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Getting Started

Create your first event

Last updated: July 2026 · ~6 min read
In short: Creating an event is two steps: the details (name, dates, timezone, location, size, and whether it’s in-person, virtual or hybrid), then your logo and banner. After that you choose whether to edit the ready-made design or start from a blank page, and set the event’s accessibility. Access has two controls: one event-wide setting in Event Settings, and a per-page one in Event website → Configuration. Publishing sends the event to us for approval, usually cleared within 30 minutes on a working day.

Before you start

You’ll need an Eventira account with a role that can create events. If you haven’t invited your team yet, you can do that afterwards, see Invite your team & set roles.

Steps

Walk through it 1 of 11
  1. The Overview dashboard, with the New event button in the top right.
    Start a new eventFrom Overview, click + New event in the top right.
  2. Step one of the wizard: event name, dates, timezone, location, expected attendees and event experience.
    Fill in the detailsName, dates, timezone, location and expected attendees. Check the timezone — it sets every session time attendees see.
  3. Step two of the wizard: upload fields for a logo and a banner image.
    Add your logo and bannerLogo up to 500×500px, banner up to 800×400px. Then click Create Event.
  4. The choice between editing the ready-made design and creating a page from scratch.
    Choose how to build the siteEdit the ready-made design that already has your event in it, or start from a blank page.
  5. The page editor with the page list on the left, the canvas in the middle and settings on the right.
    Open the page editorPages on the left, canvas in the middle, settings on the right. Add more with + Add Page.
  6. The component palette, grouped by the kind of page each component suits.
    Drag in componentsComponents are grouped by the job they do, so you pick from a shortlist rather than a catalogue.
  7. Three ways to set up access Public events are open to anyone, with sign-in only when an attendee does something. Public events with gated pages are open except for specific pages restricted to chosen groups. Private events are invite-only: the attendee's email must already be on your list. More open More restricted Public Anyone can find it and read everything. Sign-in only when they save a session, message or leave feedback. Public, gated pages Open, except for pages you restrict. The attendee list, a members area, a paid workshop. Set by group. Private Invite only. Nobody else can find a way in. You add their email first. It has to match the one they sign up with.
    Set the accessibilityPublic, public with gated pages, or private and invite-only. This decides who can see what.
  8. Event Settings, Access control tab, with Visibility set to Public.
    Set the event-wide accessibilityEvent Settings → Access control. Visibility is either Public or Private.
  9. The Configuration tab listing each page with a Who has access column.
    Gate individual pagesEvent website → Configuration. The Who has access column restricts a page to a group.
  10. The Navigation tab listing menu items with drag handles and folder groups.
    Set up the menuEvent website → Navigation decides which pages appear in the navbar, and in what order.
  11. What happens when you publish You save and publish, Eventira reviews the event, and it then goes live for attendees. Review is usually under 30 minutes during working hours, or the next working day if you publish after hours. Save your edits Publish sends it for review Eventira reviews usually under 30 min Live for attendees Published outside working hours? It is approved the next working day, as early as we can.
    Publish your eventSave, then Publish. That sends it to us for approval — usually under 30 minutes on a working day.

  1. Open the dashboard and start a new event

    Log in and you land on Overview: how many events you have, how many are live, how many are still drafts, and the full list below. Click + New event in the top right.

    The Overview dashboard with counts of total, live and draft events above a table listing each event's date, status, attendance, accessibility and creator, with a New event button top right.

    That table is worth knowing: Attendance shows whether each event is in-person, virtual or hybrid, and Accessibility shows whether it’s public or private. You can scan a whole portfolio for anything set the wrong way in one pass.

  2. Fill in the event details

    Step one of two. Give the event a name, a start and end date, a timezone, a location, and the total attendees you’re expecting. Then pick the event experience: in-person, virtual or hybrid.

    Step one of the event wizard: event name, start and end date, timezone, location, total attendees, and an in-person, virtual or hybrid choice.
    Check the timezone before you invite anyone. It controls every session time and registration deadline shown on the website and in the app. It defaults to your own, which is rarely the venue’s.

  3. Upload your logo and banner

    Step two. Drop in a logo (up to 500×500px) and a banner (up to 800×400px), as SVG, PNG, JPG or GIF. These are what make the event look like yours rather than like software, so it’s worth using the real assets rather than a placeholder you’ll forget to replace. Then click Create Event.

    Step two of the wizard: drag-and-drop upload areas for a logo and a banner, with size limits, and a Create Event button.

  4. Choose how to build the site

    Eventira shows you a ready-made design with your event’s name and dates already in it, a hero, an About section, Speakers and so on. From here you either Edit that design and change what you don’t like, or click + Create from scratch and start with an empty page.

    The Customize your design step, previewing a ready-made event site with hero, About and Speakers sections, with Create from scratch and Edit buttons.

    Editing the ready-made design is the faster route for a first event. Starting from scratch makes sense when you already know the shape of the site you want.

  5. Build the pages

    Either way you end up in the page editor, with your pages down the left, the canvas in the middle, and the settings for whatever you’ve selected on the right. Add pages with + Add Page, and preview at phone, tablet and desktop width from the toolbar.

    The page editor with a website pages list on the left, an empty canvas, device width controls, and a page settings panel on the right.

    Pages are built by dragging components onto the canvas. They’re grouped by the job they do, so you’re picking from a shortlist rather than a catalogue:

    • Home/Landing — HeroSection, Hero Video, Hero Split Screen, Contact Footer

      Neither toolbar labels its icons. The icon key in Add & manage your event website pages says what each one does — the pencil is the one people miss, since it opens the editing tools for whatever you have selected.

