The Universe of Events

Chapter 005

Go on, show it off. 

Your event page is often the first thing your prospective guests see about your event. And at Splash, we believe it’s one of the most important parts of your entire event.

Most of all, it’s really the driving force to getting your guests to show up. That’s why it’s important to be extra thoughtful about your event page and not treat it as an afterthought.

Here’s what you want your event page to do:

• Convey your event’s message, story, or value
• Provide the important details (location, speakers, etc.)
• Get them to RSVP or buy tickets (the holy grail)

In this chapter, we share the ingredients of the perfect event page, and design tips to take yours to the next level.

The Anatomy of an Event Landing Page

Even though there are seemingly endless ways to customize your event pages, there are certain elements that every event page should include.

1. Date and time

2. Event title or event logo

3. RSVP button / sign up

4. Venue

5. Logo and / or partners

6. Description and details

Depending on your event, you may want to include bonus content like:

• A promotional video or live stream
• A packing list or a guide to the city the event is located in
• A list of future events

• A list of the guests or brands who will be there

• Testimonials from past attendees

• Social buttons

• Navigation bar (if you have a lot of content)

While all of the above will help attract your guests and make your page really pop, make sure you got all the logistics down first (we can't count the number of times we put together an awesome event page and forgot to include the date 🤦🏽‍♀️).

And whatever you decide to put on your event page, always make sure the language and imagery is welcoming to everyone (if not, it may deter someone from your event before they’ve even RSVP’d!). Here's some more expert tips for making events LGBTQ and SOGI inclusive.

But Don’t Forget: The RSVP Form

What's even more important than the event page itself is the point of registration. Why? Because a great RSVP form can reduce the friction between your guests and the submit RSVP button... which means, more conversions!

While there are a million ways to customize an event form, here are the basic fields that every form should have:

• Name
• Email
• RSVP button

• Secondary information

Here's an example of an RSVP form we used for a recent customer dinner:

Don't feel restricted by just the basics. Here are three tips to providing the best guest experience from click to confirmation:

Psst: we dig deeper into all of the guest data you can capture with your forms later on in Chapter 9.

Designing Your Event Page

Whether you're a marketer, event planner, or designer, having a great event page all comes down to great design.

While a lot of your event page design may rely on your company’s current branding (definitely make sure you check with whomever owns your branding before you go willy-nilly), you have a huge opportunity to make your event page the star (or the "Kim") of your event.

If you don’t consider yourself a traditional “designer,” and this whole section is already starting to stress you out, take a deep breath… we got a lot of tips that will help you build the event page of your dreams.

7 Event Design Principles We Swear By

You’ve got the basics down of what goes on an event page. But what about the elements that will take your event page from “hey, cool event page” to “Holy sh*t, who’s your designer?” (it’s you!).

Pete, Sr. Client Education Manager, outlines the 7 design principles at Splash that we especially love below.

 At work and don't want to watch a video? No worries - read the blogpost instead.

Want to up your event page design skills? Pete also teaches a Client Education course for Designer Pro* that will teach you every design component of an event page.

*You will need to create a new Mindflash account to get started. 

Want to up your event page design skills? Pete also teaches a Client Education course for Designer Pro that will teach you every design component of an event page.

*You will need to create a new Mindflash account to get started. 

Examples of Dope Event Pages

The best way to understand the potential of your event page is to see how the best of the best do it. We’ve put together examples of our favorite event pages of all time.

P.S. We have a Hall of Fame of our favorite Splash pages, and it's the perfect place to find inspiration. Start perusing.

There’s more to designing an event page than just making it look amazing (stay with us). Your event design strategy should always start with thinking about your event’s goal, and then designing a cohesive event program (both online and offline) from there. Make sure you:

Your event page should help inform the rest of your communications, including your offline assets (like swag or on-site signage). And as we mentioned earlier, you want to make sure your design is consistent and seamless across every asset.

Be sure to think consider all of these different opportunities to bring your event’s brand to life:

House All Your Events in One Place

Chances are, you’re not just focused on one single event. Maybe you’re throwing events in 100 cities all over the world. Maybe they’re every 30 minutes all on the same day. Or maybe they’re just curated carefully for your VIPs.

Consider putting together a landing page or an event calendar used to showcase multiple events all in one place (at Splash, we call this a “Hub"). By putting all your events in one place, you can:

1. Get the word out about all your events easily.

2. Showcase, curate, and customize your events any way you want.

3. Build a community of engaged fans (that keep coming back for more!).

Here’s one of our favorite examples from the New York Times:

"

With sponsorships, we realized quickly that we weren’t maximizing the potential of our events. After all, by hosting our own experiences, we’d have more control over everything: from the messaging on the signage to the design of our event pages to the content presented on-site.”

- Amy Barone at Tableau

Create a Holistic Experience Across All Your Event Assets

There’s more to designing an event page than just making it look amazing (stay with us). Your event design strategy should always consider both the online and offline experience so it’s seamless for your guests.

Make sure you’re creating a holistic experience at every stage of the event lifecycle, and think about how your event page design could be transferred over to other assets — like your social promotions, emails, on-site signage, etc.

Hagar Brockmann, Creative Director of AppsFlyer, has perfected the 360 brand experience for all their events. We’re talking next level. Get her event design tactics.