Noctern can submit a show to the local calendars your audience actually reads — community arts calendars, alt-weeklies, music listings and discovery sites — and keep track of which ones took it.
Open the show from AdminEvents and click Calendar distribution in the Marketing group. The page is headed Local Calendar Distribution.
Venue Admin only.
How a submission is delivered
Every calendar in the list is one of four kinds, shown on a badge:
| Badge | What happens |
|---|---|
| Auto | Noctern submits through the calendar's own interface, hands-off |
| Automated | Noctern fills the calendar's web form for you |
| Needs Input | Noctern prepares the submission; a person finishes it by hand at the calendar's site |
| Noctern writes a pitch email and sends it to the calendar's editor |
You never post to these sites yourself through this page — Noctern coordinates the delivery and records the result.
Queueing a show
- Open the show's Calendar distribution page. The Distribute to More Calendars card lists every calendar this show has not been sent to yet.
- Narrow the list with the filter buttons across the top — All, Email, Automated, Needs Input — each with a count.
- Tick the calendars you want. Any note the calendar has (deadlines, what it accepts) shows under its name.
- Click Queue N calendars.
Each one becomes a submission, and the four counters at the top of the page — Submitted, Queued, Failed, Skipped — move accordingly.
The submission schedule
Queueing a calendar doesn't send it straight away — it puts the calendar on a schedule, shown in the Submission schedule card at the top of the page. By default:
| Step | When |
|---|---|
| First submission | 42 days before the show |
| Follow-up | 14 days before |
| Follow-up | 3 days before |
Every calendar gets the first submission. Follow-ups go only to calendars that accept a repeat or updated post of the same event — Noctern support marks which ones do. The rest get the first submission and nothing more.
- If you queue a calendar after its first-submission date has passed, it is sent at the next scheduled run (within about 15 minutes) — late, but before the show.
- A follow-up whose date passed more than a day before you queued is Skipped.
- Nothing is ever sent once the show has started, and if the show is cancelled or postponed every step still waiting is Cancelled.
Each step on the card shows Scheduled (with the time it will go), Awaiting approval, Sent, Failed (with the reason), Skipped or Cancelled. A step that fails for a temporary reason shows Will retry and is tried again on the next run; a step the calendar rejected outright is Failed and is not sent again by itself.
On a scheduled or waiting step:
- Send now sends that step to the calendar immediately, instead of waiting for its time. The step then shows Sent and is not sent again on the schedule, so the calendar gets it once. Sending counts as approving what you sent for that calendar.
- Skip cancels just that step.
When nothing else is scheduled for a calendar, Send an extra post sends it one more time. A calendar that does not accept repeat posts shows This calendar does not accept repeat posts instead, once it has been sent to, and the button is off.
Approving the pitch
Nothing goes out on the schedule until someone at your venue has approved the pitch. You approve once per show, and then the schedule runs by itself.
- Review the drafted copy for each calendar in the submissions list below the card — use Preview to draft it and edit anything you want to change.
- Click Approve pitch in the Pitch approval box on the Submission schedule card. That approves the copy of every calendar queued for the show, as it stands right now.
If a step comes due before anyone has approved, it waits as Awaiting approval and your venue's admins get one email: Approve the calendar pitch for the show. Once you approve, waiting steps go out at the next run (within about 15 minutes). A step still waiting when the show starts is Skipped.
Follow-ups reuse the approved copy. If anyone edits the copy after it was approved, the calendar shows Edited since approval and the next step waits until someone clicks Approve again.
Changing the schedule
Your venue's default is the Calendar submission schedule card on the venue's edit page (just below Posting schedule); until you set one, Noctern's default applies. To change it for one show, open Change this event's schedule on the show's Submission schedule card. Each step is a number of days before the show; Add follow-up adds one, and Use the default instead goes back to the venue's (or Noctern's) schedule. A change applies to calendars you queue after saving — steps already on the card keep their times.
If you haven't previewed an email calendar's pitch when its first step comes due, Noctern drafts it then and waits for your approval — it never sends a draft nobody has reviewed.
Approving an email pitch
Email submissions are the only kind you review before they go, because the subject and body Noctern writes are the submission.
- Find the queued submission under Pending and click Preview. Noctern drafts the pitch.
- Read it. Subject and Email Body are editable text boxes.
- If you change something, Save Edits keeps it; Regenerate throws your edits away and drafts it again; Discard deletes the submission.
- Click Send to deliver it.
Form-based calendars don't go through preview — their recipes pull the show's details directly, so there is nothing to edit. Those have a single Submit button on the row. A short Blurb box is offered where the form wants one.
If the preview's ticket link points at localhost, the page warns you. Don't send it — the link in the listing would be dead. Tell Noctern support, then regenerate.
Tracking what happened
Each submission row shows the calendar's name and two badges — how it is delivered, and where it has got to:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Queued | waiting to be previewed or submitted |
| Generating | Noctern is writing the copy |
| Submitting | on its way |
| Submitted | accepted, with the date |
| Failed | rejected or errored, with the message |
| Skipped | not sent |
Under the name: when it was queued, when it was submitted, how many attempts, and any error. The globe icon opens the calendar's own site; the external-link icon opens your listing on it where the calendar gave Noctern a URL. View generated content expands the copy that was actually sent.
Retry reappears on a failed or skipped submission. The bin icon deletes a submission entirely, which also frees that calendar to be queued again.
Pending at the top holds everything still in flight; Submission History below it holds everything finished.
If the page shows Calendar service unavailable, new submissions cannot be queued until the connection is back. Submissions already queued or submitted are unaffected. Nothing on your side fixes this — tell Noctern support.
Queue the auto and automated calendars as soon as the show goes on sale, and leave the email pitches until you have a hook — a sold-out first night, a support act, a local angle. The editors reading them are people.
Open a show's Calendar distribution page, filter to Automated, tick one calendar and queue it. Watch the Queued counter go up, then come back after it submits and open its listing with the external-link icon.