Creating Events

Creating Events Manually

An event belongs to a schedule, and you add it from that schedule's page in the admin panel. Adding events is free on every plan; the parts of the form that need a paid plan are marked with a badge below. The form opens for a schedule's owner and its admins, not for a viewer. This page follows the form tab by tab, in the order the tabs are listed.

1. Open the schedule and click Add Event

   Pick the schedule in the sidebar of the admin panel. On its Schedule tab, click Add Event above the calendar. The dashboard has the same button, and asks which schedule when you have more than one.

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2. Say what, when and where

   The first tab, Event, asks for the Event Name and the Date & Time, the two things every event must have, then a flyer image and a sub-schedule if your schedule has any. Location, under them, says where: one of your saved venues, a new one, or online. About opens the description.

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3. Choose how people sign up

   Open the Tickets tab and press Free registration, Sell tickets or Tickets elsewhere. Leave it on Not needed for an event people just turn up to.

4. Open any other tab you need

   Each tab shows a one-line summary of what it holds, so you can see what is set without opening it. The table below says what each one covers.

5. Publish, or save a draft

   The button is in the bar at the bottom of the form. On a new event that will be public it reads Publish, because that first save is what puts the event in front of people. With Draft or Internal chosen on the Listing tab it reads Save draft. On an event that already exists it reads Save, or Save draft while Draft or Internal is chosen, and a saved draft gets a green Publish button beside it for when you are ready.

Tabs of the Event Form

The event form is split into tabs, listed in a sidebar on desktop and as collapsible headers on mobile. Under each tab's name is a one-line summary of what it holds, and a dot marks a tab with changes you have not saved yet. Some tabs only appear once they apply to your schedule:

The very first event you create gets a shorter form, so it starts with only what an event needs: the tabs after Tickets wait behind More options, the flyer field sits under the location, locked upgrade controls are left out, and the button reads Create Event.

Saving, and Coming Back to an Event

The bar at the bottom of the form holds Cancel and the save button, and one line that says what saving will do or what is in its way:

• A refused save keeps what you typed. The form comes back with every field as you left it, ticket types, promo codes and add-ons included, so you fix what the message names and save again.
• A row you filled in and did not add is added by Save. A participant with a name, or a sponsor with a logo, typed into its form but not yet added to the list is added when you save. If it cannot be (no name, no logo), Save stops and opens that tab on it.
• Cancel asks first. With unsaved changes the bar asks Discard unsaved changes? and offers Keep editing or Discard.
• An event that already exists opens straight on its fields. The page is titled with the event's name, with a badge for its saved visibility that opens the Listing tab, and the event's public link sits under the title with Copy and View.
• Shortcuts. Ctrl+S (Cmd+S on a Mac) saves, and Enter in the name of an event that has no date yet moves on to the date.

Actions on a Saved Event

Once an event is saved, an Actions menu appears at the top of the form:

• Clone Event - open a copy of the event as a new, unsaved event.
• Save as Template Pro - Requires the Pro plan - store the event as a reusable template on the Templates tab.
• Cancel event and Restore event - mark the event cancelled without deleting it, then bring it back later. Cancelling can tell everyone who bought a ticket, registered or asked to hear about it; see Notifying Attendees of Changes. A cancelled event shows a red banner at the top of the form with its own Restore button.
• Delete Event - remove the event permanently.

On a wide screen Boost Event Pro - Requires the Pro plan sits beside the Actions button rather than inside the menu; on a narrow screen it moves into the menu. See Boost.

Other Ways Events Arrive

• Import. Bring events in from a link, pasted text, a flyer image or a Google calendar. See AI Import.
• A copy or a template. Clone Event starts a new event from an existing one, and a saved template Pro - Requires the Pro plan does the same for a format you repeat.
• Event requests. If your schedule accepts event requests with Require Approval enabled, events submitted by other people wait for your review. Approve or reject them on the Requests tab of your schedule's admin page, which only appears while there is something waiting.
• WhatsApp Enterprise - Requires the Enterprise plan . Send the details or a photo of a flyer in a message. See Creating Events via WhatsApp.

