I love you if you read this.
I'm a huge VGM fan from Finland. I will graduate next year from university and my thesis will be about building a website for VGM live shows. Everything from orchestral concerts to rock shows and DJ gigs. All live shows in all countries. It will be user-contributed, like VGMdb. My programming skills aren't great, so the end result will simpler than VGMdb. But I am highly motivated and I have until May to get enough done for a thesis paper. After that I will of course keep improving the site and I hope someone else can help and maybe eventually take over.
Features I would like to implement (this list is not at all comprehensive):
- Practical info like date, country, city, venue, composers, arrangers, performers, style of concert (orchestral, cover band, DJ etc.)
- Shows properly linked (in the database) to all the above, so customizable searches can be done easily.
- Ratings & "I went to this show" -button. This information would be visible on the registered users profile.
- Setlists (and composer/arranger breakdowns, especially important for orchestral concerts). Don't know if this should have it's separate box, like tracklists on VMGdb. Might be difficult with shows with many performers like MAGFest.
- Links to external sites related to the show: official site, tickets, reviews, interviews...
- Artist links etc. to VGMdb
- Scans of pamphlets and stuff related to the show (at least in Japan you get tons of pamphlets at every show)
- "Products represented", like on VGMdb, so that you can search for all shows with music from a specific game.
- Info about past concerts is also welcome. It would be great to quickly find info about the Orchestral Game Concerts in the 90's or Germany's Leipzig concerts 2003-2007. I also see bands putting all their past shows in the database. But of course future concert are the most important thing.
- Anyone can contribute information. Admins and editors have more privileges.
- Possibly also concerts with chiptunes, anime or original music by game composers (not personally that interested in these, but I suppose many VGM fans are)
What would you like to see on this site?
I plan to make this site also in Japanese.
- I met the writers for 2083 and Game Music Garden (the two best VMG concert info sites) in Japan last month and they were very supportive. Once I get this site rolling they will help by providing info about concerts in Japan.
- During the summer there seemed to be VGM shows in Japan every weekend. The Japanese themselves find info about these shows via 2083, some blogs or through tweets. One centralized site is needed.
- Both the conductor and the founder of the Little Jack Orchestra want more western fans in their concerts. I got that feeling from other Japanese too: wanting to connect the east and the west.
- I speak only intermediate Japanese, so all help is welcome in this department too.
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PS. I'm always happy to meet other VGM enthusiasts, so say hi to me (tall, blond dreadlock dude) at the next MAGFest! I'm on Facebook and Twitter, in case someone's interested.
PPS. Gigablah from VGMdb proposed that this site could be on their servers. So now that's happening and I'll have access to their databases!