Convention calendar rebuilt: worldwide now, and what was wrong with it before

The convention calendar has been rebuilt. It is worth explaining what changed and, more importantly, what was wrong with it before, because it was wrong in a way that could have cost somebody a plane ticket. ## What was wrong The calendar was carrying 33 conventions. Every one of them was flagged "verified" on the site. When each was checked against the organiser's own website: - **13 of them did not exist at all.** - **12 were real events with the wrong dates, wrong city, or wrong venue.** - 2 were correct. The "verified" badge was not verifying anything. It was set on everything, so it meant nothing. That is my error and it is exactly the kind of thing that looks fine until someone books travel around it. ## What it is now Every event on the calendar has been checked against the organiser's own site, and the link to that source is stored with it. If an event cannot be substantiated from the organiser directly, it does not go on the calendar. - **27 upcoming conventions across 8 countries** — Canada, USA, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and Spain. It is no longer a US-only calendar. - **Every listing now has a real write-up**, not just a name and a date. Previously only 12 of 33 had any description at all. - Where the organiser has published them, listings now carry opening hours per day, ticket prices in the organiser's own currency, contest categories, booth and vendor application links, ticket links, age policies, parking and payment notes. - You can filter by country, then by region within that country. ## Things I want to be straight about **One event has been pulled.** A Florida show was listed based on a tourism website. The promoter's own site does not list it anywhere — their published 2026 schedule goes from Alaska to New York to Colorado and then straight into 2027, with no Florida date at all. Rather than leave it up, it has been unlisted pending a direct enquiry to the promoter. It has not been deleted, so it can come back if they confirm it. **Several listings were carrying last year's information.** A June 2027 show was listing 2026's seminar instructors as its artist lineup. A February 2027 show was listing the venue, contests and parking from an edition that finished in January. Convention websites very often leave the previous year's pages up, and that had been scraped in as fact. 18 of those fields have been cleared. **Some listings look thin, and that is deliberate.** If an organiser has not published their prices or hours yet, the page says nothing rather than guessing. Several 2027 events have little more than a date confirmed, because a date is genuinely all the organiser has announced. **Where a source is unreliable, the page now says so.** One show's own website lists different ticket prices on two different pages. Another does not print a year anywhere, so its date is an inference from the day-of-week and the listing says exactly that. You will see these notes on the pages — they are there so you can judge for yourself rather than trusting a number I could not confirm. ## The rule going forward A convention gets listed only if it is verified against the organiser's own site and the link is on file. An empty field beats a plausible guess. If you spot something on a convention page that does not match what the organiser is saying, please reply here or report it — the whole point is that this calendar is something you can actually plan around.