Notifying Attendees of Changes

Two groups can hear about a change to a published event: people who bought a ticket or registered, and people who asked to hear about it from the event page, who make up its interest list. On eventschedule.com, buyers and registrants are only emailed when your schedule has its own email settings; a selfhosted install only needs a working mailer. The interest list is emailed either way, although on eventschedule.com a schedule without its own email settings can only reach an interest list of more than 50 people once its owner has verified a phone number.

• When you save a change. Change the date or time of a one-time event, or the venue or online link of any event, and saving first asks Notify attendees of this change?, as long as there is someone to tell. Add a note of up to 280 characters if you like, check it with Preview email, then choose Notify attendees or Don't notify. Either button saves the change. A new date or time on a recurring event is not detected, so it never asks.
• When you cancel. Choosing Cancel event from the Actions menu asks Cancel this event? first. When there is someone to tell, the button reads Cancel and notify and the notice goes to all of them, with your note if you add one; otherwise it reads Cancel event. Keep event backs out.
• Nothing is sent for a draft. A change to a one-time event whose start time has already passed notifies nobody, and on a recurring event only people with a date still to come are told.

Cancelling keeps the event's tickets and refund records, stops any boost campaign and any installment plan still charging for it, and shows guests a notice that it has been cancelled. You can restore the event later. It does not refund anyone: refund each sale from the Sales page, where a Stripe or PayPal payment goes back through the provider and any other method is marked as refunded.

The Event Tab

The Event tab holds what nearly every event needs, in three blocks, top to bottom. The first has the name, the date and time (with the repeat settings of a recurring event), the flyer and the sub-schedule. The second is the Location. The third, About, is folded until you press it and holds the descriptions, the AI Generator and your custom fields; while it is closed it shows the short description, or the start of the description. How people sign up is on the Tickets tab, and visibility, the event's link and its category are on the Listing tab.

Recurring

A recurring event is one event that repeats on a pattern, so you do not have to add each date by hand. On the Event tab, choose One-time or Recurring beside Date & Time; the repeat settings open under the date.

A recurring event is still a single event. It keeps one start time and one duration, so a matinee and an evening show on the same day are two separate events. The series never starts before the event's own date, so set the date to the first occurrence. A recurring event cannot also be a multi-day one: the Multi-day event toggle is hidden while Recurring is chosen.

The pattern decides which days the event lands on. Pick a Frequency:

Recurring End

Every pattern has an end condition:

• Never - the series keeps going until you change it.
• On Date - the series stops after the date you pick.
• After Events - the series stops after a set number of occurrences.

Include and Exclude Dates

Use Add Date under either list to fine-tune the generated dates:

• Include Dates - extra one-off dates that do not match the pattern. They are added even after the end condition has been reached, as long as they are on or after the event's own date.
• Exclude Dates - dates to skip, such as a holiday. An excluded date is absent from the schedule: guests see nothing there, not a cancelled entry.

Location

Location is the second section of the Event tab and says where your event takes place. Turn on In-person, Online, or both.

If you have saved venues, pick one from All your venues; the ones your schedule was last at are offered above the list as Recent venues. Choose New Venue to type a venue name, street address and city instead. Typing the name of a venue you already have offers it, so the same place is not created twice. Find or invite the venue by email or phone opens the venue's contact fields, and State, postal code, website opens the rest of the address.

AI Details Generator Enterprise - Requires the Enterprise plan

Let AI fill in an event's category, flyer image, and descriptions from its name and your schedule's context. Open About on the Event tab and click the AI Generator button. The event needs a name before you generate.

1. Under Select elements to generate, tick the fields you want: Category, Flyer Image, Short Description, or Description. Fields that already have a value are marked with a dot and left unticked, so nothing is overwritten by accident.
2. Optionally add Additional instructions (up to 500 characters), for example a house style for descriptions or a look for the flyer. Tick Save as default for this schedule to reuse them next time.
3. Optionally open View/edit AI prompt to see and adjust the exact prompt, with Reset to default to go back.
4. Click Generate.
5. Review the Preview. Each field has its own Regenerate button, then Accept writes the results into the form or Discard throws them away. Nothing is saved until you save the event.

