The List is the UK’s leading b2b live events data business and uses AI and semantic processes to source, merge and deduplicate the UK’s most comprehensive set of events data.
Where possible structured data is acquired from source, importing feeds from box offices and ticketing companies but it also ingests user submitted data, information from spreadsheets and other supplies of varying quality.
Live events data (theatre, gigs, days out) is complex and highly fragmented. It changes all the time. It has to be collected from a huge range of providers, using entirely different systems, none of which talk to each other. The List makes these events available through its own website, list.co.uk and increasingly sells this data to third parties. Third parties use this information for a variety of purposes.
THE CHALLENGE
The List works with a range of third party data clients, who often request multiple images for each event. However, images come in all shapes and sizes, and it’s common to have to resize these images to fit into a website or app’s overall design (which vary in size and aspect ratio). While it is straightforward for a computer to crop an image to a particular size, it’s important that the resulting image still looks good, and preserves the overall impact of the original. Elements in the image, in particular people, should not be cropped in half.
Images are submitted to The List in a variety of landscape and portrait formats. They also are sent through with time sensitive text i.e. a festival image may be able to be used more than once if it’s generic but can’t be reused if the headline acts or festival dates are also present in the image. Wording of any type is usually problematic and can occur across any part of the image – there is no set way in which images are submitted.
There are a range of tools and online services already available that can detect, for example, faces and text within an image, but The List seek to create a unified seamless process with minimal manual intervention.
The List’s primary challenge is the expectation of clients for images for every single event (as most of their digital properties are built with visual impact in mind). Being able to provide the maximum number of images possible in a range of formats that fits every single app, website, printed publication (and more) is very hard. A technological solution to this problem would hugely improve the value of The List’s service to clients.
The List are looking to take this idea forward under a shared IP model with the successful challenge respondent.
Applications to respond to this challenge have now closed.
If you have any questions about this challenge please contact the Creative Informatics team via email at creativeinformatics@ed.ac.uk.