I tried to differrent solutions:
First: 

```
SELECT DISTINCT LEFT(EVENTNAAME, 1) FROM EVENTS WHERE DATE >= CURDATE()

```

AND

SECOND:

```
SELECT DISTINCT SUBSTRING(EVENTNAAME, 1, 1) FROM EVENTS WHERE DATE >= CURDATE()

```

Both worked in phpMyAdmin, but in my php-file the result is empty because it can't be stored into a variable.

I have done this:

```
while ( $row = mysqli_fetch_object ( $result) ) {
     $title = $row->EVENTNAME;
}

```

the var\_dump delievers:

```
object(stdClass)#3 (1) { ["LEFT(EVENTNAME, 1)"]=> string(1) "S" }

```

but the variable is empty. If I make a select without substring or left the name of the events is fully shown.

But I only want to show the first character of the eventname and use it as title.Therefore I use distinct because if there are more thane one event with the same first letter it delivers only one result.

But this isn't my problem. My problem is how can I store this into a php variable and why does it work if I don't use left or substring with the complete name of the event?

Sorry for bad english and I hope you can help.