Custom Fields Pro - Requires the Pro plan

Custom fields capture information about an event that the standard fields do not cover. You define them once on the schedule, and they then appear at the bottom of About on the Event tab of every event form.

Setting Up Custom Fields

1. Open your schedule in the admin panel and click Edit Schedule
2. Open the Customize tab and its Custom Fields row
3. Add a field, give it a name, and pick a type
4. Save the schedule

You can define up to 10 custom fields per schedule, and drag them into the order you want. Their values are then filled in under About on each event, where a field marked required must be answered before the event saves. See Custom Fields for the schedule-side reference.

Per-Field Options

Typical uses are age restrictions, dress codes, support acts and door times. Each field's number is shown next to it on the schedule form as {custom_N}, for use in event graphics text templates and slug patterns.

Tickets

The Tickets tab is the one place that decides how people sign up. It opens on three choices; pressing one turns it on and shows what it needs right under it. Not needed, under the three, switches sign-up off again and carries a tick while nothing is switched on. This is a summary: the Selling Tickets guide covers setup, payment, sales, refunds and check-in.

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• Changing the choice. If people have already signed up, pressing another choice asks first. An event that leaves Sell tickets loses its ticket types and add-ons when you save, and the save bar says so before you do. What you typed under Tickets elsewhere is kept while another choice is on, and cleared by Not needed.
• Payment methods. The Payment Method list offers what you have set up under Manage payment methods that can take the event's Currency. While a ticket has a price and nothing is set up to take the money, the tab says so under the choices and points at the Payment row.
• On the free plan. Free registrations and zero-price tickets are unlimited, so an event that mixes a free ticket with priced ones keeps its buy button: the free one stays on sale while the priced rows wait for Pro. With Sell tickets chosen, the tab carries a one-line note saying so. Scanning tickets at the door is free on every plan; the live check-in dashboard is Pro - Requires the Pro plan .
• Currency. Once an event has taken money, its Currency is locked and the selector is greyed out, because a sale records no currency of its own. See Refunds.
• People waiting. If visitors have asked to hear about the event, the tab says how many above your ticket types, as in "3 people asked to be told when tickets go on sale." The number is never shown publicly. See Interest List.
• The tab's title line. Once anything has sold it shows the count and a link to the event's Sales. With tickets or registration on, a Pro schedule also gets Embed Tickets (Embed Registration on a registration-only event) for putting the form on another website. An Unlisted event does not offer the embed.

The tab is hidden from someone whose only tie to the event is a Curator schedule that lists it: prices, payment setup and sales belong to the schedule that created the event.

Participants

The Participants tab names the people performing, speaking or hosting, not the people attending. Every one of them appears on the public event page, and anyone with a schedule of their own is linked to it. Anyone you name who is not already on Event Schedule gets a page of their own at the same time, which they can claim later - see Pages Created for Others.

Pages Created for Others

Naming a performer or a venue who is not yet on Event Schedule creates a schedule for them there and then. It carries the name you typed, any contact details you added, and every date you list them on. This happens whether or not you send them an invitation, because it is what lets their name appear on your event page at all.

What the page shows

Your event page shows the whole lineup. Every act you named appears there by name, and an act with a page of its own, claimed or not, is linked to it, so the act and anyone else can get from your event to the page made for them.

Until it is claimed, the page opens with This page was created by and the schedule that first listed them - or This page was created automatically, when that cannot be worked out - and says the act has not claimed it yet, so nobody mistakes it for a page they built themselves. Below that it lists up to twenty upcoming public dates other schedules have added them to, each credited to the schedule that added it. Draft, internal, unlisted and cancelled dates are not shown, and a page whose dates have all passed says so. It carries no contact details, no follow button and no tickets, and it stays out of search engines until it is claimed.

Agenda

The Agenda tab breaks an event into parts, such as performances, sessions, or talks. Each part appears on the public event page so guests can see what to expect. Adding and editing parts by hand is free on every plan.

