WISHLIST: Improved Festival Search

[airds]

I was wondering how feasible it was to add extra search criteria to the festival search page

Things I think would be useful would be:

Family friendly (I realise that is subjective, but it might still be useful)

Is there a arena (ie can you take your own beer)

Price (as a drop down box)

Camp next to car (maybe not that useful, but nice to know )

Can you use camping gas

I realise change costs and these might not be feasible. The search as it is, is really useful, I use it quite a lot, I'm just suggestions bell & whistles

[eFestivals]

Thanks for the suggestions.

They're all things we've considered doing before now, but which haven't been done for a variety of reasons.

- Family friendly.

As you say, it's subjective. The difficulty here is that some festivals like to consider themselves as family friendly, and some of their attendees do too, but the view from where we're sat is that they're not particularly (when compared to what other fests lay on for kids). So rather than do those festivals and people a dis-service by marking them as not suitable for kids, we'd rather give fuller info within the listing text on what's on offer than a simple yes/no to whether they're family friendly or not, and then people can make up their own mind. By doing things this way, festivals aren't disadvantaged by how we present them.

- Is there a arena (ie can you take your own beer)

As the number of fests which don't have an arena are tiny, it's not really something that's worth doing.

- Price (as a drop down box)

This is the suggestion of yours I'd most like to implement somehow, and have been thinking about how it could be done well for years - but I can't see a way of how it can be done well. The difficulty comes with there being camping and non-camping tickets for many festivals at different prices, plus day tickets which tend to be priced at a significantly higher price than a simple "weekend ticket price divided by the number of days" price.

So which price should be the price that's used for a feature like this? While you might have a suggestion for which, that won't necessarily tie-in with how others see it, and giving a short explanation on the search page for how this is worked is near impossible - so people are likely to end up confused, and not being presented with festivals which they would otherwise consider.

On the basis of all that, we think it's better to present all festivals so that some aren't disadvantaged, and then it's up to the user to sort thru them.

- Camp next to car (maybe not that useful, but nice to know )

The number of festivals which still allow this to happen is tiny, because of licencing restrictions. Where we're aware that this is how it works, then that info is contained within the listing text. Because the number is so small, we don't feel a search feature is worth doing.

- Can you use camping gas

The number of festivals which don't allow camping gas is again tiny - and is included within the listing text. Because the number is so small, we don't feel a search feature is worth doing.

Edited July 9, 2010 by eFestivals

[airds]

thanks for the prompt response

Just been thinking about the "family friendly" option, and the more I think about it, its probably "family/quiet camping" that is more of the option we would be interested in (wifey finds it hard to sleep through noise), and "family/quiet camping" area is a lot easier to define in search terms.

For price option I would have said use the price for an adult with camping staying the full weekend, but I agree with you that could be misleading

There is a way of doing it but cost / time would rule it out Im afraid, you could ask how many adults / kids (& their ages) are going, if they are camping etc then work out the total cost and sort by that, a bit like when your booking a holiday (shouldnt take you long to program )

I didnt realise that the other options had such a low amount of festivals that did them

thanks again

[eFestivals]

Just been thinking about the "family friendly" option, and the more I think about it, its probably "family/quiet camping" that is more of the option we would be interested in (wifey finds it hard to sleep through noise), and "family/quiet camping" area is a lot easier to define in search terms.

ahhhh - now that's an interesting difference, and one that's more practical. I'll have a think about doing something with that idea, thanks.

For price option I would have said use the price for an adult with camping staying the full weekend, but I agree with you that could be misleading

There is a way of doing it but cost / time would rule it out Im afraid, you could ask how many adults / kids (& their ages) are going, if they are camping etc then work out the total cost and sort by that, a bit like when your booking a holiday (shouldnt take you long to program )

Yeah, that's something that could be done I guess, but only after I'd set-up and populated a whole new load of fields for every possible price combination for every festival. That's much more than I'm gonna be taking on in the next year, sorry.

[airds]

ahhhh - now that's an interesting difference, and one that's more practical. I'll have a think about doing something with that idea, thanks.