Everything you need to start sharing live music Stories.

Your public profile represents you across Encore. It contains your display name, biography, avatar, banner, follower counts, visible Crew memberships, Public published Stories, and an Events attended count. Crew-only Stories are not listed there.

Your display name is the public name shown on your profile and Stories. It may use normal capitalization and can be changed through Profile Settings.

Encore automatically generates a unique internal username when your account is created. It is used only for stable profile links. You do not need to know, enter, share, or manage it. Your editable display name is used throughout Encore as your public identity.

Profile avatars and banners may be uploaded as JPEG, PNG, or WebP files up to 5 MB each.

Your total Events attended count may be shown publicly on your profile. The detailed list of Events you marked with I was there is visible only to you.

Use Profile Settings to update your public information. Password changes and password recovery are handled separately for additional security.

Your account menu provides access to My Crews, your profile, My Library, the Writing Dashboard when available, notifications, and Crew creation when you do not already own a Crew.

A Crew is a group of people preserving live music experiences together. It may be a group of friends, a fan community, a publication, or another music collective.

A user may own one Crew while belonging to multiple other Crews. Only the owner can manage Crew settings, roles, invitations, and join requests.

Crew memberships and roles are shown on public profiles so visitors can see the communities a member belongs to.

Crew Owners invite existing Encore members by entering their full display name. An active Owner or Writer role is required to create and publish new Stories for a Crew. Crew banners and images may be uploaded up to 5 MB.

Public Stories written through a Crew can also connect that Crew to Events. Crew pages may show Events remembered by that Crew based on its Public Stories.

Members and Writers who do not own a Crew can use Create a Crew from the account menu or the My Crews page.

Stories are the heart of Encore. They are personal accounts, reviews, reflections, travel memories, and shared experiences connected to concerts and festivals.

The Writing Dashboard separates drafts from published Stories and shows every Story you authored. Visibility and moderation badges identify Stories that are Crew-only or currently hidden by Crew moderation.

When creating or editing a Story, choose the canonical Artists who are substantially featured in what you wrote. This does not mean every Artist mentioned in passing. A festival-wide Story may also have no specific Artist focus.

If an Artist is missing from Encore, the Story form lets you add that Artist as a new canonical Artist. The Artist is not created merely by typing a name: the new record is created when the Story is actually saved.

Encore checks existing canonical Artist names and known aliases before creating a missing Artist. When an exact existing match can be identified, Encore reuses that Artist instead of creating another record.

A published Story displays its Event prominently in the Story hero. Canonical Artists substantially featured in the Story appear separately as linked Artist labels below the hero, making it easy to continue to the relevant Artist pages.

When creating or editing a Story in a public Crew, choose Everyone to make it public or Crew members only to restrict it. Public Stories may appear in Discover, Search, Event pages, Writer profiles, related Stories, public Crew previews, Artist pages, and other discovery areas.

Stories connected to a private Crew are always Crew-only. If a Crew becomes private, its existing Stories are automatically restricted to Crew members as well. Making the Crew public again does not automatically make those Stories public.

Crew-only Stories are available to the original author and active members of the selected Crew. They appear in intentional member-facing areas such as the personalized Home feed, the Crew page, My Crews, and My Library when saved, Encored, or placed in a Collection, but stay out of public Story discovery surfaces.

A removed member immediately loses access to Crew-only Stories. The original author keeps access and editing rights after leaving the Crew. Unauthorized direct links return the not-found page.

Published Stories display a Read count. The same reader counts at most once per Story per day. Signed-in Reads are deduplicated by account. Signed-out Reads use a first-party anonymous reader identifier only after the visitor allows Story Read measurement, and a signed-in Writer does not increase the Read count on their own Story.

Published Stories that a signed-in user can read may receive one Encore from that user. The Encore can be removed later, and the visible count updates accordingly. Writers can privately view which members gave an Encore to their own published Stories.

Accessible published Stories can also be saved privately to Read Later or added to private Collections. Saving, collecting, and giving an Encore are separate actions.

A Story may belong to several of your Collections at the same time. Collection membership does not change Story ownership, visibility, or access permissions.

A Crew owner can hide a published Crew Story when moderation is required. Hiding does not delete or unpublish the Story and does not transfer ownership. The Writer keeps editing access and can see the moderation reason and optional note.

