5 Ways to Find Fun Events Near You
Here’s Where to Find Events
There's so much stuff happening close to where you are.
Just look around you!
Well, don’t literally look around you. That was a figure of speech. Sheesh! See, now all the people in the cafe think you’re being weird.
Back to the point. Right now, hundreds of events are happening where you live. Large events. Small events. Events where you can party and events where you can sit back and just quietly enjoy the vibe.
But...how do you find them? If you’re lucky, you’ll have a few well-connected friends that always seem to know the coolest events to attend. As for the rest of us? There are ways. Let’s look at five of them.
Without further ado, here’s where to find events.
1. Google is your friend
We won’t shock anyone by saying this, but a simple Google search is a great place to start.
Google’s whole shtick is helping you find stuff, so it’s gotten pretty damn good at it. You don’t even have to tell Google where you are. It knows!
Here’s what a search for “what’s on near me” looks like from Copenhagen. (Note that we didn’t have to include “Copenhagen” in the search string.)
Google is almost guaranteed to lead you to a local site that lists events and activities nearby. In fact, a careful Google search will help you discover most of the sites we’ll cover below.
Here are a few search strings to try:
- “Events near me / nearby”
- “What’s on near me / nearby”
- “Things to do near me / nearby”
You can get more specific by defining the exact type of event you’re interested in (e.g. “techno parties near me”).
If you’re still stuck, no worries. Here’s more.
2. Facebook has a neat “event discovery” option
Facebook has a whole wealth of upcoming events tucked away within its many confusing menus. If you look to the left of your news feed, you’ll see an “Explore” section with an “Events” tab.
Click the thing!
You’ll see a bunch of events. At the top will likely be some events that your Facebook friends are organising or attending, along with any events you have personally signed up for.
But a bit further down, you’ll find a section with “Events near [your location]”:
You can click these giant “Today” or “This Weekend” banners to see what’s happening on those days.
Alternatively, you can use the tiny “Discover” tab on the left:
This will pull up the full list of upcoming events and let you filter them by date, location, and category (e.g. “Music”):
This should give you plenty of events to pick from along with the chance to easily invite friends and see who’s attending different events.
3. Event listing sites to the rescue!
What do you know? There are sites out there that actually specialise in listing a variety of events!
These sites usually give you the option to search for specific keywords or filter events based on categories and interests.
Take Billetto. (Hey, that’s us!)
When you hit the front page, you’ll see a list of upcoming events.
At the top, you’ll find a menu that helps you quickly jump to today’s events, tomorrow’s events, or events happening this weekend. Here, you’ll also be able to filter the events by category or jump straight into a search. For instance:
Once you type in your keywords, a right-hand menu will pop up to help you further narrow your search by location, date ranges, and ticket price:
What’s great about using event ticketing sites is you’ll be able to grab the tickets or sign up for the event directly on the site. On top of that, if you’re thinking of hosting your own event, most of them will let you do just that.
Billetto is far from the only such site, of course. Here’s a list of 17 others to get you started.
4. Don’t overlook the official tourism websites
It’s easy to ignore these traditional resources, but official tourism sites will often have a whole section dedicated specifically to upcoming events.
The most straightforward way to find them is to use a “[city] tourism” search. The top result will almost always be the city’s official tourism site. Their “events” menu will typically be quite prominent.
Here’s one for Copenhagen:
And here’s one for Paris:
Prague tourist site actually has a separate “Events” tab in the navigation:
You get the picture.
Tourism sites might not list all the quirky indie events, but you can be sure that the ones that make the cut have passed some quality control.
5. There are smartphone apps aplenty
Last but definitely not least: smartphone apps.
Almost everyone has a smartphone in their pocket these days. You’ll find countless apps that focus on event discovery. All it takes is a single search.
It’ll probably be enough to simply type the word “events” into the search bar of whatever app store your phone uses. Here’s what that search brings up on an Android phone:
Notice how the vast majority of these apps are centered around finding local events? That’s exactly what we want! Now it’s just a matter of picking an app you like from the list and taking it for a spin.
You now have a personal event adviser in your pocket. Pretty great!
And there’s no reason to stop here...
The above is far from an exhaustive list.
There are dedicated Facebook groups, chat forums, and sites that focus on very niche types of events (such as Resident Advisor for electronic music events).
But the five places to find events outlined above will help get the ball rolling. Let it never be said that we haven’t shown you where to find events!
