Data quality & assurance
A complete account of every data source and service we use
This page is deliberately exhaustive rather than a light summary. It lists every external source that supplies a fact shown on the platform, and every service that processes data on our behalf, with exactly what each one provides and how we use it.
In short
✓Where our data comes from. Real-world facts trace back to a small set of named sources - music-industry data, our own compiled directory, official ONS geography and population data, and the record owners themselves. All listed in full below.
✓Claimed data always wins. The moment an artist, venue or organisation claims and verifies their record, their own details take precedence over anything we imported.
✓We never invent a figure. Where we can't verify something, we label it as an estimate rather than presenting it as fact - and we never present a modelled estimate as an official audit.
✓Refreshed, not frozen, and logged. Data re-syncs on an ongoing basis rather than sitting as a one-time snapshot, and every back-office correction is written to an audit trail.
The full source-by-source detail follows.
1. Content data sources
Every real-world fact shown on the platform about an artist, venue or industry professional traces back to one of these sources. Tap any source for the full detail.
Licensed music data providerThird-party music data API▾
Provides
Streaming footprint (Spotify followers, monthly listeners), social following (Instagram, TikTok), genre and sub-genre tags, career-stage classification, and a profile image where one is available.
Used for
Populates every artist record's public profile fields, and feeds the audience-reach proxy used in an artist's Social Value estimate when no self-reported figures exist.
Refresh
Re-synced from the provider on an ongoing basis, not a one-time import.
POWK DirectoryInternally compiled dataset▾
Provides
Venue and industry professional listings - organisation name, address, postcode, category/type, and contact details, compiled by our own team rather than scraped live.
Used for
Seeds the base venue and industry-professional records that every claim, correction and Social Value assessment is made against.
Refresh
Bulk-recompiled and re-imported periodically; the current dataset was last compiled June 2026.
Claimed & self-reported dataFirst-party, supplied by the record's owner▾
Provides
Corrected or added contact details, capacity, genre, bios, and Social Value survey answers (events run, attendance, spend, artist fees, community activity), entered directly by the artist, venue or organisation the record describes.
Used for
Takes precedence over the data we originally imported the moment a profile is claimed and verified - it is always treated as the most current version of the truth we have.
Refresh
Real-time, whenever the record's owner updates it.
ONS Open Geography PortalUK government open data (Office for National Statistics)▾
Provides
Official Local Authority District names and GSS (Government Statistical Service) codes, and the boundary polygons that define each authority's real geographic extent.
Used for
Assigns every venue and directory record to the local authority it is actually located in, and validates a record's coordinates against the real boundary polygon rather than trusting an address string alone.
Refresh
Static, versioned government releases - adopted per-release rather than pulled live; not updated between ONS release cycles.
postcodes.ioFree, unauthenticated third-party UK postcode API▾
Provides
Postcode-to-coordinate and postcode-to-local-authority lookups.
Used for
Geocodes venues, industry contacts and new sign-ups so they can be placed on Place Intelligence and matched to a local authority during the claim and verification flow.
Refresh
Called live, on demand - not a stored snapshot.
ONS Mid-2024 population estimatesUK government open data (Office for National Statistics)▾
Provides
Official population estimates for every UK Local Authority, as of mid-2024.
Used for
Shown alongside a Local Authority or city's figures on Place Intelligence's Area Summary, so a venue or activity count can be read in proportion to how many people actually live there.
Refresh
Static, versioned government release - re-imported if and when ONS publishes a newer estimate.
2. Mapping & visual rendering
This source contributes no facts about any artist, venue or place - it only renders the background map underneath the data.
OpenStreetMap, via CARTOOpen map data (OpenStreetMap), tile hosting (CARTO)▾
Provides
The background map imagery (roads, place names, terrain) rendered under every pin on Place Intelligence's Live Map. OpenStreetMap supplies the underlying map data; CARTO hosts and serves the rendered tiles we display.
Used for
Visual basemap only. No data point on POWK - a pin's location, value or status - originates from this source; it exists purely so the map has a map underneath it.
Refresh
Live tile requests, rendered on page load.
Confidence, not certainty
Imported data is a snapshot, not a live feed, and public platform data has real limits - an artist with a small streaming footprint isn't necessarily a small artist. Where we can't verify something directly, we say so rather than presenting an estimate as fact. Our Social Value methodology applies the same principle: every figure carries a confidence label, and moves from an indicative estimate to a confirmed, then validated figure as real evidence replaces modelled assumptions.
What we don't do: we don't invent a figure to fill a gap, we don't quietly overwrite a claimed record's own details, and we don't present a modelled estimate as a statutory audit or official endorsement.
Keeping it accurate
1Claim it, correct it
The fastest way any record gets more accurate is the person or organisation it describes claiming it and fixing what's wrong. We built the claim flow around this on purpose.
2Duplicate detection
The same venue or organisation can appear more than once across merged data sources - under a slightly different name, or with different formatting. We run matching to find and merge these rather than leaving two half-right records live.
3Admin review, always logged
Anything we correct in the back office is written to an audit trail - what changed, when, and who changed it. Corrections aren't silent edits.
4Checked against official boundaries
Venue locations are validated against real Office for National Statistics boundary polygons, not just a place name - so a venue is placed in the local authority it's actually in, not the one its address text happens to suggest.
5Refreshed, not frozen
Artist data re-syncs from our music data provider on an ongoing basis. Directory data is re-imported periodically. Nothing on POWK is a one-time snapshot we never touch again.
See something wrong?
If a record is yours, the quickest fix is to claim it and correct it directly - that update takes precedence immediately. If it isn't yours but something still looks wrong, let us know and we'll look into it.