Venue And Event Proposal

This is a page describing as enhancement proposal for the MusicBrainz server. It is paralleled by this trac ticket.

Rationale

We found it is often useful to record a physical location related to tracks and releases in MusicBrainz. For example, we would like to record the studio where an album was recorded, or the venue where a concert was performed. The "venue" object resulting from this proposal will be used similarly to the Label objects used in the "release" fields of a release.

Description

Enter below a list of features such an object will need.

Name

The name is an identifier similar to what the Artists and Labels have. It will certainly need a "comment" to distinguish between same-named objects.

Type

There are many kinds of possible "venues" we need to enter, so it is important that this field be well thought out.

Examples:

• "studio" -- this is probably going to be used often for the recording place of "normal" albums, singles and EPs.
• "venue" -- this is for places usually specialized for "artistic events" like concerts. This includes concert halls, theaters & amphitheaters, stadiums, clubs. We may want a list of options or use an annotation to be more precise.
• "festival" -- often many concerts are performed in a certain location that doesn't have any specific use outside the concert's duration. Since many concerts are performed in such places, it is necessary to be able to retain everything together.
• "other" -- I've seen things recorded in hotel rooms (there's a Roxette album for instance), private homes, and other funny places like this. We'll need to use annotations to explain some of these.

Dates

Similar to creation date for Labels, birth/death date for [Artist]s, etc. It's less important for studios and venues -- though by no means completely irrelevant -- but it's very important for festivals and similar events.

Location

Of course we're most interested in where a venue is. I suggest a specialized country field that works exactly like the one for the Releases, and a free-form text field for the address (as the format can be different for different countries). We can also add an (automatically-generated) URL to the Google Maps location of the address.

Annotation

This is certainly going to be useful for many venues

Relationships

Add any relationships here

• URL relationships:
  • home page -- Many venues will have an official home page; this includes studios, venues, and festivals.
  • other -- Especially for festivals there will be both official and unofficial sites. Bootleg sites may also have pages with bootlegs organized by location.

• Recording events: of course we'll need to link the venues with many release events; perhaps we need a separate wiki page for discussing those.