Backstage

We Built an Event Guide for NYC

The Juicy Times Event Guide gathers NYC events from curators and platforms with taste, cleans up the overlap, adds context, and lets you filter by vibe, borough, budget, and plan.

By Fedor Sokolov · May 31, 2026

A friend texted me on a Friday. Anything good tonight?

I typed out a paragraph: Smurfo is at Dead Letter No. 9. Vibe is on shift at BarChef. There’s a listening session at Silence Please Sunday morning if you want something quiet. PJ Adzima has Stage Time at the Slipper Room on Monday.

I sent it. They went. Later she told me it was the best weekend she’d had in months.

I’ve been writing a version of this paragraph for years. Different friend, different week, same need for a curated NYC night. On the other side was my kitchen table with eight tabs open, three Substack newsletters, two ticketing apps, Resident Advisor, the venue Instagrams I follow, and the running list in my head. My own Frankenstein of tabs and resources that helps me know what’s juicy in the city.

A few months ago I asked: what if this was one page?

So I built it.

Meet The Juicy Times Event Guide

Nine sources merged into one page, and nearly 500 venues researched.

It’s live at juicy-times.com. Hundreds of events each week. Nine sources merged into one page. Nearly 500 venues we’ve researched. Artists I know personally.

Free to use. No account. No algorithm.

Open it like a Sunday paper. Find your thing. Put the phone down. Go.

How It Actually Works

760 events become forty-three, then eleven, then the four that are yours.

Have you ever played Mad Libs? You filter events like you’re writing a sentence.

I’m going out tonight. I want music. In Brooklyn. On a date. On a budget.

The Event Guide's Mad Libs filter: a sentence you build by tapping words. I'm going out tonight, I want music and nightlife, in Brooklyn, on a date, for free — each chosen word sitting in an orange pill with the alternatives greyed beside it, and a line underneath offering to ask All-Knowing Orange instead.

You tap each word. The list narrows. 760 events become forty-three. Forty-three become eleven. Eleven become the four that are actually for you. We call it the Mad Libs filter because that’s what it feels like. Choosing words. Watching the page rearrange itself around you.

Or, if filtering still feels like work, you can ask out loud. There’s a concierge built into the page named All-Knowing Orange 🍊. You type “what’s a free thing to do with my mom on Sunday afternoon” and it reads every event and makes a recommendation.

Under the hood, here’s what the page is pulling from (and the list of curators is growing every week):

Resident Advisor: for the DJs
Dice: for live music with transparent prices
The Skint: for free and cheap
NYC Noise: for experimental, jazz, and the noise basements
BrooklynVegan: for indie and rock
No Sleep Club: for the under-the-radar stuff most lists miss
No Straight Plans: for queer events across all five boroughs
Shotgun: for intimate electronic and house
Luma: for tech, community, and wellness gatherings

The NYC's Best Curators page: filter chips for All, Music, Nightlife, Culture and Free above credited entries for Resident Advisor and Dice, each with a plain-language note on what it is good for.

Nine sources. One page. Every week we re-pull all of them, deduplicate the overlap, add the prices the platforms hide, write a one-liner of context for every venue and every artist. By Wednesday morning, your weekend has a shape.

Why This Matters

Eugene Healey calls it connected privacy: friends with actual taste.

Eugene Healey at Considered Chaos wrote a series this spring called Post-Luxury Status Symbols. The piece I keep returning to is about what he calls “connected privacy”: the real luxury now is having actual friends with actual taste who tell you where to go.

I think he’s right. The practical part though is most of us don’t have that friend yet. Or we have them and they don’t keep a running list. Or they do, but they’re busy.

The Juicy Times Event Guide is that friend!

What You’ll Find

The front door is open. The second room comes later.

The Event Guide is the front door. There’s a second room for people who want to go deeper. Artist-curated guides, wishlists, a community of founding members. I’ll tell you about that one soon.

For now, the front door is open.

Open juicy-times.com tonight. See what surfaces.

Subscribe here on Substack and every Wednesday morning, ten editorial picks will get delivered to your inbox so you can make the most of your weekend.

If a place changes something for you, tell me. Reply to any email. DM me on Instagram (@juicytimes.nyc). We rebuild this map every week. Your taste becomes part of it.

Save it. Share it. Go.

May all be juicy 🍊 — Fedor Sokolov, Founder & Editor-in-Chief

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