While a Story is hidden, normal readers and ordinary Crew members cannot open it, it disappears from normal discovery surfaces, and it does not collect new Reads or Encores. The original Writer and active Crew owner can still review it and see its historical engagement totals. Restoring the Story returns it to its existing Public or Crew-only visibility.

During the Public Alpha, each Story belongs to one Crew at a time. Publishing one Story to multiple Crews is planned for a later release.

Encore treats Artists as canonical platform entities rather than free-text labels. Stories and Events can therefore connect to the same Artist even when different Writers contribute memories at different times.

The Artist Directory lets you browse Artists already represented in Encore. Artist names and known aliases can also be found through Global Search.

Each Artist has a public Artist page with the Public Stories and Events currently connected to that Artist. Artist pages can exist even when the Artist has not joined Encore and does not have an Encore account.

When writing a Story, search for an existing Artist before creating a new one. Search also considers known aliases and alternate spellings so Encore can reuse the correct canonical Artist where possible.

If no suitable Artist exists, a Writer can choose to add the entered name as a new Artist. The new Artist remains pending in the form and is created only when the Story is saved successfully.

Selecting an Artist for a Story means that Artist is a meaningful focus of the Story. Writers do not need to attach every Artist that appears in a passing comparison or brief reference.

Artist relationships are ordered within a Story, so Writers can preserve the intended sequence when several Artists are substantially featured.

Saving a draft connects the selected Artists to the Story but does not add them to the Event's public Artist knowledge. When the Story is published, its canonical Artists are added to the Event automatically.

Event Artist knowledge is additive. If another Writer later publishes a Story about the same Event featuring an additional Artist, that Artist is added to the Event as well. Removing an Artist from one Story does not automatically remove the Artist from the shared Event.

Encore does not aim to manually preload or maintain exhaustive festival lineups. The Artist information connected to an Event grows organically from the Stories and archive contributions made through the platform.

Artist pages represent the Artist's identity in Encore, but fan-created Stories remain owned by their original Writers. Future Artist claiming and administration may allow Artists or authorised representatives to manage official Artist information without giving them control over community Stories.

My Library is your private space for Stories you want to return to. It contains separate Read Later, Collections, and Encored sections.

Use Save for later on an accessible Story to add that Story to Read Later. The control changes to Saved after the bookmark is added. Select it again to remove the Story from your reading list.

Collections let you organize Stories into private groups such as Festival favourites, Rock Werchter memories, favourite artists, trips, or anything else meaningful to you.

You can create, rename, and delete your own Collections. Deleting a Collection removes only the Collection and its organization; it does not delete the Stories.

On a Story page, use Add to Collection to place the Story into one or more existing Collections or create a new Collection and add the Story immediately.

A Story can belong to multiple Collections at the same time and can be removed from a Collection without affecting the Story itself.

The Encored section contains Stories you have supported with an Encore. Removing your Encore also removes the Story from that section.

A Story may appear in Read Later, one or more Collections, and Encored at the same time. These actions remain separate because saving represents an intention to return, Collections organize Stories, and an Encore represents appreciation.

Bookmarks, Collections, Collection contents, and your complete Library are private. Other members cannot browse your Library or see which Stories you placed into Collections.

Crew-only Stories appear in your Library or Collections only while you are authorized to read them. Losing access never makes private Story details visible through your Library.

Saving or collecting a Story does not bypass Story visibility, Crew membership, moderation, archive, or permission rules.

Every Story belongs to an Event. Events create a shared home for multiple perspectives from the same concert or festival and remain part of Encore's historical archive independently of individual Stories.

When writing a Story, first choose a date you attended. Encore shows existing Events that match that date. For a multi-day festival, any date within the Event's start and end dates can be used to find it.

Select an existing Event whenever possible. Encore then uses the Event's canonical name, venue, location, type, and dates rather than relying on manually re-entered details.

If the Event does not exist, choose Create a new Event and enter its details. Encore performs an additional server-side duplicate check before creating the Event and may reuse an existing canonical Event when a strong match is found.

The Event Directory contains concerts and festivals already recorded in Encore. You can search by Event, venue, or location, filter by year or Event type, and sort the directory. Latest Event is the default ordering and uses the actual Event date.

Event cards may show both the number of Public Stories connected to the Event and how many Encore members marked that they attended.

Event pages can also show canonical Artists currently connected to that Event. These relationships grow from published Stories rather than from a manually maintained complete lineup.

