Depending on the size of the event, organization can quickly become overwhelming. Coordination, ticketing, marketing, media requests, speakers management,… tasks add up very quickly. An event website can play a role in every one of these tasks, but it’s not always appropriate. As you can guess, it’s worth taking some time to properly plan everything before you start building your event website.

How to plan your event’s website?

The most important thing when planning your event’s website, is to define the needs of your event in terms of website features. For that, we should start by asking the following questions:

• What is the nature of the event? Is it a conference, an art show, a concert, a party,…?
• What are the goals of the event?
• What’s the size of your event?
• What’s the date and time of the event?
• Is it a recurring event or a one-time event?
• Is your audience local or global?
• Is it a free event or a paid one?
• How will you be inviting guests?
• What’s your marketing plan for the event?
• Will the content of your even be time-sensitive or not?
• What are the social media habits of your target audience?
• Will it be a multilingual event?
• Where will the event happen?
• What is your budget for the event?
• What are your guests accommodation needs?
• How will you measure the success of the event?

As you can see, there are a lot of questions to answer, not all directly related to the event’s website. For most of these questions, you will have to find out anyway, whether you build a website for it or not.

Which features will your need to create an event website?

The questions above will help you determine which features you will need for your event website, here are the most common you may want to include:

• Calendar: either for recurring events or for multiple days events, it will be useful to give an overview of the dates.
• Booking: to make it possible to make a reservation for the event.
• Ticket management: to create virtual or printable tickets for the events.
• Payments: for allowing attendants to pay for their tickets right away.
• Member space: in case you want to give access to some private pages either before or after the event.
• Livestreaming: for webinars or other purely online events.
• Translation: in case you are organizing a multilingual event.
• Countdowns: to give a sense of urgency, can help with the marketing.
• Discounting: to encourage early adopters or event partners.
• SEO: for better ranking and schema markup.
• Maps: for easy directions.
• Analytics: to know how well you are doing with your marketing.
• Responsive design: to get views on mobile.

As you can imagine, this is not an exhaustive list, but it does cover the most important features that will be sufficient for most events’ websites.

WordPress themes for event websites

To design an event website, you basically have three options when it comes to picking a WordPress theme: design your own, use a general theme, or pick a specialized theme. For this article, we will not look into self-designing your event’s WordPress theme, but take a look at relevant existing themes.

General multi-use themes

For event websites, multi-purposes themes are generally a safe bet, as they usually are the most compatible with plugins. They also tend to have good compatibility with website builders such as Elementor or Divi, if you are into that kind of things.

Astra

Astra is a fast, lightweight WordPress theme ideal for blogs, portfolios, and WooCommerce stores. Under 50KB, it offers excellent speed and SEO optimization, works with popular page builders, and includes WooCommerce readiness. Regular updates and support from Brainstorm Force make it a top choice for any website.

GeneratePress

GeneratePress is a lightweight WordPress theme focused on speed and usability, adding under 10KB to your page size. It supports the block editor and major page builders like Elementor. Fully responsive and compatible with WooCommerce, it features 60+ color controls and dynamic typography, making it ideal for fast, customizable websites.

Blocksy

Blocksy is a fast, lightweight WordPress theme optimized for the Gutenberg editor, suitable for various websites like business sites and blogs. It integrates with popular page builders, is responsive, SEO-friendly, and WooCommerce-ready, making it perfect for customizable and efficient website creation.

Specialized event themes

Another route you could take is to go for a specialized event theme, which will already provide some of the features that you may have had to install plugins for. You could also choose this option if you are looking for a WordPress theme that is specialized for a specific type of event.

Epic Business Event

The Epic Business Event theme is a versatile WordPress theme tailored for business events like conferences and product launches. It works seamlessly with the WP Event Manager plugin and popular page builders such as Elementor and Visual Composer. This free, fully responsive, SEO-friendly theme is cross-browser compatible and translation-ready, with extensive documentation and support available for users.

