How to Create an Event

Events are a great way to keep your Members and Community engaged and up to date with the latest exciting happenings.

There are a whole host of ways to create and configure your Events. From making them online only, to specifying a physical location, you can tailor your Event to your Communities needs. 

Let's take a look together at how to create an Event. 

How to Create Events:

Let's begin by, heading to the Console, selecting Content and then picking on Events from the left hand menu.

This is the Event's main page where you can manage any and all Event's you have created. 

Why not check out this article to learn more about this page. 

For now, let's press the + Create Event button at the top right of the Events page and we can take a look at the available options you have for your Events. To make it easy, we're going to go through this in two stages. 

The Event Details:

The Event details allow you to tell your members all about the Event itself and give them as much information as possible to entice them. Here you can:

• Add a Thumbnail Image: 
  • This is an image in a 1:1 ratio and will be shown to members initially when seeing the Event in a list. 
• Add a Cover Image:
  • This is a 2:1 image and is shown at the top of the Event itself. 
• Add a Title:
  • As you guessed, this is the title of your Event – something short and snappy works well here. 
• Set your Event Start and End Dates/Times:
  • You can set when the Event is scheduled to begin and when it is scheduled to end, and distinguish between these being all day Events, or simply over the span of a single day. 
  • The timezone defaults to your device timezone, however, you can change this if you wish. Members will see the Event in their device timezone.  You can read more about this here. 
• Add a Description:
  • Time to really sell your Event. What is it about, why will it be incredible and who is hosting it. 
• Add a Video Link:
  • If your Event is focused around a Livestream or video call, you can add it to your Event and make it convenient for you and your members to locate it. You can read more about this here. 
• Set the Event Location:
  • You can type out the exact location for your Event. Especially handy if it's at a physical location. 
• Set a Repeat Schedule:
  • Is your Event a recurring one? Well why not set the repeating schedule for it and save yourself the hassle of making a new Event every time. You can read more about Recurring Events here. 
• Add any Button Links:
  • Perhaps you want to add a ticket portal to your Event for your members to access, why not add it in a button.  
    • (It is worth noting that not all external web pages allow the Web platform to open a page using the in-platform browser. Testing this is key.)
• Set your Group Access:
  • If your Event is exclusively for members of a specific Group, you can set this here. 
• Set your Notification Preferences:
  • You can choose to inform your members about your Event or Event series by sending them an in-App notification, a push notification, both, or none. 
    • It's good to note that for an Event series, members will only receive one notification for the series, and not a notification for each occurrence in the series. 
• Set your Publish Schedule:
  • We all like to be proactive, so why not set when you want your Event to be published for your members to see. 
• Set your Event Access:
  • Perhaps you only want paid subscribers to have access to your Event. Well now you can set that, so that your Event is still visible to all members, but the details of it can only be seen by those with a subscription. 

Once you've set up your new Event,  press Publish at the bottom of the page! 

Pressing Publish will then give you a prompt to create a Post about your new Event. 

You don't need to do this, however, if you choose to create the Post, it will automatically take you to the Console with a button pre-filled in with the Event details. 

Editing or Deleting an Event:

Plans change, and sometimes an Event needs to be amended or cancelled, so let's take a look at how best to do this. 

From the Events page, locate your Event by heading to the month of your Event and clicking on it.

This is the how you would see it in a calendar view. 

This is the Event shown in the list view instead. 

You can now make any changes you wish, however, it's important to note that some changes made to an Event that is a part of a recurring series, will split the series and make this Event the beginning of a new Event series. You can learn more about this here. 

Once you've made your changes, scroll down to the bottom of the Event, and you will see the option to Publish your changes. If you don't publish them, they won't be saved. 

If you're planing on cancelling your Event, it's here where you can press Delete Event.