The Lymington.com Events Calendar - How to Add your Events
What's On Lymington and New Forest: raise awareness of your upcoming local events, exhibitions, classes and courses.
Add your events free of charge to the Lymington.com Events Calendar.
Use the opportunity to showcase, promote and "sell" your event in our Events Calendar, with our compliments.
You will need first to registor your business or organisation with a free listing. Then you will be able to log in to your Dashboard to add and edit events.
Once you've read the information below, click here to register your business or organisation and add your event.
For promotion in our newsletter and social media: become a Member
Every week the combined Lymington.com online media channels reach out to 60,000 people to promote and champion local businesses and organisations.
These channels comprise our Weekly What's On email newsletter to subscribers and our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn platforms.
Not yet receiving Weekly What's On? Subscribe here!
Promotion of events via these channels is one of the many benefits to local businesses and organisations of Lymington.com Membership.
Want to get your event promoted? Click here to find out how.
Before you can add an event
If you have not previously added an event to the Events Calendar or have not done so for a long time, please read the notes below first.
Before you can add an event you have to be logged in to your business or organisation Dashboard.
The steps required to do this are:
- Add a listing for your business or organisation: Sign up here to add a basic free listing.
- Complete the registration form with your name, username, email address, choose a password and be sure to read the Terms & Conditions and check the box - then click on ‘Create Account'.
- A confirmation email will be sent to the email address you provided.
- You will then have to wait for us to approve and publish your listing.
- Once you've done this, you'll be able to log in to your User Dashboard, select your business listing and click add event.
- When you log back in to add further events you can just click on the orange log in header bar at the top of the website and log in with your username and password.
- (If you already have a listing on Lymington.com (whether Member or free basic listing) simply log in and click add event.)
How to add an event
Follow the instructions below to add your event to Lymington.com - please pay particular attention to the instructions in orange, which can delay your event going live. Also bear in mind:
- Press "save" as soon as you can to ensure the event is saved on the website. You can do this after adding the event name and category, and a few words in each of the short and long description fields.
- Images which are too large will prevent your event from being saved - see below in orange for tips about images. So before you start please check the size of your image: Images larger than 250kb will not load.
Log in and start from your Dashboard
- Access your Dashboard by selecting USER DASHBOARD in the website footer or by clicking log in at the top of the website
- Click on Dashboard!
- Select 'Events'on the left-hand side (or if on mobile scroll down until you see 'Events'), then select 'Events' again in the dropdown (see image below).
- Click the 'Add new event' button at the top right of the User Dashboard - this will open the Editor to allow you to complete your event details.
Event Details
Once you have clicked to add an event, make sure you select your organisation from the dropdown at the top of the page.
- Name: provide the title of your event
- Short Description: this is also the sentence picked up by search engines like Google. The best way to write this is to think what/where/when - ie summary event information including start/end times if relevant .
- Long Description: appears with the image as the main information about your event. When you complete this field we suggest:
- Repeat the summary information then include as much detail as you can to inform people about the event and entice them to attend it.
- Try to imagine you are reading the details - do they give the information needed to find out about your event? Do they really "promote" your event?!
- If you need potential attendees to buy tickets/ book ahead, please remember to include the booking information! Eg link to the relevant page on your own website or Eventbrite.
- Pop your contact details in here too for good measure.
- Type: select Live or Virtual (virtual for online 'events')
- Price: if you have tickets for your events, you can put in the price. By default it shows £ Sterling.
- Category: choose the most appropriate one for your event first, this will display as the main category. You can add as many categories as are relevant.
Event Dates
- Enter your event Start date using the calendar selector, if you wish to add an end date (eg for a weekend event), please select it from the calendar and check also the 'Show end date' box.
- Enter the event Start time and End time, click the boxes to 'Show start time' and 'Show end time'
- There is also a Doors Open time which you only need to complete if relevant to your event.
Participating Companies
- Your business/organisation details will already be showing at the top of the Event, if you would like to repeat showing your business details, along with any other businesses or organisations linked to the event, you may do so here. Please note, all businesses/organisations will need a business listing on Lymington.com in order to be selected.
Location and Map
- It’s really important to put as much detail as you can in this section to ensure people know where to find your event, how to contact you etc.
- Start by typing the event address into the grey box which should identify the correct address, then click “Load address” which should put the pin in the correct location on the map.
- Then type the address details in below so that the actual address displays with the event.
- If the map pin isn’t in the right place, click where it should be – this should move the pin. Use the + and - buttons to zoom in and out, so that you can position the map marker accurately.
Repeat - eg for Weekly Events
- This section enables you to set up repeats, perfect if your event will repeat regularly eg weekly, monthly.
Before you can schedule a recurring/repeating event you must complete all other fields and save the event first. This will then load the Recurring Events section.
The descriptions of each field are below:
- Repeats: set the recurring method: daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly.
- Repeat every: set the recurring interval for the events series
- Start on: set the start date of the recurring series.
- Ends: there are 2 options available. You can set an end date or you can set the number of occurrences. The start and end date are always linked to the event start and end date.
- The events will be created until the end date is lower than the end day set on the date field or when the number of occurrences is reached.
- If your event will be repeating on a particular day then check the relevant day.
- NB: When the recurring is used, all the events that are created using the recurring option will be part of a series and can all be modified together.
Event contact information
- Enter a relevant telephone number and email address for the event.
Images/Attachments/Videos
- Images MUST be jpeg or png format. A pdf will NOT do. If you only have a pdf, use one of the free conversion tools such as https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/acrobat/pdf-to-image
- You may also have to reduce the size of your image to “web” size, in order for it to upload. Images larger than 250kb will not load.
- The slot in which the image appears is a WIDE LANDSCAPE shape. If you upload a portrait shape image it will be cropped and only the very top will appear!
- Ideal image size if you're resizing is 750 x 400 (landscape shape).
- It is possible as well to add a promotional video using a YouTube or Vimeo URL. Additionally, programs/leaflets can be uploaded as attachments.
When you're ready to save
- When you’re ready, click on the orange Submit Your Event button. We will then receive notification of your event and will check it on the system before making it live.
- Please note: we normally approve events within 48 hours. The best way for you to see if your event is live is to keep checking the Events Calendar for date of your event - click on the date on the calendar and a pop up box will appear - scroll through the events which are shown in chronological order.
- You can edit your event details at any time by logging in to your User Dashboard.
You can now edit your events!
If your event details change (or you spot a mistake!) you can now log in and edit your events at your convenience. If you edit a repeating event you will be asked on saving the changes if the change(s) relate to 'just this event', 'all following events' or 'all events in the series.'
See your statistics and reach further!
From your User Dashboard, you'll be able to see how many people have viewed your event(s).
If you'd like your event to reach more people consider one of our Lymington.com Membership packages. Whether you have a business, a club, or other organisation, the Lymington.com website together with its social media and direct email communications can promote you to 60,000+ people weekly, always reinforcing the key message: to buy and do business locally.
