the archive is more than a list of old flyers. it works like the "one search" tool at a library: type to narrow in on a band, venue, or night, or open refine and stack filters to carve the record down to exactly what you mean. every count updates as you go, so you are never guessing what is left. here is how to get the most out of it.
try this: real digs
a few things people actually come to the archive for, and the fastest way to pull each one:
i went to a show but forgot who played pick the year, the venue, and the night of the week you remember. that usually cuts 1,000+ shows down to a handful you can eyeball.
what touring bands have rolled through pensacola open scene → touring acts, then set sort to oldest-first to read them in the order they came through.
shows at a venue that are marked all-ages pick the room under where, then all ages under ages. add free under cover if you only want the no-cover ones. note this only catches shows whose flyer actually stated an age policy, not every all-ages show that room has hosted.
free drag or cabaret nights open refine, tick drag / cabaret under who played, then tap the free quick filter. the counts show how common they are, and the flyer wall shows them off.
what was happening the year i moved here pick that year. flip to the flyer wall for the whole season at a glance, or search a venue you remember to narrow it.
track one band’s whole history with the scene type their name and pick it from the list: every night they played, right there, with the year strip showing when they were busiest. the link over the results opens their act page, with who they shared bills with.
which room booked the most punk in a given year pick the year, then read the counts in the where facet: every room's number updates to that year, so the biggest count is the busiest room.
one search box
start typing a band, a venue, or a year. a list drops down under the box, grouped by kind: bands & acts, venues, and year, each with how many shows it has on the record.
pick a name and the archive narrows to exactly that act's or that room's nights. a chip says what you picked, and a line over the results links on to its own page. picking more than one act shows the nights of either.
keep typing instead and the list matches any show whose lineup, venue or year contains your letters. handy for a half-remembered name, but "slug" will also catch every show at sluggo's.
a typo? if nothing matches, the list offers the closest spellings it knows.
what the box reads: the lineup, the venue name and the year of every show, and it ignores punctuation and apostrophes ("bettys" finds Betty's). it does not read genres, prices or the words on a flyer: use the filters for those.
see them all next to a group swaps the show list for every matching act or venue, a to z. the chip that appears takes you back to shows.
arrow keys move through the list, enter on an exact name picks it, and alt + / anywhere on the page jumps to the box (option + / on a mac).
the refine panel
tap filters (on a phone it slides up from the bottom; on a wide screen it is the rail on the left). each facet slices the list you are looking at:
year: every year we have flyers for
where: the venue / room
who played: bands, drag & cabaret, poetry & spoken word, comedy, djs, performers, or recurring happenings
scene: local acts vs touring acts
cover: free, sliding scale / donation, or paid
ages: all ages, 18+, or 21+
night of the week: monday through sunday
media: acts that have videos or a listen link on their page
two rules make it powerful:
pick more than one value in the same facet and it means either (drag or poetry).
pick values across different facets and it means all of them (all-ages and free and at Betty’s).
the number next to every value is a live count: it always shows how many results you would get if you added that filter to the ones already on, so a zero-count option just disappears. on a phone, the button at the bottom of the panel says how many shows you are about to see. the chips across the top are your active filters. tap any to drop it, or hit clear all to start over. and if a stack of filters ever leaves nothing, the archive tells you which one to drop to get shows back, and how many.
the year strip, quick filters & sorting
under the search box, the year strip draws one bar per year, as tall as that year's show count. tap a bar to filter to that year (tap more to add years). the bars redraw as you narrow, so after picking a band you can see the years they were busiest. the handful of shows from before 2011 share one older bar.
below it, the quick filters are the busiest rooms plus free and all ages, each with a live count. they set the same filters as the refine panel, just faster.
sort flips the show list newest-first or oldest-first; on an act or venue list it reads a to z or most shows first. flyer wall swaps the list for every flyer at once, and random show opens one from whatever is filtered.
with nothing typed, the top of the results shows what happened on this day in earlier years.
share it, and keep your own list
the address is the search. every filter, the search text, the sort and the flyer wall ride in the link after the #, so copying the page address sends someone the exact same results. a band, a room and a year in one link is fine.
i was there. on any past show's page, mark the night. your shows keeps every night you were at, the acts you saw most and the rooms you keep ending up in, on this device only. once you have marked one, a quiet check shows beside those nights here and a nights i was at quick filter appears.
good to know
the archive is built from the flyers we have logged, so the early years are thinner. the shape of the scene is real, but it is not every show that ever happened.
a facet like ages, cover, or scene only fills in when a flyer or post stated it outright. no tag is not a no, it usually just means that flyer did not say, so filtering by a facet can undercount shows that would qualify but were not marked.
every show, even an old one, has its own permanent page you can link or share.
spot something wrong: a mislabeled act, a missing show? tell us how to fix it and we will fix the record.
