Galaxy Hut has been unable to properly market itself for a long time. The biggest annoyance, though, is that you can’t see the music venue’s calendar unless you are a fan (or whatever they are calling it these days) on Facebook. Sure, this is easy/lazy for the booker, but it screws people looking to quickly check or for people who don’t participate in Facebook (dudes, the ‘net is about being open, not about giving away your private data).

Galaxy Hut isn’t the only music venue with silly calendar practices. For example, Rock ‘n’ Roll‘s calendar page used to note that its calendar is not a reliable source of upcoming shows.

And the problems don’t stop there. Other music venues fail basic spelling tests (Red and Black) or mobile technology (HR57), just to name a few current quibbles. None of these issues are much of a problem given the “quality” bands/groups these venues book, with the exception of HR57 (although it does feature a rather stale rotation). Plus, the vast majority of sites use a splash screen for some reason.

Just to prove I’m not a total hater, Black Cat is always a reliable and informative site, as is Velvet Lounge, which I consider to be the best basic DC-area music-venue site.

And to demonstrate I can criticize the things I still–because I’ve moved on from these scenes–I consider the Kennedy Center‘s page to be nearly unusable.