How we pick for you.
The order you see things in on TodoWeekend is not the order somebody paid for. Nobody paid for anything. The order is our best guess at what is actually worth your Saturday night, based on a handful of simple questions we ask about every event.
The short version
Events are ranked by how much of a weekend they deserve. That is the whole idea. A one-weekend-only play at a great theatre outranks a six-month exhibition that has been there since January. A festival three venues are announcing at once outranks a single calendar entry from one feed. Nobody can pay to move up. You look at the map, and what you see is what we think is worth your time.
The questions we ask
Every event in the catalog goes through the same five questions.
Is it actually on this weekend?
An exhibition that runs Monday through Thursday is not a weekend event, no matter how good it is. The first filter is simple: is it happening on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. If not, it drops off the weekend map and waits for a weekday view.
Is it new?
A premiere, a reopening, a first-time-in-the-city performance: these are the events people actually talk about afterwards. A show in its fifteenth year is lovely, but you are more likely to have seen it already. Newer things get a nudge up.
Will it still be here next weekend?
A one-off concert is scarce. A three-night run is scarce. A permanent museum collection is not. Weekend plans should favour the scarce stuff, because if you miss it this weekend you missed it full stop. The things you can always see can wait.
Is the venue any good?
Some venues consistently book interesting things. Teatro Real, Philharmonie de Paris, the Royal Opera House, Palau de la Música, and the hundreds of smaller places that punch above their weight. We keep a list of these per city, cross-referenced with Wikidata, and give their events a gentle lift. Lesser-known venues are not penalised; they simply do not get the boost until they earn it.
Did more than one source announce it?
This is the big one. If an event appears only in a single obscure feed, it could be a typo or a mislabelled calendar entry. If the same event is announced on the venue's own site, in the city open-data portal, and in a festival programme, it is almost certainly real and notable. Repetition across independent sources is the best signal we have.
What we never do
- No paid placements. Nobody can buy their way up the map.
- No sponsored listings. Ever.
- No engagement bait. No infinite scroll. No dark patterns.
- No login wall. No paywall. No ads.
If you ever see anything that looks like an ad on TodoWeekend, please write to us. You found a bug.
A note on tickets
Some events have tickets. Buying one should be the easy part of your weekend, not the part where you hand your card details to a URL you do not recognise. Where we can, we plan to let you buy tickets safely and directly on TodoWeekend, with trusted payment processing and no sketchy redirects.
We may take a small commission on those sales, the way any ticketing platform does. That commission helps fund the product and keep it free to use. It has zero, exactly zero, influence on the ranking. The five questions above are the only thing deciding what you see at the top of the map. Tickets and ranking live in two separate systems, and they will stay that way.
Why this way, and not an AI black box
Because we want to be able to explain ourselves. If a venue writes in asking "why is my event ranked below that one?" we should be able to answer with a straight face. A neural ranker could probably do a marginally better job, but it could not answer that question, and it could be gamed in ways nobody would notice. The five questions above are boring, legible, and impossible to cheat. That is the whole point.
Frequently asked
How does TodoWeekend decide what to show me first?
Events are ranked by six simple questions. Is it actually happening this Friday to Sunday. Is it new or has it been running forever. Is it a short run you could easily miss, or a permanent exhibition that will still be there in a year. Is the venue one that consistently books interesting things. Has more than one official source announced it. Nobody pays to rank higher.
Can a venue pay to rank higher?
No. There are no ads, no sponsored listings, and no pay-to-rank. The only way a venue moves up the map is by putting on better events. If an event happens to be sold on TodoWeekend directly, we may take a commission on the ticket sale to help fund the product, but that commission has no influence at all on how the event is ranked. Ranking and payment are two separate systems.
Why do some events not appear on the map?
Events that have already ended, calendar entries that were clearly mislabelled (a venue's internal meeting leaking into a public feed, for instance), and long-running listings that have been on display for years without anything new happening. They are still searchable, they just are not on the default map so the good stuff can breathe.
How often does the ranking change?
Every day. New events come in, the weekend shifts, and last week's top result is no longer this week's top result. An event that was scarce and novel in May is a known quantity in August. The ranking reflects that.
Why do you trust one source over another?
We don't, really. We trust the fact that multiple independent sources announced the same event. A one-off listing in a single municipal feed could be a mistake. The same event announced on the venue's own site, in the city open-data portal, and in a cultural-institution calendar is almost certainly a real, notable thing. Repetition across sources is the single best signal we have.