For a while (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2023, 2024) I've been counting how often various contra bands and callers are being booked for larger [1] events. Initially, I would run some scripts, typically starting from scratch each time because I didn't remember what I did last time, but after extending TryContra to support events listings, I automated this process. This also means we can have a real-time version, listing not what happened over the past year but all the announced gigs: trycontra.com/gigstats.

(This looks partly unsorted because I break ties randomly on each pageload, and right now there are a lot of bands in the system with four bookings.)

Organizers have told me they've used these lists to identify performers to consider booking for their events, and annual updates meant long lags. For example, an organizer looking at the 2024 list now might be seeing a booking that was agreed on two years ago! This lag probably exacerbated not-great dynamics around organizers booking already-popular performers, and I'm glad to be able to give people a fresher list to work with.

The list is, of course, not complete: there are bookings that haven't been announced yet, and there are typically website updates that haven't made their way into the spreadsheet yet. If you have bookings I'm missing, please let me know by commenting on the sheet!

[1] My goal is to include contra performers from all events that have at least 9hr of contra.