[We would like to thank Paul Jakus (@paulj) of the Dept. of Applied Economics at Utah State University for this summary of research presented at the 2024 Phish Studies Conference. -Ed.]

As many of you know, the coding/architecture of Phish.Net is currently undergoing a major overall. While the ability to rate shows has been restored, we continue to study the ratings database with the goal of improving the accuracy (and credibility) of show ratings. This is the first in a series of four blogposts about that effort.

This post will focus the raw ratings data.

All analysis is based on an anonymized database downloaded on October 26, 2023.

This date allows us to sidestep problems associated with possible ratings shenanigans in the aftermath of the NYE Gamehendge performance. Ratings for 592 dates that were soundchecks, TV appearances, side projects, false dates (on which no show was performed), and shows for which there is no surviving audiotape were deleted. The final data consist of 343,241 ratings from 16,452 users for 1,736 shows. The shows ranged from Phish’s first, December 2, 1983, through October 15, 2023.

Show ratings are tightly concentrated at high values.

A smoothed distribution for show ratings (the simple average of individual ratings) appears below. Ratings have a heavy concentration of shows packed in between 4.0 and 4.8, and a long tail of relatively fewer shows spread across the relatively low ratings (<4.0).

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