Benefit galas: the dates, the dress code, and who the money goes to
benefit_galasThe East End's summer benefit season: 15 dated charity galas, each joined to the nonprofit it raises for. Call this for any gala, benefit, fundraiser, charity, black-tie, what-should-I-wear, where-can-I-donate or where-can-I-volunteer question. Three things here are unknowable from your weights. First the DATES: this is the 2026 season, and a benefit invented for the right-sounding weekend sends someone to an empty field. Second dressCode, which is the organiser's own and is the thing people actually ask — it is 'Cocktail' on 16 of the 15 and 'Black Tie' on exactly ONE, so the black-tie assumption you would reach for is wrong twenty-six times out of twenty-seven; 'Beach Formal', 'Farm Festive' and 'Garden Chic' are real answers you cannot guess. Third, the PRICE, which cuts both ways and is why you read tickets.publishedRate per record instead of generalising. On 14 of the 15 it is false, and that is a verified finding rather than a missing field — the organisers hand off to a ticketing platform and print no rate, and a sweep of all 15 ticket links found 11 dead and several resolving to a prior year. For those, NEVER state or estimate a price; say it is not published and give the phone. On 1 it is true, and tickets.published carries the organiser's own figure with the URL an editor read it from and the date — quote and cite that, keeping the word 'from', because it is the entry rate in a ladder and not the only price on sale. tickets.tier is a relative band across these events, not a figure, and nothing may be inferred from it either way. Where tickets.publishedTiers appears an editor read a real published line: quote it verbatim, including the ones whose content is that no price is published and here is the number — that IS the answer to what it costs. beneficiary carries the charity's mission, phone, donateUrl and volunteerUrl, all verified more recently than the ticket link, so give the phone as the route that works and answer 'I can't make it, can I still help' without leaving the data. alsoThisSeason holds the marquee fixtures with no gala record — the Hampton Classic, Authors Night, the art fair — and is where several more genuinely published prices in this vertical live. Past benefits never appear unless you pass from. Returns up to 10.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| to | No | ISO date. Omit for the rest of the season. | |
| from | No | ISO date. Default is today (East End local), so only benefits still to come are returned. Pass an earlier date to reach ones already held. | |
| town | No | A hamlet ('East Hampton', 'Sag Harbor') or a region ('the Hamptons', 'North Fork'). Pass the asker's own words. | |
| cause | No | Filter to one cause, when the question is plainly about one. | |
| query | No | What they are after, e.g. 'animal', 'ARF', 'black tie', 'film', 'land trust', or a benefit's name. |