Countdown to 36 big events with dates you can rely on

36 sport, culture, technology, retail and music dates, 33 of them produced by a rule that can be evaluated for any year. The next one is Patch Tuesday on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, 20 days away.

What is coming up next?

How do we know these dates are right?

Because almost none of them were typed in. 33 of the 36 entries here carry a rule instead of a date: the first Saturday in May, the second Tuesday of the month, the Monday falling between 27 June and 3 July. Each page evaluates its rule for the year you are reading it in, so the date cannot drift out of step with the calendar and no year needs maintaining. The rule itself is printed on every page, so you can check the working rather than take the number on trust.

The remaining entries are events with no rule at all, such as the Olympic Games and the World Cup, whose dates exist only because an organising body published them. Those carry the specific years that have been scheduled and nothing else. Ask one of them for a year it has no schedule for and it returns nothing, and the page says plainly that no date is known rather than inventing one.

What is deliberately missing?

Film release dates, television premieres, game launches and fixtures between named teams. Every one of those is a date somebody announced and can move, sometimes by a year, and nothing in the announcement tells a countdown page when it changed. Award shows are missing for the same reason, with one exception: the Met Gala, which is held on the first Monday in May and is therefore a rule. That exception is the whole test this catalogue applies.

Browse every event by category

Sport

Fixtures and championships whose date is set by a written rule, plus the Games and tournaments that already have a formally scheduled edition.

Culture and festivals

Festivals, national days and customary observances that fall on a fixed calendar date or on a stated weekday rule.

Technology

Release cadences and technology observances with a published schedule rule rather than an announced date.

Shopping and retail

Shopping days pinned to a weekday rule or to a fixed date, none of which are set by a retailer year to year.

Music

Music observances held on the same calendar date every year.

Deadlines

Statutory filing deadlines written into law as a fixed date.

Where else to count from

These pages count to a named event. The rest of the site counts to and from arbitrary dates: pick any date for a full breakdown, add or subtract a span, or look up what a given weekday falls on.

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