Event

The Event theme is a responsive, multipurpose WordPress theme by Theme Freesia, ideal for events, conferences, and blogs. It is SEO optimized, retina-ready, and supports popular plugins like WooCommerce and Contact Form 7. Easily customizable through the Customizer, it includes templates for contact pages and galleries, along with various widgets and sidebars.

Wedding Event Management

The Wedding Event Management WordPress theme is an elegant platform for wedding coordinators, showcasing services, packages, and venues. Its user-friendly design features customizable sections for celebrations and stunning galleries for photography, helping couples create a seamless online presence for their special day.

Kortez Event

The Kortez Event WordPress theme is a responsive design for music artists, singers, producers, and bands to showcase their records and connect with fans. It offers music-focused features and ready-to-use layouts that can be easily imported, ensuring a great appearance on all devices.

WordPress plugins for event websites

As for event-related WordPress themes, there are great plugins that will do all the heavy lifting for you, we will just present a few multi-purpose event plugins here, although there are some specialized ones that will perform only a specific task. In many cases, you will need some extra plugins for specific functionalities.

SugarCalendar

Sugar Calendar is a lightweight yet powerful WordPress plugin designed to simplify event management. It offers a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to create and manage events directly from your WordPress dashboard. Key features include support for recurring events, event ticketing through Stripe or WooCommerce, and integration with Zapier for automation across over 7,000 apps.

Event Organizer

The Event Organiser plugin is a robust tool for managing events within WordPress, offering a seamless integration with the platform’s core functionality. It utilizes WordPress’s custom post type feature to create events that behave similarly to posts but with additional event-specific details such as dates and venues. Users can create one-time or recurring events with complex scheduling patterns, and assign events to specific venues that include Google Maps integration.

The Events Calendar

The Events Calendar plugin is a comprehensive solution for managing events on your WordPress site, trusted by over 800,000 users. With the free core plugin, you can easily create and display events using a variety of customizable calendar views. For more advanced features, such as recurring events, premium support, and additional views, you can upgrade to Events Calendar Pro.

Eventin

The Eventin plugin is a robust event management tool for WordPress, allowing users to create and manage both in-person and online events seamlessly. It supports hybrid events, integrates with platforms like Google Meet and Zoom, and offers customizable ticketing systems with payment options through WooCommerce, Stripe, and PayPal. With features like event analytics and marketing automation, Eventin is ideal for streamlining event management processes on WordPress.

Timely

The Timely All-in-One Events Calendar is a powerful WordPress plugin, trusted by over 150,000 users. It offers a modern design with features like RSVP and ticketing capabilities, recurring events, and timezone management. Fully customizable and mobile-responsive, it’s ideal for managing in-person, virtual, or hybrid events on WordPress.

External tools to consider to improve your event website

There are plenty of tools that you can use alongside with your website to make your event more successful. These can help you in many ways, so carefuly consider them.

Eventbrite

Eventbrite is a perfect companion if you are just launching your event, as it will help you to promote it in the right region to an audience of regular event attendants. On top of that, it handles payments (and takes a cut obviously) so you don’t have to setup a payment system right away.

Meetup.com

A bit like Eventbrite, but it doesn’t let you handle the payments. Again, Meetup.com will help you promote your events quite efficiently by easily finding the right users and pinging them to remind you of your event. Give it a try if you are starting an event.

Google Analytics

What is not measured, cannot be improved. This may sound like a marketing mantra, but it couldn’t be truer. You should include Google Analytics or an alternative to Google Analytics to know what you are doing right or wrong when promoting your events.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is the most popular email marketing tool out there and it can do wonders for your events, especially recurring ones. You should grow a list from day one, it may become your number one converting source quicker than you think. Mailchimp is not the only option, if your list grows a bit, there are indeed many options that will become more interesting for you as they will be cheaper.

Zoom

For online events, you’ll need a reliable way to stream. If you don’t want to get into specialize software or use Youtube, Zoom might very well be the best option.

Conclusion

As you can see from this article, creating a website for an event is no easy task, as there are many possible approaches and many tasks involved, like payments and reservations handling. However, you can make it easier by working with us to create your event website.