Create and manage unlisted or private events

As an event organizer, you probably manage all kinds of events. Some events are public and need to be seen and accessed by the largest audience possible. Some may be totally private, locked down and not seen by anyone except invited participants or VIPs. And some may be in between, meaning that they’re not meant for the entire world, but they require less visibility and you don’t want them all over Google and other search engines. For these kinds of events, Grenadine has set up new event types called “Unlisted event” and “Private event“.

Unlisted events

An unlisted event is not quite public, but not really a big secret either. It’s similar to what you might remember as an unlisted phone number (if you’re old enough to remember what a phone book looks like!). When you mark your event as unlisted, Grenadine will no longer include your event links in event directories. This means that you will need to send out a link to your event to the audiences that should see it. Unlisted event links in Grenadine look like this:

https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/abc-company/abc-world-forum-2017

Anyone to whom you send your event link can see information about your event. If you post your link on your Facebook page, everyone who sees the link can see the event information. Once people access the event website, they can see general information, browse the schedule, see the list of speakers, etc. If you’ve opened registration, people who have your link can also see the registration section, and they’ll be able to register.

No search engine indexing for unlisted events

Because your event is unlisted, Grenadine tries to limit the presence of your data on search engines. For this, our system inserts  a special HTML meta tag (the “noindex nofollow” meta tag) on each page of your event website. This meta tag instructs Google, Bing and other search engines to refrain from indexing your site’s contents, which means that your Grenadine event website will not appear in Google or Bing search results. This can be useful when you’re trying to keep your event schedule and lists of speakers out of the public domain, at least until you’re ready to send it out.

Private events

A private event is more exclusive and more “hidden” than an unlisted event. When you create a private event, Grenadine will give your event a special link that contains a secret (less guessable) token as part of the link. For example, a private event could have the following website URL:

https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/abc-company/abc-world-forum-2017?token=n9iNmJCDSmpxVE9CXAfAsQ

That last part of the URL (the token) makes it harder for curious people to guess what your website URL might be, and so it keeps non-invited people off your event page.

Private events are reserved for registered guests

If you send out a link to your private event, what can people do with the link? They can see the following things:

• They can see the home page (including the date, location and description of your event)
• Then can see the registration section (so they can register)
• They can see the login page (so, you know, they can actually log in if they are registered)
• They can see your contact email, so they can contact you if they are lost and don’t know what to do

Anything else is off-limits until they register and login. Once they log in, they gain full access to all your event details, schedules, etc., same as for all other events.

Bonus points: VIP parties at public events

What about if your event is public, but you need to have a “side-party” or “VIP session” that’s private and not available to everyone else? This can happen quite often, and so for this case, we’ve created “private program items“. Private program items are items on your event’s program that are reserved for certain people only, and are not visible to the general public. Read about private program items in my next blog post: VIP activities, private program items and other semi-secret things that happen on the sidelines of your event.