If you're thinking about hosting an event and would like to publicise it on the College's digital channels, there's several approaches available to you as well as some important things to consider.
Listing your event on the College website
Events can range from small drop-in sessions to large scale conferences and exhibitions. If you are an Imperial student or staff member you can use the Events website to create a listing for your event/s and add it/them to the College website.
There are many different fields and features available when building an event listing. Guidance is available on how to start building your listing within the Events website.
Published events are added to the main What's on page and can also be included in feeds across the College website so they can be easily found by visitors and promoted in relevant places.
Find out how to feature your event on the What’s on page.
Find out how to use the feed generator.
Certain events may also be featured in other places around College, like, Reporter or in the monthly events e-Bulletin.
The Events website is built on Wordpress and is managed by the Digital team in the Communications and Public Affairs Division.
For further information on using the Events website, please contact your Faculty Web Officer.
Attendee registration
If you are organising a free event that requires attendee registration, you can create a registration form using Qualtrics and embed it within your events listing page on the College website.
Before you create a Qualtrics form, please read our advice on collecting personal data and ensure you understand your responsibility to comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when processing personal data.
You should also read the Privacy notice for events (PDF), which details how the College processes personal data of event attendees.
Your Faculty Web Officer can provide advice on how to set up a Qualtrics form and ensure that you comply with GDPR.
Taking payments
If you are organising an event that requires tickets to be purchased by attendees, you can set up a payments and registration page on the College's online store.
The store offers comprehensive ticketing functionalty, including the ability to sell specific ticket numbers at different rates over particular time periods, with the option to add extras to customer orders (e.g. adding accommodation or dinner to a conference ticket) and capture registration information for each customer.
Before you request the creation of a payments page on the online store, please read our advice on collecting personal data and ensure you understand your responsibility to comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when processing personal data.
You should also familiarise yourself with the College's online store privacy notice, which details how Imperial collects and uses personal information collected through the online store.
The online store is managed by ICT and the Finance Division. For more information on how to use this system for taking payments, please speak to your Faculty Web Officer.
Using Eventbrite
Eventbrite is not a College Service, however we acknowledge it is a widely used and reputable service for events management.
If you choose to use Eventbrite for any College event for internal and/or external guests, you must carefully follow the College's Eventbrite guidance and ensure you include the College's recommended template statement in your listing and in any invitations you send out.
It's also important that you understand Eventbrite's Terms of Service and inform your customers of how these may affect their data privacy.
If you do use Eventbrite there's a content type available for embedding Evenbrite events in t4 web pages. However these Eventbrite events cannot be added to the main What's on page or any events feeds across the College website. For inclusion in these feeds/pages, your event will need to be created within the Events website.
Data protection responsibilities
Get consent - If you are displaying any personal information on your event pages about the speakers or individuals involved in the event then please ensure you get consent before you create the page.
Personal information can include, name (non-College staff or ex-directory), images/portrait photos, personal email address (non-College e-mail accounts), work history or biography information not already in the public domain or any personal details identifying confidential information.
So when completing the fields referring to Image, Contact details, Speaker details or event Summary or Description - remember to get consent before adding anyone’s personal details, like; name, email address, image and work history / biographies that are not already in the public domain.
Data collection - If you are planning to collect information from event attendees, whether through the College events system, Qualtrics, online store or a third party service, it's important that you understand your responsibility to comply with GDPR. Please read our advice on collecting personal data.
For more information, please contact your Data Protection Coordinator.
Cancelling or postponing events
Don't forget if you need to cancel or postpone your event for any reason remember to change the event status to Cancelled, Postponed or Rescheduled in the event editor. You can find out how to change the Event status on the Instructions for events authors page.
If you cancel an event then a banner will be added to the page which reads 'This event is cancelled'. It is advised that you add wording to the event summary and event description to show the event is cancelled. You can see an example below:
If you are using Eventbrite please also cancel your Eventbrite listing.
General events support for staff
To successfully manage an Imperial event there are a number of steps which event organisers should follow prior, and in the lead up, to an event. This could include; venue hire, catering, finding a photographer, live streaming or recording the event, using social media or producing brand assets.
Further information on these areas and much more is available in the Events team's checklist for preparing to run an event.
You should also familiarise yourself with the Imperial Conference Policy (pdf), which includes a code of conduct and guidance on how to incorporate considerations of equality, diversity and inclusion in conference planning and participation.
For further support on organising and running an event, please contact the Events team.