Below all time series graphs is the Events Ribbon, which contains numbered markers that correspond to items in the Events Panel to the right of the graph.

Event types include:

• Gigs
• TV appearances
• Release dates
• System events
• Alerts
• Custom annotations

New events are fed into the panel automatically, keeping you up-to-date with important contextual information surrounding your time series. An event can either be global or linked to a country. All events are daily – if an event lasts more than one day then it will show in multiple individual markers.

Real-world correlations

Events are a useful way to begin establishing correlations between fan behaviour and contextual artist information. For example, you will often find that a new album or single launch correlates with an increase in the number of new social media fans for an artist.

The graph below shows a significant increase in fans for Rihanna (peaking at 430,000 new fans in one day) during mid-november 2010. Let’s overlay an event marker onto this time series.

Click on a numbered marker on the Events Ribbon, and the corresponding item in the Events Panel will be highlighted. By clicking on event #130, we can see that the increase in new fans surrounds the worldwide release dates for Rihanna’s album Loud:

Alternatively, you can click an event in the Panel, and the corresponding marker will be highlighted on the Ribbon. Click on the event a second time to hide the overlay. To show multiple events, simply toggle them on the Ribbon or the Panel:

You can mouse over an event marker to show what events occur on that day. If multiple events occur on the same day, they will be grouped under a single marker:

Alerts

Alert events are automatically created when there is significant movement in a metric, allowing you to quickly scan through important artist dates.

System events

System events are unique, in that they do not relate to artist behaviour. A system event is a technical event which might account for some movement in the data. For example, when we start tracking a new social media page, Musicmetric publishes a system event: