DEV Arcane City pittsburgh events guide

Help & Tutorials

Everything you need to use DEV Arcane City — browse, follow what you love, and contribute your own events.
New here? Start with the 60-second tour, then dig in!

Last updated: May 2026

Getting started in 60 seconds

  1. Browse. Head to the homepage or calendar — no account needed. Click any event, venue, or artist to see more.
  2. Register. Create a free account so you can follow, attend, and post.
  3. Follow your first thing. Find a venue, artist, or genre you care about and hit Follow. You'll start getting digest emails about upcoming related events.

That's the basics. Everything below is the long version.

Glossary

A few words you'll see a lot. Knowing the difference saves a lot of confusion:

Event
A single show, party, opening, or screening that happens on a specific date.
Series
A recurring event (weekly, biweekly, monthly). Each occurrence shows up on the calendar automatically until someone creates a real event for that date with the specifics filled in.
Entity
Anyone or anything that participates in events: venues, promoters, bands, DJs, producers, artists, and shops.
Tag
A keyword (genre, vibe, format) shared across events, series, entities, and threads. Used for filtering and follows.
Thread
A forum post in the community forum. Can be standalone or attached to an event.

How do I…?

Quick walkthroughs for the most common tasks. Not sure whether the thing you want to add is a venue, a band, or an event? Almost everyone and everything is an entity — the show itself is the event.

How to add my band (or DJ / artist / producer)

A band is an entity, not an event. Add it once and then link it to every show you play.

  1. Add a new entity.
  2. Enter your name and pick Group (band) or Individual (solo artist/DJ) as the entity type.
  3. Under Roles, choose all that apply — Band, Artist, DJ, Producer. You can pick more than one.
  4. Save, then open your new page to add a photo, links (Bandcamp, Instagram, SoundCloud), a description and tags.
  5. Now when you add an event, find yourself under Related Entities.

How to add a venue

A venue is an entity with the Venue role. It needs to exist before you can attach it to an event.

  1. Add a new entity, choose entity type Space, and select the Venue role.
  2. Or — the fast way — open the event form and click Add New Venue right under the Venue dropdown. It's created and selected on the spot without leaving the form.
  3. Either way, you can flesh out the venue later from its page with an address/location, photo, and links.

How to add my event

  1. Create an event. Only Name, Event Type, and Start At are required.
  2. Pick the Venue. Not listed? Hit Add New Venue beside the field to create it inline.
  3. Add the Promoter and any performers under Related Entities. Missing one? Use the Add New link next to each field.
  4. Add a flyer/cover photo, tags, price and ticket link to make it more discoverable.

See Add an event below for the full field-by-field rundown.

Register & log in

To follow, attend, post events, or use the forum, you need an account. Register here — it takes about 20 seconds. Confirm the verification email and you're in.

Once you're logged in, visit your profile to:

  • Upload a profile photo
  • Set your display name and bio
  • Choose your email digest frequency
  • View everything you've followed or marked as attending

Forgot your password? Use the Forgot password link on the login page.

Browse events

There are three ways to look at what's coming up:

  • Event Listings — chronological list, the default view. Best for scanning the next few days.
  • Event Grid — visual grid of cover photos. Best for flyer-driven browsing.
  • Calendar — month view with everything plotted. Best for trip planning or finding free nights.

Filter anything. Every listing supports filters across tags (AND/OR), venues, related entities, event types, age, price, and date range. Use them aggressively — the database is large. Built a view worth sharing? Hit Copy Filter URL for a short link that opens the same filtered list, grid, or calendar for anyone.

Hidden gems on the calendar page:

  • Export iCal subscribes your phone or Google Calendar to a live feed of filtered events.
  • Export TXT dumps a plain-text version, great for newsletters.
  • URLs like /events/by-date/2026/06/15 and /events/upcoming/20260615 are stable and shareable — link to a specific date.

Follow & get updates

Once you're logged in:

  • Click the star next to any event to mark yourself attending. You'll get reminder emails as the date approaches.
  • Click Follow on any entity, tag, or series to subscribe. New events related to anything you follow show up in your digest emails.

Tag follows are underrated. If you only care about, say, drum-and-bass or noise rock, follow the tag and you'll get every event that gets it — no matter who posts it or where.

Manage everything you follow from your profile. Mute or unfollow anytime.

Add an entity

If you're a venue, promoter, band, DJ, producer, artist, or shop — add yourself. It's required before you can be linked to an event.

Pick the right role(s). An entity can have more than one. A venue can also be a promoter; an artist can also be a producer. Choose all that apply from: Venue, Artist, Band, DJ, Producer, Promoter, Shop.

Once your entity exists, open its page and you can add:

  • A cover photo (recommended ~1200×1200, square or 4:5)
  • Contacts (email, phone — kept private unless you mark them public)
  • External links (website, Bandcamp, Instagram, Linktree, etc.)
  • A description and tags
  • Related entities (e.g. members of a band, residents of a club night)

Hidden trick: Refresh Embeds. Entity and event pages auto-embed content from links you've added (Bandcamp player, Instagram posts, YouTube, SoundCloud). If embeds look stale after you update a link, hit Refresh Embeds from the actions menu.

