partsyear

Partsyear is a conceptual framework used in sociocultural time studies to model the year as a sequence of social gathering periods, or parties, rather than as a uniform cycle of months. It treats periods of intensified social activity as the defining units of the year, while quieter intervals connect them.

The term is a portmanteau of party and year. It originated in discussions of festival economies and cultural calendars and has been used in academic and practical contexts to describe alternative ways of organizing time for analysis and planning. It is not an official calendar and is usually applied as a heuristic rather than a replacement for standard timekeeping.

In a partsyear, a year is divided into party windows that center on major events such as holidays, festivals, conferences, or community celebrations. Analysts may use a Partsyear Index (PSI) to summarize the level of activity within each window, based on metrics such as event count, attendance, spending, or media coverage. The framework is adaptable to regional or organizational calendars and does not prescribe a fixed number of windows.

Applications include event-driven marketing, urban planning around peak activity, and sociocultural research into how social rhythms influence work, leisure, and spending. It is also used in creative design and speculative policy to explore how time-use patterns shape outcomes.

Critics warn that partsyear can exaggerate the social dimension of time, overlook non-event work, and mislead if used without careful calibration to local realities. It is best used as a supplementary lens alongside conventional calendars.

See also: festival economy; time-use studies; calendar reform.