> The sole reason I’m still on Facebook is because events are organized on Facebook. (eksemplar)
I study Music Management at the conservatory (university), and spend most of my time on events and festivals. It is my impression that few in the tech business understands the magnitude of this market, and how Facebook entirely owns it. The entire concert-format is under enormous pressure from the booming festival and club scene, making services like Songkick irrelevant. ResidentAdvisor is good, but too editorial, too little tech.
Facebook democratised event-making in a great way. You can trust that a good portion of the people attending an event is actually going. You can make events private, which is good for pirate-parties and other underground events (Lead Users). And importantly, it gives event makers insight into who is coming, how many, how the growth curve is etc. Artists can link to their personalised profile, that people will actually follow for updates. This is hugely important for creators.
If you start a competitor, it'd be natural to focus on music, but then you'll still leave all the people interested mostly in art-exhibitions on Facebook. Facebook is content-neutral, which is a huge advantage. Further, they have an entire business-suite platform (groups) on top of this, meaning I can discuss our events, plan them, while linking to relevant artists, venues etc on Facebook. I can book artists, book a venue and market the event entirely on the FB-platform. That is an important advantage in the space of social media.
Facebook is, without comparison, the best tool for events.