Primary tool for finding events on Seat Unique. Seat Unique offers HOSPITALITY and premium experiences (VIP, lounges, fine dining — not regular tickets) at sports, music, theatre, and culture events.
CRITICAL: Call this tool ONLY ONCE per user query. NEVER call multiple times with different categories.
PARAMETER ROUTING — what goes where (read this first):
- Text (names, cities, venues) → query
- Country names → query (server auto-converts to location_country facet filter)
- Dates, months, years, time ranges → numeric_filters (NEVER in query — Algolia cannot text-search dates)
- Event type → category
- Price constraints → max_price / min_price (NEVER in query)
- WRONG: query="London football March 2026" ← will return NO results
- RIGHT: query="London football", numeric_filters=["timestamp >= 1772323200", "timestamp < 1775001600"]
QUERY MAPPING — natural language to parameters:
- "Events in Spain" → query="Spain" (server extracts country automatically)
- "Football matches in Spain" → query="Spain football", category="sport" (server extracts country automatically)
- "What's on in France?" → query="France"
- "Football matches in London" → query="London football", category="sport"
- "Football in London in March 2026" → query="London football", category="sport", numeric_filters=["timestamp >= 1772323200", "timestamp < 1775001600"]
- "Arsenal games in April 2026" → query="Arsenal", category="sport", numeric_filters=["timestamp >= 1775001600", "timestamp < 1777593600"]
- "Concerts in Manchester next month" → query="Manchester", category="music", numeric_filters=["timestamp >= START_OF_NEXT_MONTH", "timestamp < START_OF_MONTH_AFTER"]
- "Coldplay tour" / "Coldplay tickets" → query="Coldplay"
- "Shows at the West End" → query="West End", category="theatre"
- "What's on at Wembley?" → query="Wembley"
- "Events in London under £300" → query="London", max_price=300
- "Events in London in May 2026 under £500" → query="London", max_price=500, numeric_filters=["timestamp >= 1777593600", "timestamp < 1780272000"]
- "Cheapest sport events" → category="sport", sort_by="price"
- "Sport or music events" → category=["sport", "music"]
- "What's happening this weekend?" → numeric_filters with Saturday 00:00 UTC to Monday 00:00 UTC timestamps (see DATE FILTERING below for exact computation)
- "Events on 15 March 2026" → numeric_filters=["timestamp >= 1773532800", "timestamp < 1773619200"]
- "Comedy shows" / "stand-up comedy" → query="comedy", category="all" (NOT category="culture" — comedy events rarely exist under the culture category)
- "Culture events or comedy shows" → query="comedy", category="all"
- "Is Kevin Hart performing?" → query="Kevin Hart", category="all" (NOT category="culture")
- "I'm in London in June" → query="London", numeric_filters=["timestamp >= 1780272000", "timestamp < 1782864000"] (NEVER put "June" in query)
- "Events in London early June" → query="London", numeric_filters=["timestamp >= 1780272000", "timestamp < 1781136000"]
- "What can I see in London in June?" → query="London", numeric_filters=["timestamp >= 1780272000", "timestamp < 1782864000"]
DATE FILTERING via numeric_filters — REQUIRED when the user mentions any date, month, year, or relative time:
The Algolia index has a `timestamp` field (Unix seconds since epoch, UTC). Use numeric_filters to constrain date ranges.
Syntax: ["timestamp >= START", "timestamp < END"] where START and END are Unix timestamps (integers, seconds).
Patterns:
Entire month: ["timestamp >= FIRST_DAY_00:00", "timestamp < FIRST_DAY_OF_NEXT_MONTH_00:00"]
Specific day: ["timestamp >= DAY_00:00", "timestamp < DAY_00:00 + 86400"]
Weekend (Sat-Sun): ["timestamp >= SATURDAY_00:00", "timestamp < MONDAY_00:00"]
Date range: ["timestamp >= START_DATE_00:00", "timestamp < END_DATE_00:00"]
How to compute timestamps: count total days from 1 Jan 1970 00:00 UTC, multiply by 86400.
CURRENT DATE ANCHOR -- use this to compute relative dates like "this weekend", "next week", "tomorrow":
Today = 28 Sep 2026 (Monday). Unix timestamp now = 1790553600.
WEEKEND COMPUTATION EXAMPLE -- "What's happening this weekend?":
- "This weekend" = Sat 3 Oct 2026 to end of Sun 4 Oct 2026 (or Mon 5 Oct 2026 00:00 as exclusive end)
- Sat 3 Oct 2026 = 1790985600
- Mon 5 Oct 2026 = 1791158400
- numeric_filters=["timestamp >= 1790985600", "timestamp < 1791158400"]
IMPORTANT: Always anchor your calculation from the reference table below. Do NOT guess or approximate timestamps -- wrong timestamps cause zero results.
Reference timestamps (1st of each month 2026, 00:00 UTC):
Jan 2026 = 1767225600, Feb = 1769904000, Mar = 1772323200, Apr = 1775001600,
May = 1777593600, Jun = 1780272000, Jul = 1782864000, Aug = 1785542400,
Sep = 1788220800, Oct = 1790812800, Nov = 1793491200, Dec = 1796083200.
Jan 2027 = 1798761600.
For 2025: Jan = 1735689600, Feb = 1738368000, Mar = 1740787200, Apr = 1743465600,
May = 1746057600, Jun = 1748736000, Jul = 1751328000, Aug = 1754006400,
Sep = 1756684800, Oct = 1759276800, Nov = 1761955200, Dec = 1764547200.
For a specific day within a month: add (day_number - 1) * 86400 to that month's start.
Example: 15 Mar 2026 = 1772323200 + 14 * 86400 = 1773532800. End = 1773532800 + 86400 = 1773619200.
All events are already filtered to future-only server-side, so no lower bound needed for "upcoming" queries without a specific date.
CATEGORY GUIDE — map user words to category values:
- "matches", "games", "fixtures", "football", "rugby", "cricket", "racing", "F1", "boxing" → "sport"
- "concerts", "gigs", "tours", "live music", "festival" → "music"
- "shows", "plays", "musicals", "ballet", "opera", "West End" → "theatre"
- "exhibitions", "festivals", "cultural events", "orchestras", "performing arts" → "culture"
- "comedy", "comedy shows", "stand-up" → category="all" NOT "culture" — comedy events are rare under the culture category in live data; searching all categories maximises results
- No type specified, or broad query → "all" (RECOMMENDED default)
- Multiple types: use array like ["sport", "music"]
QUERY PARAMETER: Algolia full-text search. Searches across performer/team names, venue names, city/location names, and event descriptions — all in one field. Put city names in query, NOT in facet_filters. Multiple terms work: "Arsenal London" finds Arsenal events in/near London. NEVER put dates, months, years, or prices in the query — they will cause zero results.
PRICE: All prices are in GBP (£). "Under 300 quid" / "less than £300" → max_price=300. "Over £500" → min_price=500.
Returns: Events with real prices. Use event_id from results with show-event-packages to view hospitality packages.
browse-events