When a Writer publishes a Story, the Story's canonical Artists are automatically added to its Event. If another Writer later publishes a Story about another performer from the same festival or concert, the Event can gradually gain that Artist too.

Saving a Story as a draft does not enrich the Event's Artist list. Event Artist relationships are added only when the Story is published.

Artist relationships on Events are intentionally additive historical knowledge. Editing, unpublishing, or removing an Artist from one Story does not automatically erase that Artist from the shared Event.

Because Encore builds its archive from community Stories rather than acting as a complete concert database, an Event's Artist section should not be interpreted as a guaranteed complete festival lineup.

An Event remains in the Event Directory even if every Story connected to it is later removed or becomes unavailable. The Event represents something that happened and is not deleted merely because its current Story count becomes zero.

Event pages collect Public Stories from that Event and provide a Write a Story about this Event action that preselects the Event in the writing workflow.

Signed-in members can use I was there on an Event page to record attendance. Publishing a Story about an Event also automatically records the Writer as having attended that Event. Selecting I was there again can remove the attendance record.

Unpublishing or deleting a Story does not automatically remove the Writer's attendance. Publishing the Story establishes that the Writer attended the Event, independently of whether the Story remains published later.

Your public profile may show your total number of Events attended. The detailed Events you marked as attended are shown only when you view your own profile.

Duplicate Events may occasionally require maintenance. Encore provides protected administrative database tooling to merge duplicates while preserving their Stories, attendance records, and Artist relationships.

Follow Crews and Writers whose work you enjoy. Public Stories from followed accounts can appear in your personalized Home feed. Accessible Crew-only Stories may also appear when you are an active member of their Crew.

Give an Encore to a published Story you can read to show appreciation. Each signed-in user may give one Encore per Story and may remove it later. Story cards and Story pages display the current Encore count.

Writers can open a private Encore-members view for their own published Stories to see which profiles gave an Encore. Other readers do not receive access to that identity list.

Stories you Encore also appear in the private Encored section of My Library, making it easier to return to work you appreciated.

Published Stories also display Reads. Read totals are public engagement counts, but Encore does not expose a public list of individual readers.

Event attendance works similarly at an aggregate level: public pages may show how many Encore members marked that they were there, but not a public list of those attendees.

Follower and following counts remain visible, while detailed follower and following lists are private.

The notification center combines actionable items with recent activity. It covers Crew invitations and join requests, membership and role changes, new followers, Encores on your Stories, new Stories published in a Crew you own, Story restoration after Crew moderation, and platform updates.

Needs Your Attention shows unresolved items rather than only unread messages. Pending invitations, pending join requests, and published Stories you authored that are currently hidden by Crew moderation remain there until the underlying issue is resolved.

A hidden Story attention item includes the moderation reason and optional Crew note, with direct links to review or edit the Story. When the Crew owner restores it, the attention item disappears automatically and a normal restoration notification is added to Recent activity.

Recent activity notifications support read and unread states. You can mark them individually or mark all activity notifications as read. The navbar badge can remain visible while unread activity or unresolved attention items still exist.

Archiving a Crew pauses new activity without removing its history. Public Stories remain public. Crew-only Stories remain restricted, and their original authors retain access.

An archived Crew cannot accept invitations, join requests, new followers, membership changes, or new Stories. Access for other members to Crew-only Stories resumes when the Crew is restored.

Saved or collected Crew-only Stories remain subject to the same access rules. They do not reveal their title or content in My Library while the viewer is unauthorized.

Events and canonical Artists remain independent historical records even if a connected Crew is archived.

Project Encore is still being developed during Public Alpha. When something behaves unexpectedly, include the page you were using, what you tried to do, what happened, and any visible error message.

For Story or Library issues, mention whether the Story was Public or Crew-only, whether it was saved, Encored, or placed in a Collection, and whether your Crew membership recently changed.

For Artist issues, include the Artist name and whether the problem involved Artist search, creating a missing Artist, duplicate Artists, aliases, Story connections, Artist pages, or Event connections.

For Event issues, include the Event name, date, venue, and whether the problem involved Event selection, duplicate detection, attendance, Story counts, Artist connections, or the Event Directory.

For Collection issues, mention whether you were creating, renaming, deleting, adding, or removing a Story from the Collection.

Do not include passwords, private authentication links, or other sensitive account information in a report.