Adding Parts

Click + Add Part. Each part is one line:

• Start Time and End Time (optional) - when this part runs within the event
• Part Name (required) - the title of the part, for example "Opening Keynote" or "DJ Set"
• + Add Description, under the line, opens a description for extra details. It stays showing once it has text.

Show Times

Once the agenda has a part, a Show times switch sits beside the tab's title. Off means an agenda without times, for a set list for example: the time fields are hidden and a line under the title says the agenda is shown without times. Times already entered are kept until you save, the save bar says Saving removes the times from this agenda first, and switching it back on before you save brings them back. The choice is remembered for the schedule's next event.

Reordering

Drag a part by the handle at the start of its line, or use the up and down arrows at its end. The order on the form is the order on the event page.

Importing with AI Enterprise - Requires the Enterprise plan

The Import row under the parts builds the agenda from something you already have:

1. Open the Import row.
2. Paste a set list or agenda into the box and click Read This Text, or click Or Choose a Photo to use a photo of a printed agenda, lineup, or setlist.
3. Look over Preview Parts. Accept adds what was found to the parts already there (nothing is replaced), and Discard drops it. If nothing could be read, the row says why.
4. Save the event.

Two more controls sit in the same row:

• + Instructions for the AI - opens an AI Prompt box for telling the AI how to read your agenda's format (up to 500 characters). Use these instructions for every event, under it, reuses them on this schedule's future events.
• Keep the photo - keeps the photo you chose with the event, where guests see it with the agenda. A kept photo can be removed again from the same place.

The row appears only where an AI key is configured. On eventschedule.com it needs an Enterprise schedule: below that the row carries an Enterprise lock and opens the upgrade prompt, and a first event's form leaves it out. Reads are capped per day per schedule there, and the row says when the limit is reached. To photograph an agenda with a phone's camera instead, see Scan Agenda.

Gallery Pro - Requires the Pro plan

An event can show one flyer, and the Gallery tab adds as many photos as you like beside it, up to 50: past editions, the room, the lineup. Guests see them on the event page and can open any photo full screen. The gallery is yours to curate; photos guests send in are separate and live under Fan Content.

Listing

The Listing tab decides where and how the event is shown: the link it lives at, who can see it, its category, and the other schedules it appears on. Its summary in the sidebar reads, for example, "Public · Concert".

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To choose the visibility that all new events start with, use Default visibility for new events in your schedule's Settings → Advanced.

Internal & Unlisted Events Enterprise - Requires the Enterprise plan

Every event has a Visibility setting on its Listing tab. Public and Draft are available on all plans; Enterprise schedules unlock two more states for events that should stay out of public view.

The digest is the automatic email your confirmed email subscribers get, and it only ever covers public events your schedule created itself, not ones it lists from other schedules. The interest sign-up is the Tell me when tickets go on sale form on the event page.

Draft and Internal

Both keep an event to schedule members, and both are skipped by the calendar feed, the subscriber digest, event graphics, newsletters, webhooks, and calendar sync, and neither offers the interest sign-up. The difference is intent: a Draft is on its way to being published, so once saved it gets a green Publish button next to Save draft. An Internal event is never meant to go out, so it has no Publish button. Un-publishing an event that was already live also removes it from any connected calendar.

Unlisted

1. On the event's Listing tab, set Visibility to Unlisted
2. Optionally set an Event password, which only applies to Unlisted events
3. Save the event

Unlisted events are hidden from your schedule page and calendar views. Visitors reach them only by direct link, and where you set a password they have to enter it before they see the event. An unlisted event is also left out of the calendar feed and the subscriber digest, and never offers the interest sign-up, with or without a password.

Also List On

Also list on, the last field of the Listing tab, lists your other schedules and then, under Schedules you follow, the ones you follow that take requests. Tick as many as you like and the event shows up on each of them; a schedule that reviews what it lists is marked Needs approval. The event's own venue and participants are not in the list: they are decided by the Event and Participants tabs, and a line above the list names them.

Every schedule in the list has a verified email address or phone number, and one of these is true:

• You own or help manage it as an owner, admin, or viewer.
• You follow it and it accepts event requests. If that schedule also has request terms, an info icon next to its name shows them.

