Data note · 22 October 2026
October 2026: where it is easiest to go out alone
432 cities, 2,525 come-alone events. Counted from our own Come Alone dataset.
Read this first. This is the coverage of OUR dataset, not a scientific index. A city ranks high when we have a good event source for it, not necessarily because it is more sociable. For real country-level comparisons of social connection, use the Eurostat-based Connection Index.
- Events
- 2,525
- Cities
- 432
- Free
- 74%
- Next 30 days
- 708
01 — Events per city Top 15
Top 25 cities (table)
| # | City | Events | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Helsinki | 203 | 8.0% |
| 2 | Toronto | 172 | 6.8% |
| 3 | Paris | 149 | 5.9% |
| 4 | Chicago | 118 | 4.7% |
| 5 | Barcelona | 79 | 3.1% |
| 6 | Espoo | 70 | 2.8% |
| 7 | Vitoria-Gasteiz | 61 | 2.4% |
| 8 | New York | 60 | 2.4% |
| 9 | Madrid | 55 | 2.2% |
| 10 | Rouen | 48 | 1.9% |
| 11 | Nantes | 47 | 1.9% |
| 12 | Bilbao | 42 | 1.7% |
| 13 | Lisbon | 38 | 1.5% |
| 14 | Vantaa | 37 | 1.5% |
| 15 | Linz | 35 | 1.4% |
| 16 | Rennes | 33 | 1.3% |
| 17 | Geneva | 29 | 1.1% |
| 18 | Bordeaux | 28 | 1.1% |
| 19 | Toulouse | 27 | 1.1% |
| 20 | Taipei | 24 | 1.0% |
| 21 | Pamplona/Iruña | 22 | 0.9% |
| 22 | Bologna | 21 | 0.8% |
| 23 | Donostia / San Sebastián | 21 | 0.8% |
| 24 | Draguignan | 20 | 0.8% |
| 25 | Zaragoza | 19 | 0.8% |
02 — Free events
1,869 of 2,525 events (74.0%) are marked free. The other 656 (26.0%) are paid or have a ticket price.
03 — Events per category
| Category | Events | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Music | 716 | 28.4% |
| Culture | 578 | 22.9% |
| Social | 553 | 21.9% |
| Learning | 525 | 20.8% |
| Outdoors | 141 | 5.6% |
| Food and drink | 4 | 0.2% |
| Nightlife | 3 | 0.1% |
| Arts & crafts | 2 | 0.1% |
| Food | 2 | 0.1% |
| Sports | 1 | 0.0% |
04 — Next 30 days by country 22 Oct – 21 Nov 2026
708 events start in the next 30 days. Country is taken from our city table; every city in the data was matched, so there is no "other" group.
| Country | Events, next 30 days | Cities in dataset |
|---|---|---|
| Spain | 176 | 98 |
| France | 171 | 232 |
| United States | 93 | 2 |
| Finland | 80 | 4 |
| Canada | 40 | 1 |
| Taiwan | 33 | 5 |
| Portugal | 31 | 1 |
| Austria | 20 | 71 |
| Germany | 14 | 2 |
| Czech Republic | 12 | 1 |
| United Kingdom | 10 | 1 |
| Ireland | 9 | 1 |
| Italy | 8 | 1 |
| Switzerland | 7 | 10 |
| Australia | 4 | 1 |
05 — Five honest observations
- This measures our coverage, not the city's social life. Helsinki leads with 203 events because its open-data feed is the richest we ingest. Add neighbouring Espoo (70) and Vantaa (37) and the Helsinki region has 310 events, 12% of the dataset.
- The long tail is thin. 248 of 432 cities (57%) have exactly one event and 330 have three or fewer. The top 25 cities hold 58% of all events; the top five hold 29%.
- "Free" depends on the source. 74% of events are free, but Toronto, Chicago and New York are 100% free in our data (172, 118 and 60 events). That reflects the public free-event listings we pull from there, not the price of a night out.
- Country totals follow our sources. France (909 events in 232 cities), Spain (539, 98 cities) and Finland (311, only 4 cities) dominate; Germany has 17, Italy 21 and the UK 11. That says nothing about how many events Germany, Italy or the UK really have.
- The mix is culture-heavy and the calendar is front-loaded. Music, Culture, Social and Learning make up 94% of events, while Nightlife, Sports and Food are almost absent: we list events a person can comfortably join alone, not everything on offer. Most events fall in November (678) and December (457); the dataset thins out through 2027 simply because organisers publish later.
Method
Source: the Come Alone dataset (comealone.app), 2,525 events with start dates from 14 October 2026 to 31 July 2027, of which 69 had already started on 22 October. Events per city and category count the whole dataset; the 30-day table counts events starting 22 October to 21 November 2026. Events come from official city and venue open-data feeds plus manual additions, filtered to formats suitable for coming alone, so absolute counts are not the number of events in a city. Free is the "free" flag in the source. No weighting or normalisation by population.
What you can do about it
A country's score moves slowly. Your week can change tonight.
Two of the six measures are things you do: meeting friends at least weekly, and going to a cultural event. That is what we build Meet & Mint for: events and people near you on one map, and you can join alone.
- 1Read the numbers hereSee how many come-alone events our dataset lists for your city.
- 2Open Meet & MintEvents and people near you on one map. Filter by date, price and who you're coming with.
- 3Join aloneEvery event has its own chat. Say hi and agree where to meet before you arrive.
- 4Show upA walk, a dinner, a game night. Or host your own in a few steps.
Get the Meet & Mint app
Events & Friends. Free on iPhone and Android, rated 4.5 on the App Store.
Not ready for an app? Come Alone lists events you can go to on your own in 400+ cities; many of them are also in Meet & Mint.