DEV Community: Ryan Vinson

How to Build a Festival Coverage Monitor with Festival API

Ryan Vinson — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 18:03:33 +0000

A festival directory is useful at the moment you search it. A festival coverage monitor is useful every week after that. Instead of asking a filmmaker or a support team to repeat the same research, you can use Festival API to maintain a focused view of the festivals that matter to a project and surface what has changed.

https://festivalapi.com/blog/build-a-festival-coverage-monitor-with-festival-api/

Filmmakers usually piece pre-production together across separate tools, freelancers, and spreadsheets.

Ryan Vinson — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 16:06:03 +0000

FilmPilot.ai takes a single screenplay PDF and generates a full AI pre-production package that can include storyboards, budget estimates, schedules, call sheets, audience reviews, festival strategy, and more.

If you are curious what AI can do beyond script notes, this is the page to look at:
https://filmpilot.ai/ai-pre-production-package/

Direct Submission Links: The submission_url Field

Ryan Vinson — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 20:34:17 +0000

Over 12,000 film festivals now available! If you are building a filmmaker tool, a festival discovery app, or a submission workflow, one small ambiguity can break the whole user experience. You can show a festival card, rank it, save it, and even surface deadline data correctly, but the moment a user clicks Submit Now, the link has to go to the right place. Until now, that was harder than it should have been because a festival's general website and its actual submission page are not always the same thing.

Festival API now solves that with a dedicated submission_url field.

https://festivalapi.com/blog/direct-submission-links-the-submission-url-field/

I launched Festival API: a film festival data API for developers and filmmakers

Ryan Vinson — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 23:00:03 +0000

I just launched Festival API, a developer-first REST API that helps answer one simple question:

Which film festivals are accepting submissions right now?

Festival discovery is still scattered across submission platforms, individual festival websites, old listings, spreadsheets, and manually maintained directories. That creates a real problem for filmmakers, filmmaker tools, AI agents, entertainment platforms, and anyone trying to build useful discovery workflows around festival submissions.

Festival API turns that fragmented festival information into clean, searchable JSON.

What Festival API does

Festival API currently tracks:

2,000+ active film festivals
30+ categories
75+ countries

Developers can search and filter festivals by:

Genre
Category
Country
Deadline
Maximum submission fee
Keyword
Festival relevance score

The API returns structured data such as:

Festival name
Submission deadlines
Fees
Accepted categories
Genres
Eligibility requirements
Contact information
Venue details
Festival rosters
Country and category metadata

Why I built it

VersusMedia has supported independent film and music since 2001. Over the years, one of the recurring pain points for filmmakers has been discovery: finding the right opportunities at the right time.

There are thousands of film festivals around the world, but the information is spread out, inconsistent, and time-consuming to organize.

Festival API is meant to provide the data layer for better filmmaker tools.

That could mean:

Festival discovery apps
Submission planning tools
Filmmaker dashboards
AI agents
Entertainment marketplaces
Studio and distributor tools
Research products
Indie film platforms

The goal is simple: make film festival data easier to build with.

Festival Score

One of the core features is the Festival Score, a proprietary 0 to 100 relevance score that helps rank festivals based on submission fit.

The score can factor in signals like:

Category match
Genre alignment
Deadline proximity
Fee reasonableness
Submission relevance

This gives developers a way to build ranked festival recommendations instead of showing a flat list of results.

For example, a short horror filmmaker does not need every festival in the database. They need the festivals that are most relevant to their project, budget, timing, and submission goals.

Example use cases

Here are a few things developers could build with Festival API:

A filmmaker submission planner

Let filmmakers enter their film type, genre, budget, and target regions, then return a ranked list of festivals accepting submissions.

An AI festival assistant

Use Festival API as a data source for an AI agent that recommends festivals, explains why each one may be a fit, and helps plan a submission calendar.

A film platform dashboard

Add festival discovery directly inside a filmmaker or creator dashboard.

A research tool

Analyze festival categories, locations, submission fees, and deadlines across countries and regions.

A festival discovery widget

Add a searchable festival finder to an entertainment or indie film website.

Python client

Festival API includes an official lightweight Python client.

pip install festivalapi

Example:

from festivalapi import FestivalAPI

client = FestivalAPI("fes_your_api_key")

# Search festivals by category
festivals = client.festivals.list(category="short_film")

# Keyword search
results = client.festivals.list(q="Cambodia")

# Get relevance-ranked festivals
scored = client.festivals.scored(min_score=70)

# Get a festival's film roster
roster = client.festivals.roster(301)

# Health check
client.health()

Node.js client

There is also an official Node.js client.

npm install festivalapi

Example:

import { FestivalAPI } from "festivalapi";

const client = new FestivalAPI("fes_your_api_key");

// Search festivals
const festivals = await client.festivals.list({
  category: "short_film"
});

// Get relevance-ranked festivals
const scored = await client.festivals.scored({
  min_score: 70
});

// Get a festival's film roster
const roster = await client.festivals.roster(301);

// Health check
const health = await client.health();

REST API

Festival API is a plain REST/JSON API using Bearer token authentication, so you can also use it with any HTTP client.

