{"items": [{"author": "Mac", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754318143272", "anchor": "fb-754318143272", "service": "fb", "text": "Hopefully, you will update again in January. This is very interesting.", "timestamp": "1445699229"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754318143272&reply_comment_id=754318786982", "anchor": "fb-754318143272_754318786982", "service": "fb", "text": "→ All the bookings for these should be in for 2015, so I doubt I'll need an update.

(All the dance pages I checked already listed the bands.)", "timestamp": "1445699311"}, {"author": "Mac", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754318143272&reply_comment_id=754319181192", "anchor": "fb-754318143272_754319181192", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Got it. Forgot the implications of \"booked\" (as opposed to \"played\").", "timestamp": "1445699370"}, {"author": "Nix", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754329211092", "anchor": "fb-754329211092", "service": "fb", "text": "I used the city data to make a map of the festivals. It's not perfect, as the exclusion of NEFFA and other similar dance weekends doesn't make sense for this application. But it's still interesting: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit...", "timestamp": "1445701264"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754329211092&reply_comment_id=754333402692", "anchor": "fb-754329211092_754333402692", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Here's the one I made last year: http://www.jefftk.com/contra-weekend-heatmap", "timestamp": "1445701434"}, {"author": "Nix", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754329211092&reply_comment_id=754345054342", "anchor": "fb-754329211092_754345054342", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I didn't realize you had done one previously! A heatmap is somewhat better for this, although it does mean that you can't click on the points and see what they are.", "timestamp": "1445703492"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754329211092&reply_comment_id=754346271902", "anchor": "fb-754329211092_754346271902", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Having both is neat!

One thing that's nice about heatmaps is that two weekends in the same location show up twice instead of once.", "timestamp": "1445704350"}, {"author": "Luke", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/115294324243294509069", "anchor": "gp-1445702161224", "service": "gp", "text": "Thanks for putting this together and updating it.\n
\n
\nWould it be a simple script on your database to pull out the callers too? Or did you not scrape that information? I don't see it in the google doc, so I'm guessing you didn't scrape it.", "timestamp": 1445702161}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1445703751298", "service": "gp", "text": "@Luke\n\u00a0It's not scraped, it's hand-collected. \u00a0Automating this would be a lot of work given how much different websites vary. So to include callers one would need to visit the sites and write down who called what.", "timestamp": 1445703751}, {"author": "Luke", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/115294324243294509069", "anchor": "gp-1445704328507", "service": "gp", "text": "Yeah, that does seem like a bit.\n
\n
\nDo you just Google every festival to check for the year?\n
\n\u00a0(rather than putting a hyperlink in the document that gets outdated)", "timestamp": 1445704328}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1445704590860", "service": "gp", "text": "@Luke\n\u00a0Yeah, I search for them each time. \u00a0So many links break.\n
\n
\nI also look over band schedule pages to see if I missed any, especially new ones.", "timestamp": 1445704590}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754365817732", "anchor": "fb-754365817732", "service": "fb", "text": "Talking to Luke I'm curious what this would look like for callers. My bet is that the busiest callers call more than the busiest bands. (Because most bands don't call at all! Sorry...) The idea is that with callers people primarily want someone consistent while with bands people want more variety.", "timestamp": "1445713425"}, {"author": "Mac", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754365817732&reply_comment_id=754366037292", "anchor": "fb-754365817732_754366037292", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Callers are easier to move around than bands. Even given Adina Gordon's backpack.", "timestamp": "1445713516"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754365817732&reply_comment_id=754366162042", "anchor": "fb-754365817732_754366162042", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Most of the weekends we play fly in both callers and bands though.", "timestamp": "1445713574"}, {"author": "Bronwyn", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754365817732&reply_comment_id=754370024302", "anchor": "fb-754365817732_754370024302", "service": "fb", "text": "→ In both the contra and english groups I help organize, I think we do pay more attention to distance when inviting bands. One plane ticket is less than 4.", "timestamp": "1445714256"}, {"author": "Bronwyn", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754365817732&reply_comment_id=754371216912", "anchor": "fb-754365817732_754371216912", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Though I also notice that dancers who aren't callers or musicians have more opinions and memories of bands than callers. I think good callers can be a bit like good theater techies in that dancers notice that the dance was great but don't necessarily attribute it to the caller. Anyway, in our community brainstorming meetings for deciding who to invite to our weekend there are always lots of people suggesting a wide variety of bands (that one band someone heard somewhere that once). That seems to happen much less with callers.", "timestamp": "1445714581"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754365817732&reply_comment_id=754373482372", "anchor": "fb-754365817732_754373482372", "service": "fb", "text": "→ @Bronwyn: And ECD callers are even more like that, because they pick the dances which means picking the tunes. A good caller picks dances with tunes which are a great fit for the band, but this judgement is very much behind the scenes and even many organizers don't know that this matters.", "timestamp": "1445715392"}, {"author": "Nix", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754365817732&reply_comment_id=754376621082", "anchor": "fb-754365817732_754376621082", "service": "fb", "text": "→ \"My bet is that the busiest callers call more than the busiest bands\"
The easiest way to test that might be to guess at the 2 or 3 most in-demand callers and see how many festivals they've called in the past year. But most of their webpages either don't have information on past gigs or it's really out of date.", "timestamp": "1445716999"}, {"author": "Luke", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754365817732&reply_comment_id=754438242592", "anchor": "fb-754365817732_754438242592", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I'd also expect the busiest callers to be calling more festivals than the busiest bands. Just looking through the ads in the back of the CDSS newsletter, I see more band variety than caller variety. However, since musicians can play in many bands busiest musicians would be a different comparison than busiest band. I feel like there are a lot more bands out there with members making a living as gigging talent than callers supporting themselves primarily through calling. So I'd expect busiest musicians to do more festivals than busiest callers.

For myself (and I don't expect to be in the busiest caller category) I did ~50 gigs in 2014; and 4 of them were weekend type events (if you count a Dawn Dance). I'll have probably a few more gigs overall this year, but again about 4 festivals.

I think if you add the caller information as you compile the 2016 list you'd have the information soon enough.

Any interest in opening access to the document and letting people fill it in with you? Caller, source page, and date updated might by useful columns in that regard.", "timestamp": "1445748475"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754365817732&reply_comment_id=754454724562", "anchor": "fb-754365817732_754454724562", "service": "fb", "text": "→ \"Any interest in opening access to the document and letting people fill it in with you?\"

Opened!

\"Caller, source page, and date updated might by useful columns in that regard.\"

Added columns.", "timestamp": "1445776413"}, {"author": "Luke", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/754276441842?comment_id=754365817732&reply_comment_id=754540328012", "anchor": "fb-754365817732_754540328012", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I got through about a dozen of 2015 before getting ready to board. My initial thoughts are \"How is it that I've never danced to Cis Hinkle? She's calling everywhere! Also, I'm apparently a complete slacker...\"", "timestamp": "1445804587"}]}