#005 | How-To Manage Events On Your Website

Events are essential to the success of nonprofits and solopreneurs. They are effective awareness builders, value delivery channels, and fundraisers.

Fragmentation

Many websites use external event services like EventBrite to create, manage, and sell tickets to their events. External event services have these important issues to consider:

Data Fragmentation

Your event data belongs to the external service, not you. Your event data also lives on their systems. They control your access to the data and what you can export.

User Fragmentation

Your event users and customers belong to the external service, not you. Your user data lives on their systems. They control your access to the user data and what you can export.

Systems Fragmentation

Your events are managed and maintained with the external service. This adds another “place” you have to go, another login you have to remember. This costs you a lot of precious event administration time.

Fragmentation is a big deal that only gets worse over time.

Manage Events On Your Website

You can manage your events on your website. This includes free events, RSVP events, and Paid events.

For WordPress powered websites, I use and recommend The Events Calendar plugin.

I have used several other events plugins (yes, literally several) and The Events Calendar stands apart for these reasons:

A clean, user-friendly interface
Mobile responsive layouts
Intuitive and easy-to-use features
Advanced features
Excellent support

Several Flavors Available

The Events Calendar comes in these flavors:

The Events Calendar – Free
The Events Calendar Pro – $149/1-Site | $299/3-Sites | $499/10-Sites*
Event Tickets – Free
Event Tickets Plus – $149/1-Site | $299/3-Sites | $499/10-Sites*
Seating – $129/1-Site | $249/3-Sites | $399/10-Sites*
Starter Bundle (The Events Calendar Pro & Event Tickets Plus) – $249/1-Site | $399/3-Sites | $699/10-Sites*
Venue Manager Bundle (The Events Calendar Pro, Event Tickets Plus, & Seating) – $349/1-Site | $599/3-Sites | $1199/10-Sites*

*Fees shown are for 1 year licenses.

For Solopreneurs I recommend the “Starter Bundle” which includes The Events Calendar Pro and Event Tickets Plus plugins for one low price. Use this for:

Booking Zoom Meetings (Free or Paid)
Displaying A Calendar Of Events (Day, Month, or List Views)

For nonprofits I recommend the “Venue Manager Bundle” which includes The Events Calendar Pro, Event Tickets Plus, & Seating plugins for one low price. Use this for:

Selling Tickets to Galas & Fundraisers
Selling Tickets to Conferences, Workshops, & Seminars
Booking Zoom Meetings (Free or Paid)
Displaying A Calendar Of Events (Day, Month, or List Views)
Collecting RSVPs to Events

Powerful Features

The Events Calendar has powerful features that are well designed, intuitive, and user-friendly. Users can view and register or buy tickets to your events in minutes with no friction at any point in the process.

You manage all your events via your WordPress website admin.

Event Features:

Day, Month, or List Views
Categories & Tags
Recurring Events
Featured Events
Virtual Events
Unlimited Venues
Subscribe To Calendar Updates
Time Zone Support
Advanced Widgets
Location Search
Integrate with Email Marketing & CRM Services

Ticket Features:

RSVPs
Ticket Sales
Stripe Integration
WooCommerce Integration
Custom Registration Fields
Attendee Reports
View, Edit, Export Registrations & Sales
Integrate with Email Marketing & CRM Services

Assigned Seating

Easily create Seating Maps and Seating Layouts that match their venue seating configurations. When creating tickets, you can associate an event with a specific Seat Layout, and each event ticket with a specific Seat Type. When buyers visit your site to purchase tickets on the front-end, they select seats from a dynamic Seating Layout, and purchase Tickets for their selected seats.

Seating uses the Seating Builder service to create dynamic Seating Layouts. The Seating Builder service is included with each Seating license. Seating Layouts can be configured to match the seating in your event venue.

Seating requires the free Event Tickets plugin. It also works with the Event Tickets Pro plugin.

Seating Features:

Unlimited Seating Maps
Color-Coded Seats
Custom Seat Types
Flexible Seat Type Pricing
Sell Assigned Seats
Countdown Purchase Timer
Dynamic Ticket Inventory
Smooth Checkout Experience
Real-Time Seat Availability
Block Seats
Manage Seat Assignments

Seating Pricing

Purchase Seating on the Events Calendar website.
Here’s the pricing at the time I wrote this newsletter:

1 Site – $129/Year
3 Sites – $249/Year
10 Sites – $399/Year

To use Seating login to your WordPress site Admin and go to Tickets > Settings > Licenses and enter your Seating license key. Then click the green button to connect your site to the Seating Builder service.