events/search does not respect start_date.range_start together with start_date.range_end

[MrKaikev]

Dear Sir or Madame,

Suppose I want to search events in between a date range at a specific location:

https://www.eventbriteapi.com/v3/events/search/?location.address=madison+square+garden%2C+new+york%2C+ny%2C+united+states&start_date.range_start=2016-01-01T00%3A00%3A00&start_date.range_end=2017-01-01T00%3A00%3A00&include_all_series_instances=on&include_unavailable_events=on&token=XXXXXXXX

Although the range is specified for January 2016 to December 2016 it returns events that have ending dates somewhere in 2017.

            "start": {
                "timezone": "America/New_York", 
                "local": "2016-11-28T00:00:00", 
                "utc": "2016-11-28T05:00:00Z"
            }, 
            "end": {
                "timezone": "America/New_York", 
                "local": "2017-03-31T23:30:00", 
                "utc": "2017-04-01T03:30:00Z"
            },

In general it seems that you cannot search for past events (even with include_unavailable_events set) only if you are the owner of the event from what I read. The range seems to work fine for future dates.

If you don't allow to search past events are you maybe offering bulk data downloads for research in data science?

regards,
Kevin

[Malina Wiesen]

Hi Kevin,

You are correct that the events search endpoint does not return past events reliably.  That is because the endpoint was built for discovery purposes.  Past events rank very low where the prime consideration for an event being returned is how likely it is to sell tickets.

Our API is not ideal for data science work when you are looking or past trends. 

The date range parameters work irrespectively of each other.  If the event satisfies the requirement for one parameter but not the other, it will still be returned. 

I hope that helps clear things up.

Best,

Malina

[MrKaikev]

Thanks for your quick response.

It makes sense what you say but what about my second question. Would you be willing to provide a dataset of all events from 2016 in New York City as personalised bulk download? I can also tell you more about my research and how I intend to use the data (non-commercial).