Example request:

curl "https://festivalapi.com/api/v1/festivals/?category=short_film" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer fes_your_api_key"

Pricing

Festival API uses simple prepaid credits.

New accounts receive 50 free credits with no credit card required.

Credit packs are one-time purchases:

Starter: $20 for 2,000 credits
Pro: $50 for 5,000 credits
Enterprise: $200 for 22,000 credits

There are no subscriptions, no auto-billing, and no saved payment methods. Credits are valid for one year.

Also now inside VersusMedia

As part of the launch, we also added Festival Search inside the VersusMedia artist dashboard.

Artists who have uploaded at least one video to VersusMedia can now use festival search tools powered by Festival API to discover relevant submission opportunities for their work.

What comes next

The current API already covers 2,000+ active festivals across 75+ countries, and the discovery pipeline has scouted thousands more. The plan is to keep expanding coverage, refreshing data, improving scoring, and adding more developer-friendly ways to use the data.

I’m especially interested in seeing what people build with it: filmmaker tools, AI workflows, dashboards, festival planners, and anything else that helps independent creators find better opportunities.

You can explore Festival API here:

https://festivalapi.com

Built for developers. Made for filmmakers.

Suggested Dev.to tags

api webdev python javascript

Beach Day API is now available on Apify!

Ryan Vinson — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 17:22:08 +0000

No coding needed for those who like simplicity. Run beach conditions, tide data, and Beach Day Score lookups as repeatable jobs. Schedule daily checks, export to CSV/JSON, connect to webhooks, or let AI agents call it via MCP.

Beach Conditions & Tide Data API · Apify

Get structured beach condition data, tide predictions, water quality grades, & Beach Day Scores for 12,000+ beaches in 27+ countries. Search by state or...

apify.com

Beach Day API is now available as a Zapier integration (Beta)!

Ryan Vinson — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 17:31:26 +0000

Connect beach data to Slack, Gmail, Google Sheets, and 9,000+ apps without writing any code. Over 12,000 beaches worldwide are searchable.

Available actions:
• Look Up Beach Conditions — get current water quality, weather, ocean conditions, and tides
• Look Up Beach Score — fetch the beach day score and grade
• Search Beaches — find beaches by name

To use, go to the Beach Day API page on Zapier and click Try It. You'll need your API key from the Dashboard.

Beach Day API Integrations | Connect Your Apps with Zapier

Instantly connect Beach Day API with the apps you use everyday. Beach Day API integrates with 9,000 other apps on Zapier - it's the easiest way to automate your work.

zapier.com

Beach Day API is now available as a Zapier integration (Beta)! Connect beach data to Slack, Gmail, Google Sheets, and 9,000+ apps without writing any code. https://zapier.com/apps/beach-day-api/integrations #api #zapier #beach

Ryan Vinson — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 17:28:01 +0000

Beach Day API Integrations | Connect Your Apps with Zapier

Instantly connect Beach Day API with the apps you use everyday. Beach Day API integrates with 9,000 other apps on Zapier - it's the easiest way to automate your work.

zapier.com

I launched Beach Day API today

Ryan Vinson — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 03:38:39 +0000

Today I launched Beach Day API, a developer API for real-time beach, ocean, water quality, advisory, amenity, access, and condition data.

The goal is simple: make it easier for developers to build apps and tools around beach conditions without having to manually gather data from scattered sources.

Beach Day API currently supports beaches across the United States and Australia, and returns structured JSON that can be used in travel apps, weather apps, surf tools, tourism websites, hotel and resort platforms, map-based search experiences, local discovery apps, and coastal safety dashboards.

What the API includes

Beach Day API can provide data such as:

Beach profiles
GPS and location data
Ocean and weather conditions
Water quality grades
Advisories and closures
Amenities
Access details
Beach-specific safety and visitor information
A proprietary Beach Day Score

The Beach Day Score is designed to give developers a fast way to surface whether a beach looks like a good choice for visitors on a given day.

Why I built it

Most weather APIs are broad. They can tell you temperature, wind, rain, or general conditions, but they usually do not answer the real user question:

“Is this a good beach day?”

That question depends on more than weather.

It can involve water quality, advisories, closures, ocean conditions, amenities, beach access, and the actual visitor experience. Beach Day API is built around that more specific use case.

Example use cases

Some things developers could build with it:

A beach finder app
A surf or coastal conditions app
A hotel or resort beach conditions widget
A local tourism guide
A travel planning tool
A map-based beach discovery experience
A safety dashboard for advisories and closures
A recommendation engine for nearby beaches

Built for simple integration

The API uses API-key authentication and returns clean JSON responses. I wanted it to be straightforward enough that a developer could start testing quickly and then build it into a real product without a lot of friction.

I also kept the pricing simple: prepaid credits, no subscriptions, no auto-billing, and free credits to start testing.

What is next

I am working on improving the developer documentation, adding marketplace listings, refining the endpoint structure, and expanding coverage and data quality over time.

I am especially interested in feedback from developers building travel, weather, hospitality, surf, local search, recreation, or public information products.

You can check it out here:

https://beachdayapi.com/

Would love to hear what you would build with it.