Adding the event to a schedule you are a member of publishes it there immediately. Adding it to a schedule you only follow creates a request, which appears on that schedule's Requests tab if its owner requires approval.

When a ticked schedule is a Curator schedule with sub-schedules, a dropdown appears beneath it so you can choose which sub-schedule the event belongs to there.

The list only appears when at least one schedule other than the one you are editing in is available to you. With a single schedule you will not see it.

Calendar Sync

A published event is copied to your connected calendar each time you save it. The Calendar sync tab is where you see that for one event and step in by hand. It appears on a saved event only, and only when the schedule is connected to a calendar and set to send its events there.

The tab has a row per calendar: Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, or both. Each row reads Synced or Not synced, with Sync Now to copy the event at once or Remove to take it off the calendar. Both act immediately, not with Save (with unsaved changes on the form they ask you to save first), and anything that goes wrong is said in the calendar's own row. An event that is not synced says why: a Draft or Internal event is not copied because only an event guests can see is, and any other event is copied the next time you save it.

For connecting a calendar and choosing the direction of the sync, see Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar.

Engagement

The Engagement tab is a row for each of Polls, Fan Content, Feedback, and Carpool when carpooling is enabled on the schedule. Each row says what is set and opens in place; rows start closed, and one is open at a time. Rows with something waiting for you, such as pending fan content or suggested poll options, carry a count badge, and on a free schedule the Polls and Feedback rows carry a Pro lock.

Most of these settings decide whether an event follows the schedule-wide setting or overrides it. For the schedule-wide versions see Engagement settings, and for carpooling see Carpool.

Polls Pro - Requires the Pro plan

Add multiple-choice questions to an event and let your guests vote on the options that matter most.

Creating Polls

1. Open the event, go to its Engagement tab and open the Polls row
2. Click Add Poll
3. Enter your Question (up to 500 characters)
4. Add between 2 and 10 Options for voters to choose from (up to 200 characters each)
5. Save the event

You can add up to 5 polls per event, each with its own question and options. A poll left without a question, or with fewer than two options, stops the save: the Polls row opens on it so you can finish or remove it.

How Voting Works

• Sign in required - guests must be signed in to vote, which is what keeps voting to one per person.
• Members only on Draft and Internal events - only members of your schedule can vote on those. On an Unlisted event, anyone signed in who has the link can vote, after entering the event's password if it has one.
• One click to vote - guests click the option they want.
• One vote per poll - votes cannot be changed afterwards. On a recurring event, votes are counted per date, so a regular can vote again for the next occurrence.
• Instant results - the results come back as soon as the vote is cast, so guests immediately see how others voted.

Viewing Results

Once a guest has voted, results are shown as bars with the count and percentage for each option, and the leading option is highlighted.

As the organizer you can always see the results and the total vote count on the event form, whether or not you voted. Once a poll has votes its options are locked, so retitling the choices cannot change what people voted for.

User-Suggested Options

You can let guests add their own options to a poll:

• Allow users to suggest options - turn this on to let guests add options.
• Require approval for suggested options - appears once suggestions are allowed. Suggested options then wait in a pending list on the event form until you approve or reject each one.

Closing and Reopening

Each saved poll carries an Active or Closed badge showing its current state:

• Active polls - guests can vote, and results update as votes arrive.
• Closed polls - results are still visible, but no new votes are accepted.

The badge itself is a label, not a switch. Use the Close Poll link below the poll to stop accepting votes, and Reopen Poll in the same place to start again. A Delete link sits next to it. All three take effect straight away, without saving the event.

Fan Content

Fan content lets your audience add to your event pages, and nothing they send appears publicly until you approve it. There are three types, each with its own toggle in your schedule's Engagement settings and available on every plan:

• Comments - text comments on events and event parts
• Photos - photo uploads on events, capped at 25 per schedule on the free plan and unlimited on Pro - Requires the Pro plan
• Videos - YouTube links on events and event parts

Attendees do not need an account. By default they submit with just a name and email, which appear in your moderation queue so you know who sent what; the email is never shown publicly. If you would rather have people sign in first, turn on Require an account in your schedule's Engagement settings.

