How it works
Discover. Follow. Show up.
Town Circle is a live local layer, not a feed to scroll. Here’s how it works for the people using it and the towns running it.
- 01
Discover
See what's actually happening in your town right now — today, this weekend, tonight.
- Open Town Circle and see a live view of your town's places and happenings.
- No feed to scroll, no algorithm deciding what surfaces — it's what's real, right now.
- Works whether you're a longtime local or just passing through.
- 02
Follow Your Circle
Choose the places and happenings you care about — your view, your call.
- Pick which local businesses and events you want to hear from.
- Nothing gets pushed on you that you didn't opt into.
- Change your circle any time — it's yours to curate, not ours to sell.
- 03
Show Up
Turn a notification into a night out. That's the whole point.
- Town Circle is built to get you off the couch, not to keep you on it.
- Events like The Crawl Back show what a town looks like at full volume.
- Real streets. Real stories. Same town you already know.
The operating model
Before, during, and after — who does what.
The live layer looks simple from the resident side on purpose. Behind it is a real publishing model: a business supplies what’s real, an organizer approves and publishes it, and residents see it the moment it’s live.
Merchant
Supplies what's real — hours, offers, and the details of a happening they want on the schedule.
Organizer / Town Circle
Reviews and publishes what goes live on the town's schedule and route. Nothing posts itself.
Organizer / Town Circle
Pushes real-time, town-level updates everyone following can see — proven live at The Crawl Back.
Merchant
Keeps their own stop current — open, closed, sold out — while the event is running.
Organizer
Sees real check-in and attendance counts for the event, not estimates.
Every town
A self-serve version of this whole workflow — submit, review, publish — for any town, not just a pilot we're hands-on with.
Under the hood
Simple for residents. Real for towns.
No algorithm
Nothing is ranked or boosted to keep you scrolling. What's live is live.
Opt-in only
You choose which local businesses and happenings show up in your circle. Leave anytime.
Built for towns too
Downtown associations and chambers can run the same live layer white-label, under their own name.
A real pilot, not a pitch
The Crawl Back in Davidson, NC is a co-sponsored pilot — Town Circle running a real town event, not a mockup.
Frequently asked
Quick answers.
- Is this a social feed?
- No. There's no algorithm ranking what you see — you choose what's in your circle.
- Do I need an app to see what's happening?
- Town Circle works in the browser and as an installable web app — no app store required.
- How do businesses get listed?
- They opt in and post to the directory and happenings feed. See /for-businesses.
- Can my town run its own version?
- Yes — white-label, same platform, your town's brand. See /communities.
Ready to see your town, live?
People, places, happenings — same streets, different stories.