The Event Compass crest, a compass rose in maroon and gold ringed by the words Event Compass
Knowledgebase

Help & FAQ

Short guides for Event Compass: Realm's five patron tools, and straight answers to the questions we get most. Event Compass is the company; Realm is its first app, and when Campus ships, its guides will join these. The quick answers also live on the Patron's FAQ, and vendors have a FAQ of their own.

Getting started

  1. Install Event Compass: Realm and open it. There's no account to create and nothing to sign into.
  2. A short tour introduces the five tools. You can hop straight into the demo faire from the last slide to try everything, free.
  3. Allow location when asked (optional, but it's the magic): if you're at or near a charted faire, the app walks you straight through its gates.

Choosing your faire

If you're not standing at a faire, you'll land on the map of the realm, a hand-drawn map of the United States with every faire we know of on it.

  • Gold crest pins are Charted Faires: fully mapped, tap to enter.
  • Tan pins are directory faires: tap for dates, address, website, and a notify me button. Tapping it matters, because we chart the faires people ask for.
  • Change faires any time with the Change button at the top of any tab.

Using the map

  • The map opens showing landmarks (stages and anchor points) so you can get your bearings without clutter. Every pin is placed as faithfully as we can chart it from the information the faire makes available.
  • Use the category chips (Artisans, Food, Drink…) to reveal what you're hunting for, or open the Directory to search by name. The landmark view is free; the chips and the Directory open with a season pass.
  • Picking a booth from the Directory flies the map to it and opens its card. The pin stays lit after you close it, so you can walk to it.
  • Pinch to zoom, drag to pan, and use the + / - / ⤢ buttons; ⤢ resets to the full view. At very large faires, zoom in and the full booth detail reveals itself lane by lane.

Stage reminders

  1. Open the Schedule tab to see every show on every stage, in time order, carried from the lineup the faire posts and refreshed through the season. The schedule is free to read.
  2. Tap the bell on any show and choose a 15- or 30-minute warning. Bells open with a season pass.
  3. That's it. The alarm is scheduled on your phone itself, so it fires even with no signal. Belled shows also appear in My Pouch so your day's plan is in one place.

Allow notifications when the app asks, or the bells will have nothing to ring.

My Pouch

  • Anywhere you see a vendor's card, on the map or in the directory, you can add them to your pouch.
  • Use it as your "come back for this" list: the shoppe with the mug, the leatherworker two lanes over, the stage you promised to return to.
  • The pouch lives only on your phone. There is no account and no cloud copy, and no one (including us) can see what's in it.
  • The pouch opens with a season pass, and what you saved stays yours to revisit after the faire closes.

Merchant's Row

  • The fifth tab is the faire-wide who-sells-what search. Type the ware itself ("bodice", "dice", "mead") and every merchant that carries it appears.
  • The search understands common synonyms, so a hunt for "cup" also finds the potters selling mugs.
  • Tap the pin beside a shop's name and the map flies straight to its booth, drawer open. When a vendor has filled out their own profile, the drawer carries their story, wares, website, and social links as well. Until a vendor signs up, their card shows little more than the shop's name.
  • Performers appear here too while their act is on the faire's posted schedule.
  • Merchant's Row opens with a season pass.

What works offline

Everything you need on the day, by design:

  • The full map, all pins, the directory, and both searches (the Directory and Merchant's Row). The map is artwork stored in the app, not tiles from a server.
  • The complete schedule and your reminders.
  • Your entire pouch.
  • The Herald as fetched on your last connection.

The app quietly refreshes whenever you do have signal. Open it on wifi the morning of the faire and you're set for the day.

Common questions

Does it really work with no signal at all?

Yes. Offline is the founding requirement, not a bonus feature. Faires are held in woods and fields where coverage dies, so the app reads everything from a database on your phone. Airplane mode is a perfectly good way to save battery all day; the app won't notice.

Do I need an account?

No. There is nothing to sign up for, no email to hand over, and no password to forget. Your pouch and reminders are stored on your device and stay there.

Can I buy things through the app?

No, and that's deliberate. Menus and wares are display-only. Every purchase happens at the booth, face to face with the artisan. The only thing ever sold in the app is the app's own season pass, which unlocks features in the app and is not a faire ticket or admission of any kind.

What does the season pass cost, and what's free?

The Herald, the landmark map, the posted schedule, and the nationwide faire picker are free for every faire. The free tier carries a small promo banner of real faire vendors; there are never third-party ads. A season pass is $3.99 per faire, per season (one purchase through your app store, no subscription) and unlocks the full map with every charted booth, directory search and fly-to-booth, stage reminders, the season's schedule archive, your pouch, Merchant's Row (the who-sells-what search), faire-day weather in the Herald, and mark-thy-carriage. It also removes the vendor promo banner at the top of the screen, and a season you have bought stays yours to revisit after the faire closes. If you visit several faires a year, the Sovereign's Pass unlocks every Charted Faire for $14.99 a year (a founding price through December 2026; $25 from January). Full details on the pricing page.

My faire isn't charted. How do I change that?

Find it on the picker map (nearly 600 US faires are listed) and tap notify me. That tally is literally the list we work from when choosing what to chart next. If you run a faire, skip the line and write to us; faires that ask get charted fastest.

Is the map GPS? Will it track me around the faire?

The faire map is a hand-drawn chart, not a GPS map, and it does no tracking. Location is used for exactly one thing: when you open the app, it checks (on your device) whether you're near a charted faire so it can open the right one. You can decline and pick manually.

Why is a faire's schedule sometimes empty or dated?

We carry the schedule the faire posts, and faires post on their own rhythm, often weekend by weekend. A weekend's lineup appears once the faire publishes it, usually mid-week. Between postings a stage may honestly show nothing rather than last weekend's acts, and a last-minute change the faire doesn't post won't show in the app.

Are you affiliated with the faires?

Unless it is expressly stated, no. Realm is an independent, unofficial companion made by people who love faires. Charted Faire means we've mapped it to the best of our ability from the information the faire makes available, not that the faire endorses us. Our maps are in beta and will keep improving through 2027. Faires that want to author their own Herald can work with us directly.

iPhone or Android?

Android is first through the gates, and the iPhone version follows, built from the same codebase. Write to support@eventcompassapp.com and you'll hear the moment it is out.

What about Event Compass: Campus?

On the drafting table, shipping after Realm. It brings the same offline-first maps and schedules to college campuses for visits, move-in, orientation, and game day. The Campus page has the honest status and the waitlist, and its guides will join this page when it ships.