    • Venue page — Venue Block, Split Venue Block, Hotel Partners, Venue Directions
    • Resource, General page, Highlight, Content block and Advanced components for everything else
    The components panel, with Home/Landing and Venue page groups expanded to show draggable blocks such as HeroSection, Hero Video, Venue Block and Hotel Partners.

    See Add & manage your event website pages for working with pages in depth.

  6. Set the event-wide accessibility

    There are two separate access controls, and mixing them up is the usual cause of “why can’t my attendees see this?”. This is the first one. Go to Event Settings → Access control, where Visibility has exactly two values, and click Save.

    Event Settings with the Access control tab open, showing a Visibility choice of Public or Private and a Save button.

    That is the setting that’s awkward to change once invitations have gone out. Note there is no “gated” option here — a gated event is Public plus the per-page restrictions in the next step.

    Three ways to set up access Public events are open to anyone, with sign-in only when an attendee does something. Public events with gated pages are open except for specific pages restricted to chosen groups. Private events are invite-only: the attendee's email must already be on your list. More open More restricted Public Anyone can find it and read everything. Sign-in only when they save a session, message or leave feedback. Public, gated pages Open, except for pages you restrict. The attendee list, a members area, a paid workshop. Set by group. Private Invite only. Nobody else can find a way in. You add their email first. It has to match the one they sign up with.
    Three ways to set up access, from most open to most restricted. Only Public and Private are switches; gated pages are Public plus per-page restrictions.
    • Public. Discoverable from your landing page, with all content open. Attendees sign in only when they do something that records an action, saving a session, messaging, leaving feedback.
    • Public with gated pages. Most of the event is open, but specific pages need a sign-in and a check that the person is allowed: the participant list, a members area, a closed or paid workshop. Access is granted by group.
    • Private. Invite-only. You add attendee emails first, each person is invited at that address, and the event only appears in their My events once they sign up with it.

    See How attendees sign in for what each one feels like from the attendee’s side.

  7. Gate individual pages

    That event-wide setting is the front door. The second control is per page, and it lives in a different place: Event website → Configuration. There’s a row for every page on your site.

    The Configuration tab of Event Website, listing every page in rows with columns for Icon, Browser, Who has access, Visibility, Platform and Home page.

    The Who has access column is the one that gates a page. Leave it on everyone for open pages, and switch it to a group for the ones that shouldn’t be public — a board pack, a members-only page, a sponsor briefing. The same row also sets each page’s Visibility, whether it opens in the app or a browser, and which page is your home page.

    ⓘ
    The two settings work together, not instead of each other. A public event can still have a handful of gated pages, and a private event is invite-only no matter what any individual page says. Set the event first, then the exceptions.

  8. Set up the menu

    A page existing is not the same as a page being reachable. Pages appear in your attendee-facing menu only once you put them there, on the Event website → Navigation tab — that’s where you choose which pages show in the menu and in what order.

    The Navigation tab of Event Website, listing menu items with drag handles, folder groupings and an Update icon action, with Add menu item and Add group menu buttons.

    Use + Add menu item for a single page and + Add group menu to make a folder that holds several — that’s how a long site stays navigable, with sponsors tucked under one Sponsors & Partners entry instead of five separate ones. Drag the handles to reorder, and Update icon sets the icon each item shows.

    A page that is built, saved and set to show but missing from the navigation is invisible to most attendees, and it’s one of the most common things people report as a bug. See Add & manage your event website pages for the full walk through of the three tabs.

  9. Publish your event

    When the site reads the way you want it, click Save and then Publish. One thing to know before you plan the announcement: publishing sends the event to us for approval, it does not put it live on the spot.

    What happens when you publish You save and publish, Eventira reviews the event, and it then goes live for attendees. Review is usually under 30 minutes during working hours, or the next working day if you publish after hours. Save your edits Publish sends it for review Eventira reviews usually under 30 min Live for attendees Published outside working hours? It is approved the next working day, as early as we can.
    Publishing sends the event for review. Approval is what makes it visible to attendees.
    ⓘ
    How long approval takes. If you publish during working hours on a working day, we usually approve within 30 minutes. If you publish in the evening or over a weekend, we approve it on the next working day, as early in the day as we can.

    It is a quick check that the event is complete and nothing is obviously broken, not a redesign or an edit of your content. You will not normally hear from us unless something needs your attention.

    So give yourself a little headroom: send the invitation email or post the link after the event shows as live, not the moment you hit Publish. And if you are working to a hard announcement time, publish the working day before rather than an hour ahead.

    If it is approved and attendees still cannot see something, work through Fix: my event website won’t publish — the usual causes are a page hidden, gated to a group, missing from the navigation, or a programme, group or partner page whose Build Page step was never done.

Building pages with code

Alongside the drag-and-drop components, a page can be built from inline code. That matters more than it sounds. You can have an AI assistant write a page for you, a sponsor prospectus, a long call for papers, a detailed travel guide, and drop the result straight in instead of rebuilding it block by block.

It’s the right tool for pages that are mostly words and structure. For anything that needs to match the rest of the site visually, the components will get you there faster and stay consistent.

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Save it as a template. Once an event looks the way you want, save it as a template and start the next one from it instead of from a blank page. There is a library of pre-made templates too.

Would you rather we just built it?

If you have the content but not the time, we’ll set the event up for you: the site, the programme, speakers, sponsors, the lot. Send us what you have in whatever shape it’s in and we’ll build it out. It’s $200 per event ($150 on Pro and Premium), and complimentary for 2026 launch-year clients.

It tends to be worth it for a first event, when you’re learning the platform and the deadline isn’t moving. Get in touch and we’ll tell you what we need from you.

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