For local business
A free listing either way, and a sponsorship that says what it is
Your listing is free and it always will be. We don’t charge for inclusion, we don’t rank paying venues higher, and we’ll never leave a real family event off the list because nobody paid us. That is not a launch promotion. It is the product.
- Get listed, or send us your calendar Free, whether you ever buy anything or not. It is also the most useful thing you can hand us.
- See what a placement is Six surfaces, each measured on a 390 pixel phone, because the size is the product.
- See who is already here The directory of businesses backing the guide, and what each one took.
- Apply for a placement Tell us who you are and what you want. It is short and it is built for a phone.
- Ask what it costs Founding rates are set with each business rather than printed off a chart. Ask and we will tell you plainly.
What we doWe verify against your own page
We read your site, not an aggregator
Prices, hours and dates come off your own page. If your page and a listing site disagree, your page wins.
We show when we last checked
Every card carries the date its facts were verified. Families can see how fresh it is instead of guessing.
We ask about your military rate
Every venue, every sweep, its own search. This coast is full of military families and it is the first thing they look for.
We say when we don’t know
If we can’t confirm a price we print that instead of a number. Nobody drives out on a figure we made up.
The fastest way inSend us your calendar
A scraper can only take what is already published. Your October lineup, sent to us in August, is something families cannot find anywhere else yet. That is the single most useful thing you can hand us, and it costs nothing.
Nonprofits, churches, schools and libraries: same form, same free listing, same treatment.
SponsorshipWhat the money actually buys
The guide is drawn. There is a coastline across the top of every page with a boat on the water, a buoy, a cooler on the sand and a flag on its pole, and those are the places a sponsor lives. A beach is somewhere advertising already belongs, so a placement here is part of the picture rather than a banner stapled over it.
Each surface is a different size, and the size is the product. These are measured on a 390 pixel phone, which is what most people are holding.
The small props
The cooler, the buoy, the flagpole, the name on the boat’s transom. Roughly 20 to 90 pixels across, so each one holds a logo or a single short word. This is recognition, not a message.
The hull
86 by 31 pixels. A painted boat carries your mark or one wordmark. We measured this before we sold it, which is why we are not promising you a sentence on the side of a boat.
The float and the banner plane
The boat can tow something, and a plane can cross the sky pulling a banner. These run the width of the water, so they are the surfaces that hold a real line of copy: an offer, a price, a weekend.
The card placement
The widest thing we have, about 346 pixels, and it sits in the list itself. Room for a mark, a line of copy and a link. It appears once every six cards and never on top of another business’s listing.
Two of those surfaces sit inside the list on the phone, and they are deliberately different sizes because they answer different budgets. Both carry the word every time.
The shelf, under every card
A strip one card wide beneath each listing, where a drawn creature carries your sign across it. Room for a name or a short line. Every card in the guide has one, so this is the surface with real capacity, and while nobody has bought it the strip is drawn with a dashed edge and reads Sponsor slot.
The section, every sixth card
The full column, ruled above and below, with room for your name, your address, your phone and a line of copy, and a scene drawn to carry it. It reads Sponsored when it is bought and says the space is for sale when it is not. It is a different shape from a card on purpose, so nobody mistakes it for one.
Founding rateCome in early and it stays that way
We are opening a small number of founding placements. Founding rates are set with each business for the first twelve months and they are locked for that period, so an early sponsor is never repriced because the audience grew.
We would rather tell you the truth than a number off a chart: this guide is new, the audience is small, and a founding rate reflects that. If you want to know what it costs, ask and we will tell you plainly what it is and what you get for it.
Creators and local businesses: a name and a link needs no artwork and can go up the day we speak. Businesses whose placement needs illustrating, we draw it in the guide’s own style, and there is no extra charge for that while founding rates are open.
The part most people don’t put in writingWhat it never buys
Every one of these is a rule we hold to, and you are welcome to hold us to it:
- It does not buy a position. Paying changes nothing about what is on the list or the order it appears in. A sponsored placement is added beside the list, never inserted into it and never in place of anything.
- It does not buy a better write-up. Your card says what we verified, whether you are a sponsor or not.
- It does not buy a competitor’s removal. Nobody can pay to take another business off this list. Not for any amount.
- It does not buy silence. If we find your hours changed or your price moved, we correct the card. Being a sponsor does not freeze it.
- It does not hide. A paid placement carries the word Advertisement or Sponsored, in that word, on the placement itself, every time.
How it is countedWe will tell you what we actually know
This site and its app are built as static files. There is no ad server and nothing here follows anybody around, which means we cannot invent an impression count and we are not going to quote you one.
What we can tell you honestly, every month:
- The dates your placement ran, and how many builds it shipped in. The guide rebuilds several times a day, so a share of the builds is a real, checkable thing.
- Taps on your link. Not yet. The counting redirect is built next, and until it exists we will not claim a number we cannot produce. What you get in the meantime is the dates your placement ran and the builds it shipped in, which we can show you from the record.
- A link you can measure yourself. If you use analytics, we will tag your link however you want it tagged, so the number you see is your own.
When we know more, we will show you more. Until then we would rather tell you what we can count than dress up something we cannot.
Show supportHelp keep it checked
One family reads every venue’s own page before a listing ships, and no reader is ever charged for any of it. If this guide has earned a place in your weekend, the Support page lists the ways to help, and most of them cost nothing.