Eight cities, one dataset: how nightlife calendars actually differ

We ran the same analysis across 8 cities on the same dates: 11,935 scheduled events across 3,610 venues, all counted from Dizko's public API for the 46 days from 2026-08-17. Cities that feel similar from the inside turn out to have very differently shaped calendars, and the differences are the useful part.

How concentrated is the weekend?

Every city we index peaks on the weekend. What varies is by how much, and that single number changes what a midweek event is worth.

London is the most weekend-concentrated calendar in the index at 31% on Saturday. Los Angeles is the flattest at 19%, which means its week carries real programming rather than emptying out between Sundays.

For an organizer that ratio is the whole midweek argument. In a concentrated city, a Tuesday is a genuinely quiet room and you should expect to build the audience yourself. In a flat one, midweek is already a habit and you are joining something rather than starting it.

What does entry cost, city by city?

Published prices only, in local currency, so these are not exchange-rate comparable. What is comparable is the shape: where the median sits relative to the top of the range.

Which cities give things away?

Paris runs the most free programming in the index at 42% of its calendar, against 2% in Tokyo. That gap is mostly institutional: cities with heavily funded cultural programmes push a lot of free events into the listings, and cities where nightlife carries the calendar do not.

If you are travelling, it tells you how far your money goes before you arrive. If you are programming, it tells you what you are competing with for an audience's Tuesday.

How complete are the listings?

Across every city, most events do not publish the two things people search by.

This is the most actionable table on the page for anyone publishing events. In most of these cities, a majority of listings hide their lineup inside a flyer image and never state a price. Search engines cannot read a JPEG and neither can a price filter, so filling both in puts you in front of an audience your competition has opted out of reaching.

How these numbers were produced

Every figure is a count over real listings from Dizko's public API, paginated per city and analysed in that city's local time. No sampling, no modelling. Captured 2026-08-17, covering events scheduled from 2026-08-17 to 2026-10-01.

The limits: this measures Dizko's coverage of each city rather than the city itself, price completeness varies by source, type and genre labels overlap, and it is a forward window of what is scheduled rather than a record of what happened. Currencies are local and not converted. The full dataset is published as JSON.

City by city

• Berlin: 1,916 events, Saturday peak, €15 median ticket. Or see what is on there now.
• New York: 2,835 events, Saturday peak, $22 median ticket. Or see what is on there now.
• London: 1,990 events, Saturday peak, £10 median ticket. Or see what is on there now.
• Los Angeles: 1,954 events, Saturday peak, $20 median ticket. Or see what is on there now.
• São Paulo: 808 events, Saturday peak, R$20 median ticket. Or see what is on there now.
• Tokyo: 1,397 events, Saturday peak, ¥1500 median ticket. Or see what is on there now.
• Lisbon: 556 events, Saturday peak, €7 median ticket. Or see what is on there now.
• Paris: 479 events, Saturday peak, €12 median ticket. Or see what is on there now.