable URL params.
- Map — Pins use stored venue coordinates (no geocode on every map load); re-enrich venues from admin to backfill missing pins.
- Venues — Banner tiles, sort by upcoming events, public hours when enriched.
- Explore — `/connecticut/trivia-near-me` trivia landing page (basic category listing; week/day/location filters and Cards/Map views expanded on Preview after this promote — see dev changelog).
- Footer — Share after Donate; My Harts unchanged.
- AdSense — Production `<head>` includes Google site-verification meta; `ads.txt` unchanged.
Homepage location-first discovery and events map view
June 11, 2026
- Homepage — “Find things to do” uses one location field (town or address, 25 mi default) shared with `/events`; About and live Behind the Scenes stats sit directly under the hero with aligned counts and a balanced stats card.
- Location — Use my location reverse-geocodes to an estimated 860 town; Full Calendar and Explore more open the same filtered listing; reopening the picker shows other towns, not just your current pick.
- Events map — Map view on `/events` with clustering, readable pins, dark basemap, and rich popups (time, venue, price). Pan/
Fresher 860 Takes, sharper listings, and admin jobs polish
June 10, 2026
- 860 Take — After publish and recrawl, event pages refresh the host-style summary from curated venue, schedule, and source facts (not raw scrape blurbs). Fallback copy reads more naturally when AI is unavailable.
- Event detail — Source buttons say site / Events listing; cleaner layout when there is no 860 Take; venue and good-to-know blocks no longer clip on desktop.
- Listings — Fewer out-of-region and wrong-town events in browse; dead cards without slugs are dropped; clearer geolocation message when Near you fails.
- Site header — Large logo at the top of every page; compacts after you scroll (prod behavior restored).
Browse by time, venue polish, and smarter event schedules
June 6, 2026
- Browse drops off by time — Afternoon and evening listings leave browse once the run is over (~2 hours when no end time is stated), not at midnight. Same-day `11:59 PM` placeholders no longer keep finished events visible all evening.
- Clearer event times — When we only estimate an end time for sorting, the public detail page shows start time only; real publisher end times still display.
- Homepage on phones — Near you carousel scrolls inside the widget without sideways page scroll.
- Recommended sort — Multi-day and standing listings sort after one-time events on the homepage carousel.
- Richer venue pages — Batch enrichment fills logo, address, and description when the venue website is clear; name cleanup for truncated labels (e.g. CT's Old State House).
Event recrawl dedupe, crawl queue hardening, venue imagery
June 4, 2026
- Richer event listings — Cross-source duplicates (same show, different aggregators) merge more reliably, including when start times disagree; combined rows keep the best photos from each source.
- Venue pages — Hero and tile photos prefer real upcoming event images at that venue, not generic placeholders or logos.
Event detail fix, venue enrichment, admin jobs safety
June 3, 2026
- Event detail pages — Fixed crashes from cached dates (`startsAt.getTime` errors); When date/time displays reliably again.
- Mobile events browse — Filter menus anchor correctly; filter chips wrap on screen (no hori
Homepage carousel, venue tiles, Near you location control
June 2, 2026
- Event carousel — Restored recommended sort on the homepage (had regressed to date-only).
- Venue tiles — Hero photos from upcoming events again (not venue logos); tiles with a real photo rank first.
- Near you — ◎ location button beside the area picker (matches event filters); removed “Use my location” from the dropdown.
Homepage performance, public listings stability, admin Jobs queue fixes
June 1, 2026
- Faster homepage — Hero, search, and browse-by-town paint first; discover, sources, Near you, and stats stream in without blocking the shell. Near-you geo loads after scroll via `/api/browse-region`.
- More reliable listings — `/venues` and `/sources` use batched DB reads (fixes 500s under load). Homepage sources widget only shows calendars with upcoming events.
- Clearer dates — Multi-week exhibitions show Now thru … on cards (not a stale opening datetime).
- Structured calendars — ICS/webcal, Tribe REST, and Squarespace JSON feeds can skip LLM when the feed is strong enough (fresher listings from more publishers).
Crawl queue reliability, event dedupe, curated venues, admin DB stability
May 31, 2026
Cross-source listings for the same show (e.g. Concerts50 + AXS at Webster) merge more reliably when start times are within 30 minutes and titles match. No intentional public UI changes.
Server crawl queue, OpenAI lock fix, and admin Jobs/Sources polish
May 30, 2026
No public-facing page changes in this release. Crawl reliability and admin tooling improvements keep event listings fresher behind the scenes.
Community feedback, browse filters, admin polish, and favicon fix
May 29, 2026
- Help us grow on the homepage — donate, submit a calendar, request a feature, or report a bug (desktop beside Near You; stacked on mobile).
- `/feedback` for bugs and feature requests not tied to a specific event.
- Browse filters: Any Date and Anywhere in the 860 up front; pill dropdowns for dates and event type; full-width search with Search button + Enter; stronger dropdown shadow; active chips match toolbar order.
- Homepage: search headline above the bar; Near You regional headline under the section label; single gold About CTA; area picker on Near You (saved locally, optional device location).
- Donate page: one section with Stripe checkout only.
- Events search ranks strongest matches first; keyword search includes linked source text; 1 mile distance option.
