what should we send?
SUMMARY, INTRO We would like to receive your info for a given period (whole season or 1 month at a time, etc.; depending on the type of company) one listing per event or broadcast, each listing in a specific format (depending on type) before the deadline corresponding to that period or as soon as you can (depending on the region). When we get your listings, we will add them to our database, then send you an email with text to proofread (see step 2) These requirements apply to all new listings, all year long. The requirements do not vary whether you are sending one event at a time or one season at a time, etc. Therefore, to save time and to be fair to everyone, big and small, we ask that everyone do his share and format the data accordingly. Time we take to reformat your listings is time we take away from processing other companies' listings. Each year, we add more than 7000 musical events (professional, academic and amateur) and broadcasts (radio and television) to our calendar database. These listings are then published in our free calendars, namely the one in our website (known as The Canadian Classical Music Calendar) and the ones in our magazine. To help us process this huge amount of data, we ask that you follow our two-step procedure.
What fields are required for each listing? What is the syntax for each field? Do you have some examples?	The fields required for each listing depend on the type of listing. We have 9 types (7 event types, 2 broadcast types): concerts, recitals, operas, musicals (90% of our listings) | dance (with musicians present only) | workshops, sight-readings | lectures, roundtables | masterclasses | museum-type exhibitions | films (except on TV) | radio shows | tv shows. Click here to see a table of all 9 types of listings with the required fields and formatted examples for each. Syntax for each field is shown in the examples and in the cumulative table accessible via each field name. These examples are general and fictitious. For real examples corresponding to your type of listings, refer to our "Here is what we have emails" from the past year(s), in which your listings are presented in the right format, ready for us to import.
How should the listings be ordered?	chronological order
What if we don't have the single ticket prices yet? should we still send our listings?	It depends. If the price will be the same for all concerts or if the price will depend only on one other field (ex. the series) and you are providing that field, then you can send your listings, on condition you explain the pattern and you will send the price before the deadline of our first issue of the season. If the price is different for all concerts and there are more than 5 concerts, then we must ask you to wait until you have the price for all concerts.
do you want subscription prices?	No, we do not want subscription prices, only single ticket prices. You have to put yourself in the position of the reader, looking for something to do on a given day. If you want our readers to know your subscription prices, feel free to buy an ad.
what if we don't have all the details?	We only accept complete listings. This means you have all the required details (date, time, place, price, phone, works, performers, etc.) for each and every event. But we understand that sometimes it's difficult to get all the details. So the maximum number of missing details allowed (i.e. number of questions we have to ask you): 2 per listing, up to 15 per season. Special case: ticket price, see above.
what if we have many performers or many works?	Send all the details. We will shorten some fields if we feel we need to, especially for the magazine. Of course, we don't want all the members of an orchestra or choir.
What if our concert is in two independent parts? Like two little concerts on the same ticket. example: part A: choir A, performing their works part B: choir B, performing their works	It's your choice. You can write it so that this division is clear: part A: work A1; work A2; work A3... performer A1; performer A2; performer A3... part B: work B1; work B2; work B3... performer B1; performer B2; performer B3... always respecting our syntax for each item. We will do our best so the final format will reflect your intention. See also our examples for television and films. or as if the concert was one block: work A1; work A2; work A3; work B1; work B2; work B3... performer A1; performer A2; performer A3; performer B1; performer B2; performer B3... But if you do not have the performers and the works for both parts, we will put your info in one block and put "etc." for the missing info: work A1; work A2; work A3; etc. performer A1; performer A2; performer A3; performer B1; performer B2; performer B3...
what music genres do you accept?	accepted: Western classical (early, baroque, romantic, contemporary, etc.), classical of other cultures (Chinese, Indian, Persian, etc.), electroacoustic, jazz, folk/world traditional (Bali, Celtic, African, South American, etc.) not accepted: pop, rock, fusion... (We try to list concerts which are not covered in the regular press but we know that's not clear-cut); no genre, contents to be determined... If accepted genres are mixed in with rejected genres in the same concert, the latter will be referred to as "etc." in the calendar. We suggest you also send your jazz listings to jazz@scena.org and your world music listings to world@scena.org.
can you translate something for us? is the calendar bilingual? do you have a calendar in each language? what if some of our concerts take place in a francophone province or region?	we do not translate anything within one listing : Decide if it's going to be in French or English. Generally based on the province, or your personal preference. It's kind of weird to see "Concerto pour violoncelle" in the contents, and "cello" in the participants. If a work has a title like Concerto for..., Symphony, Sonata..., Symphonic Poem, etc., we prefer in English or French; for other works, such as operas, we prefer the title in the original language. For titles in languages other than French, English, Italian, German and Spanish, you can always choose the version that most people are familiar with (ex. My Fatherland, The Moldau). within your whole text : If your events take place in different provinces (ex. tours), you can write some listings in French and others in English. one listing per event : We do not want to receive two versions of each listing. We do not make one French calendar and one English calendar. We make one calendar, in which some listings are in French, some are in English.
your calendars cover events where? if we do a tour in Europe, do you want to get the info?	We only accept events that occur in Canada or shows broadcast in Canada. One possible exception: in the summer festival calendar, we accept non-Canadian festival listings if they pay the fees, and info must be sent by the festival only. The calendar does not want to get info about tours in other countries.
events should be open to whom?	We only accept events which are open to all, not requiring a membership or a subscription, etc.
