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Off Avignon: theater festival toolkit

🎭 Unofficial tools to better navigate one of the biggest festivals of performing arts in the world
By Przemek, July 2024
Side by side view of the two tools to help navigate the Off Avignon festival: the simplified single-page program and the JSON file containing the show descriptions

Off Avignon is one of the biggest festivals of performing arts in the world. With over 1500 shows, there’s no way to see everything. Even browsing the program is a challenge in and of itself! Below I’m posting two small props to help navigate this magnificent feast the arts:

  • simplified program (2024) : you can use this single page program on your phone and easily pin the shows you want to check out
  • JSON data file with show descriptions (2024) : you can use this together with your preferred LLM tool (like ChatGPT) to screen the program for your preferences (see below)

Note that these are unofficial and may contain errors. For the official program, refer to the festival website .

Simplified program

The simplified program is a single HTML/JS page that just lists all the shows, sorted by the hour they start. Use the “search in the page” feature of the web browser to search by name.

You can pin favorites to the top of the page with a single click. No registration required (or possible), the data is stored locally in your web browser.

I find it useful to easily curate the list of shows I want to check out. Anytime someone tells me about a show I should see during the festival day I pin it, and then look it up in the evening.

JSON data file

The data file contains a list of all the shows along with their description. You can use it together with your preferred LLM tool (like ChatGPT) to screen the program for your preferences.

For example, in ChatGPT you can upload the file as an attachment, and then try a prompt like this one:

prompt ❯ I'm attending a theater festival with many shows in the program, see the attached file. Can you recommend some shows for me based on these criteria:
  • I like characters looking for meaning in life
  • I like dystopian commentaries on society and technology
  • I like elements of improv
  • I like shows experimenting with the boundaries of their genre
  • no mass appeal comedy (comedie de boulevard)
  • no shows intended for kids

Recommend a few shows and explain your recommendation

As of July 2024, this works out of the box:

Example of asking ChatGPT to screen the show descriptions for Off Avignon 2024 taking into account show preferences

For more context, see this post .

Conclusion

Hope you find the simplified program for the Off Avignon festival useful. Most importantly, enjoy the shows! 🥳

    Outline

    • Simplified program
    • JSON data file
    • Conclusion

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