Event Listings and Venue Data

Data Thistle collects event listings and venue information from numerous sources, compiles and standardises their format.

Data Thistle aims to have complete coverage of short-duration events and venues, particularly in the cultural and sports sector, such as live music events and sports matches.

Content

For this initial release, seven areas in the UK have been identified. A JSON file is supplied for each area, along with a CSV containing a simplification of the individual performances data in the JSON file. Two additional concatenated CSV files also be supplied (see below). Two metadata files that describe the fields/formats are also supplied, and are additionally accessible below. Please note that, if referring to these metadata files, we do not supply images. Impact (importance of the event) and capacity information, are included.

The summary and data dictionary files below are based on a conversion of a concatenation of the JSON files for the seven areas, to a pair of CSV files - one containing the performances (events happening in a particular place and at a particular date/time) and one containing the place (venue) information including locations - across all the areas.

Quality, Representation and Bias

The selected regions available in this initial product represent a reasonably representative selection of areas across the UK, with inclusion of at least one area in each UK nation. The completeness improves towards the current date. As a curated dataset managed by the data provider, the data quality is in general excellent. The nature of the source data and diverse nature of the upstream data providers does mean there are a small number of inconsistencies present in the data.

Approximately 37% of the performances are categorised with film, with the next two most populous categories being Kids and Music. Together, these three categories form two-thirds of the listed performances. Selected other categories include Sport, Talks, Exhibition, Days out, Festival and Conferences.

Long-running/repeating events, such as exhibitions and visual art, which were ongoing before 1 January 2022, have their start schedule date snapped to this day.

The last 10 days worth of data contain considerably more performances than for previous days. This is because, due to the volume of entries, historic film listings information from major cinema chains is not retained for longer.

Safeguarded

Data and Resources

This dataset is categorised as Safeguarded and therefore access to the underlying data is only available upon application. You can view metadata here to determine whether the data will be of use to you. You can apply for access to it by requesting it here.

Please log in first if you wish to request data.

 

Additional Info

Field Value
Source Data Thistle
Author Data Thistle
Maintainer Carol Yin
Version 1.0
Last Updated December 22, 2025, 17:40 (UTC)
Created December 2, 2025, 13:00 (UTC)
Attribution The data for this research have been provided by the Geographic Data Service (GeoDS.ac.uk), a Smart Data Research UK Investment: ES/Z504464/1.
Columns 21 (performances), 18 (venues)
Entity Performance
Frequency Minute
Granularity Precise location
Rows 403279 (performances), 3641 (venues)
Spatial Coverage Liverpool City Region CAUTH, North East CAUTH, West Midlands CA, LB Waltham Forest LAD, Belfast City LAD, Glasgow City LAD, Cardiff LAD
Temporal Coverage January 2022 to November 2025