diff --git a/common/common/database.py b/common/common/database.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..018122c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/common/common/database.py
@@ -0,0 +1,124 @@
+
+"""
+Code shared between components that touch the database.
+Note that this code requires psycopg2 and psycogreen, but the common module
+as a whole does not to avoid needing to install them for components that don't need it.
+"""
+
+import psycopg2
+import psycopg2.extensions
+import psycopg2.extras
+from psycogreen.gevent import patch_psycopg
+
+
+# Schema is applied on startup and should be idemponent,
+# and include any migrations potentially needed.
+SCHEMA = """
+
+-- Create type if it doesn't already exist
+DO $$ BEGIN
+	CREATE TYPE event_state as ENUM (
+		'UNEDITED',
+		'EDITED',
+		'CLAIMED',
+		'FINALIZING',
+		'TRANSCODING',
+		'DONE'
+	);
+EXCEPTION WHEN duplicate_object THEN
+	NULL;
+END $$;
+
+CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS events (
+	id UUID PRIMARY KEY,
+	event_start TIMESTAMP,
+	event_end TIMESTAMP,
+	category TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
+	description TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
+	submitter_winner TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
+	poster_moment BOOLEAN NOT NULL DEFAULT FALSE,
+	notes TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
+	allow_holes BOOLEAN NOT NULL DEFAULT FALSE,
+	uploader_whitelist TEXT[],
+	upload_location TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
+	video_start TIMESTAMP,
+	video_end TIMESTAMP,
+	video_title TEXT,
+	video_description TEXT,
+	video_channel TEXT,
+	video_quality TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT 'source',
+	state event_state NOT NULL DEFAULT 'UNEDITED',
+	uploader TEXT,
+	error TEXT,
+	video_link TEXT
+);
+
+-- Index on state, since that's almost always what we're querying on besides id
+CREATE INDEX IF NOT EXISTS event_state ON events (state);
+
+"""
+
+
+class DBManager(object):
+	"""Patches psycopg2 before any connections are created, and applies the schema.
+	Stores connect info for easy creation of new connections, and sets some defaults before
+	returning them.
+
+	It has the ability to serve as a primitive connection pool, as getting a new conn will
+	return existing conns it knows about first, but this mainly just exists to re-use
+	the initial conn used to apply the schema, and you should use a real conn pool for
+	any non-trivial use.
+
+	Returned conns are set to seralizable isolation level, and use NamedTupleCursor cursors.
+	"""
+	def __init__(self, **connect_kwargs):
+		patch_psycopg()
+		self.conns = []
+		self.connect_kwargs = connect_kwargs
+		conn = self.get_conn()
+		with conn:
+			with conn.cursor() as cur:
+				cur.execute(SCHEMA)
+		self.put_conn(conn)
+
+	def put_conn(self, conn):
+		self.conns.append(conn)
+
+	def get_conn(self):
+		if self.conns:
+			return self.conns.pop(0)
+		conn = psycopg2.connect(cursor_factory=psycopg2.extras.NamedTupleCursor, **self.connect_kwargs)
+		# We use serializable because it means less issues to think about,
+		# we don't care about the performance concerns and everything we do is easily retryable.
+		# This shouldn't matter in practice anyway since everything we're doing is either read-only
+		# searches or targetted single-row updates.
+		conn.set_session(psycopg2.extensions.ISOLATION_LEVEL_SERIALIZABLE)
+		return conn
+
+
+def retry_on_conflict(conn, func, *args, **kwargs):
+	"""Run func(conn, *args, **kwargs) in a transaction up to max_tries (given as kwarg) times
+	(at least once, default 5), retrying if it raises an error indicating a transaction conflict.
+	After max_tries, raises TransactionRollbackError.
+	"""
+	max_tries = kwargs.pop('max_tries', 5)
+	for _ in range(max_tries - 1):
+		try:
+			with conn:
+				return func(conn)
+		except psycopg2.extensions.TransactionRollbackError:
+			pass
+	with conn:
+		return func(conn)
+
+
+def query(conn, query, *args, **kwargs):
+	"""Helper that takes a conn, creates a cursor and executes query against it,
+	then returns the cursor.
+	Variables may be given as positional or keyword args (but not both), corresponding
+	to %s vs %(key)s placeholder forms."""
+	if args and kwargs:
+		raise TypeError("Cannot give both args and kwargs")
+	cur = conn.cursor()
+	cur.execute(query, args or kwargs or None)
+	return cur