Create an event, decide whether people can sign up, and check the result on your public event page.
Creating an event takes five short steps, and only the title is required. This guide walks the whole path: fill in the event, decide whether people can sign up, publish it, and then look at the public page the way a visitor will.
Start a new event
1
Open the Events page
Go to your organisation’s Events page. It opens on a list of upcoming events, and you can switch to a calendar.
2
Click Create Event
Create Event sits at the top of the page. In calendar view you can instead click the + on a date to start with that date filled in.
Note
You need permission to create events for the button to appear. If it is missing, ask an organisation administrator to check your role.
Step 1 — Basic Info
1
Event Title
The only required field. The wizard will not move on without it.
2
Event Type
Pick the closest match: VBS, Fundraiser, Community Outreach, Holiday Service, Youth Event, Concert/Performance, Fellowship Event, Board Meeting, Group Event, Camp / Retreat, Recurring Service, or Other Event.
Note
The type is not just a label. Recurring Service asks for a weekday and a repeat pattern instead of dates and never takes sign-ups — see Managing recurring services. VBS, children’s, group, and camp events require a per-day schedule, because check-in and reminders read that day list.
3
Visibility
Public shows the event to everyone, including visitors who are not signed in. Private restricts it to signed-in members of your church.
4
Location
The address defaults to your church’s own. Change it for an off-site event; map coordinates are captured for you.
Basic Info: title, type, visibility, and where it happens
Step 2 — Date & Time
Pick the start and end dates from the calendar buttons and set the times, or tick All day event to drop the times entirely.
Tip
An event spanning more than one date gains a Meeting Days section. Choose which weekdays meet, set default times for all of them, then give individual days their own times, a title such as “Week 1: Creation”, or notes. Because the picker works across weeks, a class meeting every Tuesday for six weeks is one event with six meeting days — not six events. The maximum is 14 meeting days.
Step 3 — Details
Write a Short Description of up to 100 characters for event cards and lists, and a fuller description in the rich text editor below it. Pasting a YouTube link under the live stream field adds a Watch Live button to the event page.
The event page shows the cover image in a wide 16:9 frame on every screen. After you choose a photo, you frame it: drag to pick what shows and zoom to get closer, while previews show the event page on a computer and a phone and the photo on an event card. Cards show a shorter middle band, marked by dashed lines, so keep faces and words between them. Wide (landscape) photos at least 1200 pixels across look sharpest; with a tall photo, only a horizontal slice fits. Use Adjust framing to change it later.
Note
Cover images and images inside the description need an active subscription; the upload button is disabled without one. The text fields always work.
Step 4 — Registration
This is the decision that shapes the whole event, and it is easy to skim past.
1
Decide whether people sign up at all
Leave Take registrations on and the event page gets a Register button, giving you a list of who is coming. Switch it off for an announcement — a concert with open doors, a service, anything you are simply telling people about.
2
Cap it, or close it, if you need to
Spots Available stops sign-ups once the event is full. Registration Deadline closes them on a date. Leave either blank for no limit. Both can be changed later, and both are common reasons sign-ups stop unexpectedly.
Take registrations decides whether you get a list of who is coming
Note
This step appears only while you are creating an event, and never for a recurring service. Afterwards every registration setting — including waitlists, age or grade limits, family details, custom questions, and waivers — lives under Manage → Sign-up Form. Prices and online payment are there too, under Pricing.
Step 5 — Review and publish
The last step gathers everything up: title, description, type, visibility, dates and times, location, and your registration choices. Read it once, then click Create Event.
Review, then publish
Check it the way a visitor will
Creating the event takes you to its page. Finishing the job means looking at that page as a visitor, which takes a few seconds and catches most mistakes.
1
Open the public event page
From Manage, choose Event → View Event Page. Better still, open it in a private browsing window — signed in as an administrator you also see an admin strip that visitors never get.
2
Read the registration card
If you took registrations, the card should say Registration is open with a working Register button and, when you set a cap, N of N spots remaining. If it says something else, the reason is printed underneath it — Why people can’t find or register for your event matches each message to the setting behind it.
What a visitor sees when registration is working
What to do next
Share it.Share Event on the Overview page gives you a short registration link, plus a separate volunteer link when volunteering is switched on.
Running the same event again next year? Do not start from scratch. Duplicate Event in the Overview ⋯ menu copies the setup so you only change the dates.