- Source pages show cancelled event counts; upcoming listings exclude cancelled rows.
- Product backlog at `/about/updates/backlog` includes Community feedback from admin (submitter first name when provided).
- Favicon: gold 860 on transparent, si
Smarter sort, homepage polish, admin Sources/Jobs, and scrape AI reliability
May 28, 2026
- Event sorting (recommended, date, distance): nearer and sooner when we know your area; busier venues rank higher; multi-day listings sort after one-time events. Distance sort uses server geo when lat/lng aren’t in the URL (fixes empty Middletown-style results).
- Homepage: This month / Full Calendar date strip, recommended sort, more compact Browse by town (12 towns), Near You can show up to four cards with placeholders when needed.
- Event cards: image frame always shows; No Image Available overlay when appropriate; list pages use curated venue/town names when known.
- Event detail: hero image
Event dedupe, trivia heroes, and admin merge tools
May 27, 2026
- Cleaner event pages: “Official source” links are labeled consistently and ordered predictably.
- Fewer duplicates: syndicated events from different publishers are more likely to collapse into one complete listing (while keeping all source links and images).
- Trivia event graphics use the branded “Trivia in the 860” lockup banner, gold frame, and clearer HOST / VENUE layout (including when a venue has no logo).
- Real themes show as THEME: … at the bottom when the event title is an actual theme night (not the host company name).
- Google Analytics loads on www again (tags were missing when production env pointed `NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL` at dev).
Browse by town, venue polish, trivia heroes, and admin venues table
May 26, 2026
- Browse by town on the homepage and a full town list at `/events/towns` — pick a town and see what’s coming up there.
- Near you uses your area more accurately (no more `West%20Hartford`-style labels) and links into the main events calendar.
- Faster homepage — venue, source, and stats sections load with less database work on every visit.
- Event pages carry richer Google-friendly data (event, place, and organi
Bug reports, filters, admin reliability, and venue dedupe polish
May 25, 2026
- Report a bug from the footer or an event page; we’ll see it in admin.
- Event filters work better with any US
Scrape fixes for we-ha, CT Ag Fairs, and Bandsintown
May 24, 2026
- More events from West Hartford (we-ha), Connecticut agricultural fairs, and Bandsintown listings when those publishers are configured as sources.
Trivia heroes, category routes, admin dedupe, and Connecticut town filter
May 23, 2026
- Trivia events get branded hero cards (860 mark + venue logo) when no photo is available; host logo appears in the Host glance cell and as a switchable gallery image.
- Event detail pages: category pill on the hero; cleaner When copy for long-running exhibits; free events no longer show contradictory “Tickets required”; museum/venue websites listed separately from aggregator scrape feeds.
- Related events use time-of-day buckets (morning/afternoon/evening/night) instead of a narrow ±2 hour window.
- Category browsing at `/events/category` aligned with scrape categories; `/categories` redirects here.
- Public product backlog at `/about/updates/backlog`.
- Event totals and town filters no longer treat Connecticut / CT as a town when scrapes put the state in the town field.
- Public `/events` and admin active-event counts stay aligned.
All Day events, venues, scrapes, admin tools, and header polish
May 21, 2026
- All Day events show clearly on listings and event pages (not a misleading clock time).
- Multi-day and date-run events show a compact date range on event cards.
- Venues at `/venues` (old `/locations` redirects): cards and homepage tiles share better photos; Meetup/Eventbrite logos are not used as venue art.
- Browse & discover: `/categories` hub and topic pages, `/explore` for town/topic SEO pages, regional landing routes, and a Near you widget on the homepage (IP-based).
- Homepage: new hero photos and tap-to-change on mobile; headline “Things to do across the 860” with AI-aggregated subhead; categories mini-grid; 8 source calendars; events preview loads reliably again.
- Events: Today and other presets skip ended listings; event detail shows $ on cost, # on category, tags, listing-added copy, and an ended-event callout; compact search AdSense on desktop.
- Event detail shows the venue logo in the Location area, category as a tag, and Tags / official links grouped below Good to know with clearer section styling.
- Live sports and live entertainment replace mislabeled fitness/sports for spectator events (games, monster trucks, etc.).
- Sources page has search and bottom pagination.
- Header logo on every page: large at the top, hangs over content below; shrinks into the nav bar when you scroll; nav links stay vertically centered.
- Footer: logo links home; mobile footer links in two columns; shorter dev preview banner on Preview only.
- Favicon and Apple touch icon: gold 860 on a transparent background.
- Event detail pages can show a photo gallery when scrapes find multiple images (hero image unchanged for cards and search).
- Event pages can show additional showtimes when a show has multiple slots on one listing.
Team docs, sprint workflow, and operator guides
May 19, 2026
No visible site changes in this release. Behind the scenes: documentation and scrape reliability work from prior releases continue to apply on production.
Better local event discovery and scraping
May 18, 2026
- Event pages aim for clearer descriptions and more accurate hero images when we pull listings from local venues and calendars (especially Webflow-style sites and large venues).
- The 860 Life Take — our short editorial blurb on an event — should read more like a knowledgeable local friend and less like copied venue boilerplate when we have enough source material.
- The public site and admin tools are unchanged in URL structure; this release is mostly data quality and reliability under the hood.