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Event-planning Sites

What They Are

Event-planning sites – like evite.com, eventbrite.com, and meetup.com – allow you to plan, promote, recruit, invite, track, and RSVP to events.  These sites are used for anything from a last minute card game to a city-wide charity walk.

Why Use Them

• Connect with Friends – sites like Evite are great for getting a group together for a night out. Just pick a template, decide who you want to invite, and press send. Then, just watch as the responses come back.
• Save time – sites like Evite allow you to import contacts from your e-mail account so you don't have to go through and manually type in each friend's name. They also allow you to save invite lists from previous events so you can reuse them.
• Stay Organized – whether you're planning a potluck dinner or a Relay for Life event, these sites allow you to see who's viewed the invitation, who hasn't, who's coming, and who's not.
• You can ask guests to suggest a time or a place for the event, or allow them to choose a food item to bring from a list you created.
• You don't have to worry about the invitation getting lost in the mail. People can view and respond to your invitation instantly.
• Save Money – everything is done online, so there's no cost for invitations or postage.
• Go Green – no paper! By using the internet to invite people to your event, you're saving trees, reducing waste, and helping the environment.
• Get involved – sites like Meetup or Eventbrite are for large-scale events in which the audience is unknown (rather than for inviting friends like Evite).
• You can use these sites to organize a charity event or a social gathering within your community.
• You don't need to know the people attending. You just post the event, location, and date, and people find you.

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How They Work

• Select a site – the three sites mentioned above are far from the only event-planning sites. However, even among those three, the focus and audience differ greatly.
• Evite – Evite is better used for personal events – office functions, super bowl parties, bridal showers – when you know the people you're inviting and their e-mail addresses. This site is fun, free to use, and highly customizable.
• Eventbrite – Eventbrite, too, can be used for small, personal events, but is better used for promoting and selling tickets to an event. The site is free unless you're charging for tickets to your event. You can do everything from sending out electronic invitations to processing credit card payments and printing out badges.
• MeetUp – MeetUp is a site designed to unite people with similar interests. You can find existing groups to join, or create a new group. Use this site to find a running group or to start a cooking club in your neighborhood. This site is free.
• Join– joining could be as simple as providing an e-mail address and password, or as detailed as setting up a profile and a payment account. No matter which site you choose, each makes the process as straight forward as possible. Some even offer demos on how to use the site.
• Invite – it's possible that you already set up your invitation as part of the registration process. However, even if that's the case, you can still reach out to friends and let them know about your event.
• For a site like Evite, there are lots of fun decisions to make, like the theme of your party and the design of the invitation.
• Evite allows any level of customization, from canned introductions and RSVP options, to uploading your own photo and allowing your guests to invite their own friends.
• Explore these sites; click around and take advantage of all they offer.
• Track – once you've set up your event and/or sent out invitations, you can go back into the site and see who's planning to attend.
• Go in and read comments and responses, or send reminders to those who haven't RSVPed.
• If you have friends who also use the site, you can check the invitations you've been sent and how you've responded.

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