Why do you need a specific format?	Checking and importing of data is much easier and faster (importing in blocks is 100 times faster than inputting everything one event at a time, one field at a time) Re-typing text would increase the probability of errors To ensure that we receive all the essential details for every listing To make the listings consistent, so to make the calendar easier to use.
Why must the info be in separate fields?	To make the checking and importing of data easier and faster To offer an interactive calendar in which we can find listings by field (date, place, etc.) To sort listings in our printed calendars by region, by festival, by date and time, by venue, etc. To make it easier to read by making the structure clear and consistent differential field formatting: bold for performers, italics for event titles, regular for others, etc. consistent field order within listings
how should we send it?
How should we send it?	By email please (not an option!)
What about our website?	We do not retrieve info from websites. In 99% of cases, the info is difficult to get because it's spread around in various pages, there is missing info or the format is not useable, we would have to rewrite the whole thing, which increases the probability of errors. If you believe it is OK for us, then copy-paste it into a Word file and send it. We don't have time to do it; the properly formatted listings we have received keep us busy enough.
Should we put our listings in the body of the email or in an attachment?	If you have 1-3 listings, put your text in the body of your email. If you have more than 3 listings, put your text in a Word file attachment (the purpose is to prevent the conversion of line breaks into paragraph breaks, which would make your text unusable)
To what address? What should we put in the subject line? What info do you need about me, the sender? How should we name our attachment?	Go to our page on writing to the calendar.
Will we get a confirmation of receit of our email?	No. You will get an email with subject "Here is what we have" (step 2 of the procedure, see our table of contents).
who should send it?
Who should send the info?	Whoever is in a position to send us the complete info in the right format at the right time. Usually, that's the company or person organizing the event. And that means it's our calendar-contact for that company.
can our calendar-contact be our publicist?	Yes, as long as he/she can send us correctly formatted listings on time for all your events, not just selected events. If that is not what we get, we will keep sending our emails directly to your company and not to your publicist. If you have concerts in different cities and publicists for those different cities, then we cannot accept those persons as our contact for your company.
What if my concert is in a music festival?	Listings for events occuring during music festivals must be sent to us by the festival organizers, and not the event participants. So if you are a participant, make sure the festival knows about us, and that they have all the details on your event. For more info, go to our festival calendar page, via our table of contents.
What if my concert is in another kind of festival?	We don't expect people who are not involved with music to send us correctly formatted info about composers, works, performers, instruments... So if your event is in a non-musical festival (like a regional festival, country fair, etc.), you should send us your listing yourself.
when should we send it?
When should we send it? How long iin advance? Once a season or once a month?	This is all explained in step 1 sending - overview >> when to send it.
How many times should we send any given listing? Do you want to be reminded again and again and again about our next concert?	No listing should be sent more than once. The info is good for the whole year and will be used in all the free calendars. Do not send us reminders. Reminders are for daily newspapers or for radio shows. That's not what we are. Once the data is accepted, it's permanent, it's not biodegradable. For example, our print calendars always cover one month + 7 days or two months + 7 days. If you include your listings for those extra 7 days, do not send them again the next month, we already have them. Once a listing is received and imported into our database : it will stay there until the end of the year (from September to September), so you never have to send us the same information again. (If you do, it's a waste of your time and ours.) it will appear automatically in our web calendar for the rest of the year, and in our print calendars in the appropriate issue(s). we will only accept properly identified corrections for that listing from the people who sent us the listing we will ignore all other emails (fax, etc.) about the same event.
what should we not send?
types of text content DO NOT SEND	press releases, press kits, newsletters The calendar team gets thousands of emails each year, 50% of which are press releases, 99% of which are sent too late for use, and/or for events which we already got, and/or to the wrong address and/or in a format which is hard to process. Therefore we do not read them. one half of a shared concert Sometimes people share a concert to save money on hall rental, etc. We want to receive only one listing for the whole concert. If the venue is coordinating the event and you have no contact with the other parties, then it's the venue who is responsible for getting the info to us. If you are stuck doing the publicity and you can't reach the other party (or parties), then please at least mention that there is another half, in case we receive it later. If we get the other half separately without warning, we would have no way of knowing that this is part of the same concert, it would just look like a scheduling confict in our database. You have no way of knowing if the other party will send their listing or not. incomplete listings, temporary info There is no point in sending tentative or incomplete info. It takes way too much time to correct or complete it later on, so it takes time away from our other clients who correctly formatted listings. description, narration, sentences, verbs, adjectives... biographies, comments on the artists a note at the bottom of your email that says "the info in this email is not to be published or forwarded to a third party without the consent of " blahblahbblah (if you don't want us to publish the info, then don't send it to us.) incomplete listings followed by "for more info, see our website"
types of attachment DO NOT SEND	PDF files Excel tables graphics, logos, photos (JPG, GIF, Photoshop, etc.)
formatting features in your attachments DO NOT SEND	tables of any kind (Word tables, tab columns, Excel spreadsheets, etc.) columns (whether "newspaper", "parallel" or "tab" style) text typed in ALL CAPS text boxes, frames, borders headers, footers
types of events which are not open to the general public DO NOT SEND	school matinees (exclusively for school groups) religious services (but we accept concerts with religious overtones) private events or "by invitation only" events for which a series subscription or a membership is required.