How we verify events

Official sources first

Every listing links out to a source. We prefer the fest's own site, the city event calendar, or the organizer's page — even when automated crawlers get blocked. If a human can read the dates on the official page, that is where we point you.

Aggregators, news listicles, and travel blogs are fallback only. When we use one, the event page says Listing checked instead of Official site ✓ verified.

Real dates or no dates

• No guesses. If we cannot cite start and end dates from an official or city source, we do not invent them.
• Watch for copy-paste calendars. Tables that repeat the same month and day for every year — including years a fest was cancelled — get dropped. Real programmes change.
• Past years appear only when each edition is individually confirmed against a source. Otherwise we leave history blank rather than fill it in.
• Future editions appear only when dates are on an organizer source or follow a published festival formula with corroboration (for example Oktoberfest before the city press release). Estimated dates carry a short explanatory note that the date follows the published festival formula and official confirmation arrives later; final dates are verified closer to the event.

When we last checked

When an editor confirms dates against the linked source, we stamp that verification date on the event page — usually under the Quick answer block — so you can see how fresh the check is.

A missing stamp does not mean the dates are wrong. It means we have not re-checked that listing since the last content pass. We catch up as pages are touched.

Thumbnails

Thumbnails are screenshots of the same official site we link to — a recognition aid so you know you landed in the right place, not an endorsement of the fest.

What we leave out

Prices, attendance figures, and founding years appear only with a cited source and an as-of year. We never invent sell-out status for Oktoberfest or any other fest. When a fact cannot be sourced, we say so plainly or omit it.

Spot an error?

If dates on an official site have moved and our page has not caught up, the official link on every event page is always the authority — a public corrections route is coming.