HometownEvents

A home for local events in Central New York: organizers post them, vendors apply to them, people find them.

Type: Live web platform
Stack: Next.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Stripe
Role: Product owner, page and workflow design, AI-directed build
Live: hometownevents.org

The HometownEvents homepage, top to bottom — The live homepage. Hover to scroll it; click to open it full size.

The idea

Small-town events live on flyers and scattered Facebook posts. HometownEvents puts them in one searchable place, with tools for the people who run them.

Organizers list fairs, markets and festivals. Vendors keep one profile and apply to events. Everyone else browses by category, date and distance.

By the numbers

85database tables behind it

10local events seeded, each date checked against its source

Zerodowntime on each deploy, with automatic rollback

Events calendar page for October 2026 — The events calendar, with filters for state, county, city and distance.

Browse events page with event cards — Browsing events by category, each card with its date, place and price.

What I built

Accounts and logins for organizers, vendors and visitors
Event listings with categories, search and location filters
A month-by-month events calendar
Vendor profiles and applications to events
Badges members earn, including seasonal ones for hosting or vending at holiday events
Stripe payments

How I worked

Design first. I defined the workflows, page layouts and features, then directed an AI coding agent (Claude Code) to build them, reviewing each change on the live site.

Accuracy over volume. To seed the calendar I checked every event date against its official 2026 source. Two promising leads were dropped because they turned out to be last year's dates.

Safe releases. Each deploy builds on the server, swaps in with no downtime, runs a health check and rolls back on its own if anything fails.