Fort Lauderdale staff unveil public event explorer and impact dashboard to track city events

City staff demonstrated a new public event explorer and an impact dashboard intended to give residents a single place to view permitted events and their impacts, officials said at a board meeting.

"We designed these to to fill the gap on 3 issues that we were having, which was communication, transparency, and data collection," a presenter said during the live demonstration. The tools consist of three interoperable applications: an online permit intake, an event explorer for neighborhood browsing, and an impact dashboard that logs closures, parking impacts and sustained attendance estimates.

Staff showed a card-and-map interface that lets users filter events by attributes such as music, food, or family zones and zoom to specific locations. The presenters said the system currently shows roughly "about 64" upcoming events and 153 events processed since the fiscal-year start on Oct. 1, and that it will display city-produced and permitted third-party events for transparency even before commission approval is complete.

When board members asked whether the system links to event flyers or supports park-level searches, staff said the mobile view is a more limited interface but that linking flyers and adding park-specific filters are possible future additions. Assistant City Manager Quentin Pugh told the board that "for this iteration, no" API is available to feed other calendars but that staff will explore integrations later.

Communications officials plan a measured rollout. "We didn't wanna do it too much because it's so new," a staff member said, adding that marketing and a video will come as additional phases are completed.

The demonstration also covered accessibility features: map zoom, an address-based radius search to show events within a specified distance, and an impact dashboard that maintains a fiscal-year history of closures and parking effects. Presenters said the dashboard is intended to help residents see how events affect their neighborhoods and to give staff a central repository for event-related data.

The board followed the demonstration with technical questions about mobile display, GIS-related glitches and the possibility of adding park-level selectors. Staff said they will continue stakeholder outreach with event promoters and return with recommendations to the commission on possible policy or operational changes.

The board did not take formal action on the platform at the meeting; staff said they expect to return with further details and a broader implementation plan in coming months.