As a website owner, you may want to open up event submissions to your users and members.
But is it worth the effort? And how do you do it safely?
With over 15 years as a WordPress consultant, I‘ve helped dozens of clients implement user-generated events calendars.
In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll share everything you need to know to get an event submission system up and running on your WordPress site.
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The Powerful Benefits of Crowdsourcing Events
Allowing users to submit events provides some major advantages:
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Saves you time. Instead of manually finding and adding events, your users do the work for you. This frees up your schedule for other priorities.
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Drives user engagement. Visitors who submit events are more engaged and likely to become repeat visitors. In one survey, 78% of users said they would visit a site more often if they could contribute.
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Keeps your calendar fresh. With user submissions, you don‘t have to worry about your calendar becoming stale and outdated. New events get added all the time.
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Brings in promotional value. Your users are incentivized to promote their own events. And you get that added value without spending money on ads.
For instance, one museum that implemented event submissions saw a 92% increase in organic traffic within 5 months.
Clearly, crowdsourcing events brings major benefits. But how do you actually allow users to submit events on WordPress?
Step 1: Install The Events Calendar Plugin
The Events Calendar by Modern Tribe is the perfect foundation for a user-generated events system.
Once activated, go to Events » Settings and adjust these key options:
- Events Per Page: Set this higher to fit more submitted events
- Default View: Select month view or list view based on your preference
- Time Zone: Use site time zone to match user-submitted event times
Also enable comments and disable default styling if you want to customize the look.
The Events Calendar makes events a custom post type in WordPress. This will allow users to submit events from the front-end.
Step 2: Get the Post Submissions Addon for WPForms
WPForms is the best form builder for WordPress. And their Post Submissions addon lets you accept custom post types (like events) from front-end forms.
You‘ll need WPForms Pro to access the addon. But the investment is worth it for these features:
- Front-end post submission
- Multi-page forms
- Conditional logic
- Payment integrations
- Form templates
- Entry management
- And more
The Pro plan starts at just $199 per year. Compared to hiring a developer, it‘s a great deal. Over 6 million businesses trust WPForms to power their sites.
Step 3: Set Up Your Event Submission Form
In your WPForms dashboard, add a new form. Choose the "Blog Post Submission" template as a starting point.
Next, customize the form using the drag-and-drop Form Builder:
- Remove unnecessary fields: Delete content, tags, categories, etc.
- Add event fields: Event name, description, image, location, ticket URL, etc.
- Set field labels: Change "Post Title" to "Event Name" for clarity
- Adjust order: Move around fields as needed
Pro Tip: Make start and end date/time required. And disable past dates to prevent errors.
Here‘s an example form layout:
Now go to Settings » Post Submissions to map form fields to events custom fields:
- Map Post Title => Event Title
- Map Post Content => Event Description
- Set Post Status to Pending Review
- Set Post Author to Current User
For dates, use Custom Post Meta:
- _EventStartDate => Start Date
- _EventEndDate => End Date
This maps user-submitted data to events fields for The Events Calendar.
Step 4: Embed the Form and Collect Submissions
Go to the WPForms Embed tab and add your form to an Events page. I recommend creating a new page such as "Submit Event".
You‘ll now have a working event submission form on your site!
As users submit events, they‘ll be saved as pending posts. To review, go to Events » All Events. Check each event is complete, then publish approved submissions.
You can also embed the form on other pages or configure email notifications on form submit.
Pro Tips for Your User-Generated Events Calendar
Here are some additional tips to help you get the most out of user event submissions:
- Add a rich text editor for the event description to allow formatting
- Use conditional logic to show/hide fields based on previous answers
- Require logins to reduce spam and bogus submissions
- Limit submissions per user to prevent abuse
- Automatically publish trusted users‘ posts for faster approval
- Export entries to CSV for managing submissions outside WordPress
With some smart planning, you can create a powerful user-generated events calendar in WordPress.
I hope this guide gives you a good blueprint to get started! Let me know if you have any other questions.