Add an event

Create an event. Only three fields are required — Name, Event Type, and Start At — but filling more out makes it dramatically more discoverable.

Fields worth using:

  • Cover photo — flyers work great. Recommended ~1200×1500 (portrait) or 1200×1200.
  • Door / Show times — separate fields, both display on the event page.
  • Price and Age restriction
  • Ticket URL — generates a /go/evt-#### short link with click tracking, and shows up as a Buy Tickets CTA on cards.
  • Venue — the where. Pick from existing entities, or add the venue as an entity first.
  • Related entities — every promoter, band, DJ, opener. The more you list, the more follower feeds the event lands in.
  • Tags — pick from existing tags when possible. Keep it to ~6 max, and don't invent one-offs no one else will use.
  • Description — markdown is supported.

Event types define what kind of show it is — Concert, Club Night, House Show, Rave, Renegade, Festival, Benefit, Activism, Pop-up, Comedy, Workshop, Open Mic, Karaoke, Film Screening, Art Opening, Live Stream, Radio Show. Pick the one that matches; it affects how the event is filtered and how it gets cross-posted.

Promoting an instance of a series. If your event is this week's recurring night, open the series page first and create a new event from there — venue, tags, and related entities get pre-filled.

Editing or canceling. You can edit anything you created from the event page. To cancel, edit and mark it canceled rather than deleting — that way people who marked themselves attending get a notification.

Create an event from a flyer

Have an event flyer image? Use the Create from Flyer option on the event create page. We extract the date, venue, lineup, and ticket info and pre-fill the form — you just review and save.

Always double-check the parsed fields. The algorithm is decent but not perfect, especially with stylized fonts and overlapping text.

Add a series

Use a series for anything recurring — weekly residencies, monthly parties, biweekly jams. Set the recurrence (e.g. "Every Tuesday at 10 PM") and DEV Arcane City automatically projects future instances onto the calendar in light blue as Next Edition.

When the specifics are locked in (lineup, cover, etc.), create the concrete event from the series page. The new event inherits the series' venue, tags, and related entities.

Good fits for a series: weekly DJ nights, monthly metal shows, biweekly jams, recurring open mics. Bad fits: a one-off festival, a tour stop.

Photos & media

Cover photos for events and entities are stored on our media service. A few guidelines:

  • Formats: JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF
  • Recommended dimensions: ~1200×1200 (square) for entities, ~1200×1500 (portrait) for event flyers
  • Anything significantly smaller will look soft on retina screens

Embedded media. Paste a YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, Bandcamp, Mixcloud, Vimeo, or Instagram link into an event/entity/series description (or as an external link on an entity) and we render the rich embed automatically. No special syntax required.

Tags

Tags work the same across events, series, entities, and forum threads. They're how people find each other's stuff.

Etiquette:

  • Use existing tags whenever possible — type the first few letters and pick from the dropdown.
  • Cap it at ~6. More than that dilutes the signal.
  • No one-offs. "My-cousin's-birthday" isn't a tag; the event title is.
  • Tags can be genres (darkwave, dubstep), formats (live-music, dj, vinyl), vibes (weird, cozy), or contexts (benefit, pride, family-friendly).

Forum & threads

The forum is for everything that's not an event listing — show announcements with extra context, scene discussion, gear questions, room rentals, after-show reviews. Start a thread or reply to existing ones.

Threads can be attached to an event so the conversation lives next to the listing. Tag your thread the same way you'd tag an event.

Keep it on-topic, no spam, no harassment. Reports go to the moderators.

Social syndication

Events you post don't just live on DEV Arcane City. They also:

  • Get included in the weekly digest emails sent to subscribers
  • Are eligible for cross-posting to our Instagram

The more complete your event listing (cover photo especially), the better it presents downstream.

Video tutorials

Breakdown of the Homepage

Older walkthroughs are embedded in the sections above. Some predate the latest UI refresh — refer to the prose for the current behavior if anything looks off.

Frequently asked questions

Email geoff.maddock at gmail.com from an address that proves you're affiliated. Claimed entities can be edited by their owner.
Moderators occasionally fix typos, add missing venues, or clean up tags. If you disagree with an edit, post in the forum or email.
No — pick the primary venue and add the others as related entities.
Series occurrences appear in light blue until someone creates a concrete event for that date. If a date is missing entirely, edit the series and check the recurrence rule.
Edit it and mark it canceled. True deletes require contacting a moderator.
Open the duplicate, scroll to the bottom, and reply in the attached thread (or start one). A moderator will merge.
No — browsing events, entities, series, and the calendar is fully public. You only need to register to post content, follow things, or mark yourself attending.
No native app, but the site is fully responsive and works well as a phone bookmark or PWA.

For developers

  • REST API: /api/docs — read and write events, entities, series, tags, photos, contacts, links, and more. Authenticate with a Sanctum token (POST /api/auth/token) or HTTP Basic auth.
  • Source: github.com/geoff-maddock/events-tracker — Laravel + PHP + MySQL + Vue. PRs welcome.

Still stuck? Email geoff.maddock@gmail.com or post in the forum. Suggestions for this help page are welcome.