New App Brings Events to Your Fingertips

Looking for something to do this weekend? There’s an app for that.

Eventster, a free iPhone and iPad app launched June 8 by Tackable, a San Jose-based tech company, was built on the premise that people want to have fun on the weekends yet often don’t know an event took place until the Facebook photos—of friends—are uploaded Monday morning.

“Every Thursday, thousands of spouses ask their significant others, ‘What are we going to do this weekend?’” said Luke Stangel, Eventster co-founder. “This process gets repeated week after week and there isn’t really a good place to go and get a great grasp on what’s going on.”

Until now.

According to Stangel, Eventster gives users access to 600,000 distinct events every day. Through a partnership with event listings provider Zvents, events taking place in nearly every North American city—plus most major European metropolises—are delivered.

Events happening in and around Cupertino are definitely on the list.

Stangel said anyone can upload going-ons to Zvents and developers are working on including more obscure events over the next year.

“We want to get more events, tiny events, underground events, really showing all of the stuff that’s happening in your city.”

One of the app’s unique features is it gives users the ability to upvote or downvote listings, providing an immediate social read on what’s hot and what’s not.

Overtime, the app will customize the events it shows you based on your thumbs-up or down for certain types of happenings. If musical theatre isn’t your cup of tea, as is the case with Stangel, the app quickly learns to leave Copacabana off your screen.

Personalization is a major goal of the Eventster team this year, Stangel said. To that end, they’ll be building tools to take social cues from users’ music libraries, Facebook likes and upvotes and downvotes to deliver the most customized experience possible.

Stangel said 10 percent of the app’s 3,000+ users are active, an incredibly high stat in a world where apps are uploaded and forgotten in flash. Eventster has a 4.5 star rating on iTunes and, a true sign of success, Stangel’s parents are regular users.

On Monday, July 16, the app is undergoing a major update, Stangel said.

“A lot of social media is created before, during and after an event. The update is going to try to capture that social media as much as possible, basically what people are saying before, during and after an event.”

If you can’t make it to the Katy Perry concert, for example, seeing photos, videos and comments posted by attendees on Eventster will let you experience Firework like you were there.

A mobile website that lets non-Apple users plan their off-the-couch excursions is on tap for the app, Stangel said.

On a larger scale, the app team wants Eventster to join the ranks of Yelp, Amazon and Rotten Tomatoes as a trusted place people turn to when they are looking for a way to spend their time.

“We want to build a trusted planner. If an event is bad, we’re not going to show it to you. We’re only going to show the stuff that is really delightful, stuff that other people like. We’re really about building a trusted product in this particular market."