Per-Event Overrides Pro - Requires the Pro plan

On a Pro schedule, the Fan Content row of an event's Engagement tab has three choices per type: Same as schedule, Enabled, or Disabled. Under each type's name the form says what the schedule's own setting is, for example Schedule: enabled. The row itself says what is in force, for example Comments, Photos, followed by Same as schedule while none of the three has been changed for this event. That lets you open one event up while the rest of the schedule stays closed, or the other way round.

Moderation

The same tab is where you review submissions, so save the event first:

• Pending Approval - each comment, photo, and video is listed with the part it belongs to, the date it was submitted for, and who sent it, with Approve and Reject buttons.
• Approved - everything already public, which you can still Reject to pull it down. Pro schedules also get a Download all photos link that zips the event's photos.

Approved content appears on the public event page straight away. To hear about submissions by email, turn on the fan content notification in your schedule's Notifications settings; the email tells you how many items are waiting and links to the event.

Videos Tab for Curators

Curator schedules get a separate Videos tab on the schedule admin page. It is not a moderation queue: it suggests YouTube videos for talent on upcoming events that have none yet, so you can fill in their profiles. See the Videos tab.

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Feedback Pro - Requires the Pro plan

Post-event feedback emails attendees after an event ends to collect a star rating and comments. Turn it on for the whole schedule in Settings → Engagement → Feedback, where you also choose how long after the event the request goes out. On the hosted platform this needs your schedule's own email settings.

Per-Event Override

The Feedback row of an event's Engagement tab offers three options:

• Same as schedule - follows whatever you set at the schedule level.
• Enabled - feedback emails go out for this event whatever the schedule setting is.
• Disabled - no feedback emails for this event whatever the schedule setting is.

For more on reading and managing the responses, see Selling Tickets → Post-Event Feedback.

Sponsors Pro - Requires the Pro plan

The Sponsors tab, the last one of the event form, decides which sponsors this one event shows. By default an event shows the sponsors set on its schedule, unless the schedule has its sponsors hidden. The tab appears when the schedule you are editing in, or the one the event belongs to, is on Pro.

The Three Choices

Press one of three choices. The tab's summary in the sidebar says which is in force.

Logos are uploaded when you save the event, and only 15 new ones can be queued per save: with a long list, save partway through and then carry on. To set the sponsors every event starts with, see Schedule Sponsors.

Creating Events via WhatsApp Enterprise - Requires the Enterprise plan

Outside the event form, an Enterprise schedule can also take events by WhatsApp: send the details as text, or a photo of a flyer or poster, and AI reads it into an event. It works where the install has WhatsApp set up through Twilio (see the Twilio setup guide) along with an AI key for the reading.

How It Works

1. Add and verify your phone number in Settings, under Profile Information
2. Set a Default schedule in the same place, unless you can edit exactly one schedule, so the event has somewhere to go
3. Send a WhatsApp message to the Event Schedule number
4. Include the event details as text, or attach a photo of a flyer or poster
5. AI parses the details and creates the event on that schedule
6. You get a reply with the event name, date, and link. If the same event already exists on your schedule, the reply links to it instead of creating a duplicate

What AI Extracts

• Event name
• Date and time
• Duration
• Venue (name, email, website, address, city, state, postal code, country)
• Short description and description
• Flyer image
• Category
• Registration URL
• Performers, matched to existing schedules where it can
• Values for any custom fields that carry an AI prompt

A message from a number that is not verified on an account, or sent to a schedule below Enterprise, gets a reply saying so and creates nothing.

See Also

• AI Import - Import events from a link, text, images or a Google calendar
• Scan Agenda - Photograph a printed agenda and turn it into an event's parts
• Selling Tickets - Add tickets or free registration to your events
• Event Graphics - Create promotional images
• Sharing Your Schedule - Share, embed, and subscribe to your events
• Calendar Integrations - Set up Google Calendar, Outlook, and CalDAV sync
• Managing Schedules - Templates, cloning, and day-to-day upkeep