Unless you're reading this though a feed reader you'll likely have noticed today that Beyond Robson has a new look. It's been years since we changed the design of the site so late yesterday we decided to flip the switch to reveal our new makeover.

Everything you know and love about Beyond Robson hopefully hasn't changed. But in addition to what you've come to expect from us we've unveiled a handful of new features.

Events Section

The most significant change is the introduction of our new events section. We received a lot of feedback over the years to add something like this so I hope you like it. Now, instead of learning about an event after the fact from one of our reviews, we hope this new section will allow you to get a better perspective on what's happening in Vancouver each week, as well as help those of you organizing events to spread the word to more people.

You can lookup events by heading over to our main events page and sorting by date, time period or category; or you can look for the new events widget halfway down the homepage or in the right hand column on many pages throughout the site.

If you'd like an event to be included in the events section you can submit it via our submission form. Submitting an event is free and should be approved by one of us and added to the site within 48 hours or less. (sometimes a lot sooner)

Photo of the day

Throughout the week we try our best to feature the amazing photography from the Beyond Robson Flickr pool, but now we have one more mechanism to do that. At the bottom of the homepage you'll now notice an area called Photo of the Day. Here, we'll feature a new photo each day (7 days a week) from the pool highlighting what we think is a great recent submission.

More visibility to posts you might have missed

We recognize that not all of you visit the site on a daily or hourly basis, so we've now included a number of features on the site that will hopefully provide more access to recent posts you might have missed since your last visit. On the homepage you'll notice a list on the right hand side of posts from the last week, and on each individual post page we'll highlight recent posts made to that specific category. So now if you're reading, say, the latest Hot Ticket you'll find links to four other recent music posts.

Filmmakers section

Following the success of our profiles of talented Toronto filmmakers posted to our sister site in Toronto, we've now unveiled something similar on Beyond Robson - this one featuring an amazing group of local filmmakers living and working in Vancouver. Keep your eye on this space as we'll be posting dozens of more profiles to the site over the next few weeks.

Contributing to Beyond Robson

In addition to joining our Flickr pool, there are a number of different ways you can contribute to the site that we've now summarized on one page. So, if you're interested in submitting the occasional restaurant review, music review, news feature or some other post you can now read about how to do it here. We've also specified other ways you can contribute like sending us news tips, suggesting content for inclusion on the site or gently highlighting an error or mistake we've made.

Other changes

We've made a number of other changes to the site, and of course, overhauled the graphics and layout into what we hope is now a cleaner, more user friendly design. Take some time to look around and explore all the new features. There are lots of links at the bottom of each page that point to various bits of information about our site and its policies. And you can also find a form to subscribe to our email newsletter and links to lots of other useful sites in Vancouver.

Your feedback and the future

We're working on some other new site features so stay tuned for future updates. We're also aware of some errors/bugs and are working on resolving those as well. But if you have any feedback you'd like to share about the new design please add it to the comment thread below. We're looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Photo by Carson Ting in the Beyond Robson Flickr Pool

Are you ready for the new and improved Beyond Robson? We're making some long overdue changes around here and are looking for some fresh new faces to come along for the ride with us to make Beyond Robson the best site it can be. In addition to ramping up our daily flow of posts, we'll be introducing a new site design, new functionality and a number of other changes in the next couple of months. Want to join us? Keep reading for more info about what we're looking for and what benefits you can expect to receive as a regular contributor to Beyond Robson.

We've already mentioned this weekend's Whistler Music Festival so there's probably no need for us to remind you of the stellar line-ups planned for Saturday and Sunday. Things will get heated up early both days, with the show starting at a non-hung-over-friendly time of 11AM each day.

But with performers like Thievery Corporation, The Roots and Broken Social Scene on the ticket, it's the kind of weekend to make an exception for an early start. Even more so if you have free tickets - and we have three double passes for either day to give away to three lucky winners right now.

People in Planes, the five piece indie rock band from Cardiff Wales, are in Vancouver this Thursday for a show at the Biltmore. With a new album - Beyond the Horizon - scheduled for release later this summer, expect to hear new tracks like Pretty Buildings as well as slightly older faves like If You Talk Too Much (video directed by Joaqin Phoenix).

Thanks to their new label, Wind-up records, we've found ourselves with seven pairs of tickets to give away to the show. Want to go? Keep reading for contest details.

Buck 65 is currently on a cross-Canada tour. (Check out the review of the Toronto show on blogTO) He's visiting 18 cities in 30 days including Vancouver's Commodore Ballroom on Wednesday May 7th. Also on the ticket is Cadence Weapon. As luck would have it we've found ourselves with a bunch of copies of his latest album Situation as well as a pair of tickets to the show. Want some Buck 65 for yourself? Keep reading for contest details.