An Events Calendar Showing an Empty Month

Nothing in January

A community gallery's Events page opens on a grid for January: thirty-one empty squares. The next opening is in late February, six weeks away, and already booked.

A visitor checking for something to do this month concludes the gallery is quiet, or closed for the winter. Nothing on the page says otherwise.

In fact the gallery is busy hanging the next show. The page simply leads with the one month that has nothing in it.

Why calendar views start with this month

Calendar views built into content systems open on the current month by default. Next month sits behind a small arrow in a corner, and a visitor in a hurry never clicks it.

That default suits a community centre with something on most days. It does not suit an organisation whose year has peaks and pauses.

A gallery between shows, a club in its off-season and a theatre between productions all look idle in a grid, whatever they have booked.

What a month grid does badly

A month grid is a familiar shape, borrowed from the wall calendar. On a website it has five weaknesses:

• Quiet months look empty, even when the next event is booked.
• Phones squeeze seven columns into squares too small to read or tap.
• Long events, such as a six-week exhibition, smear across weeks or show only on opening day.
• Details hide behind a click on a tiny title.
• Search engines find a grid of dates and short titles rather than descriptions.

The first two are the ones visitors meet. On a phone, where many people check what is on this weekend, the grid fails before the month is even read.

A dated list instead

List upcoming events in date order, starting from today. Each entry needs the date, the time, the title, the place, the price and one sentence, with a link to the event's own page.

A list always opens on the next event, whatever month it falls in. In a quiet January, the first entry is simply the opening on February 21.

On a phone, a list becomes one readable column with nothing to squeeze. On a computer it reads just as well.

Each event on its own page

Give every event a page with its own address: the details, the people involved, directions, accessibility, cost and how to register, with one good image.

That page can be shared on Facebook, linked from a newsletter and found in a search for the event's name. A square in a grid can do none of that.

Write dates the way people say them, with the weekday: Friday, February 21, 7 to 9 pm. A visitor should never have to work out what day a date falls on.

Saying what is next

When the next event is weeks away, say so at the top of the page: the next opening is February 21. A visitor then knows the gallery is active and when to come back.

Add what is open in the meantime, such as the current exhibition and the hours, and a way to hear about new dates by newsletter or on the Facebook Page.

A worked example

A portrait painter works from a studio behind her house on the Sunshine Coast. She paints commissions, teaches a few small weekend workshops a year and shows in two or three group exhibitions.

Her site's Events page used a calendar view that opened on the current month. In January it was an empty grid, though a workshop was booked for March and an exhibition for April.

On a phone the grid was a block of tiny squares. Past events had been deleted each year to tidy the calendar, taking her exhibition history with them.

The page now lists upcoming events by date: the March workshop with its fee and places left, and the April exhibition with the gallery's address and opening night.

A line at the top says commissions and studio visits are arranged year-round by appointment. Past exhibitions are listed below by year, each with the venue and one photograph.

The page opens on her next dated event in any month, reads as one column on a phone, and shows a visitor weighing a commission years of steady exhibiting.

Weekly classes and other repeats

A weekly class shown in a grid fills every Tuesday and crowds out everything else. In a list it belongs once, with its schedule: Tuesdays at 7 pm, January to March.

Give it a page like any other event, and keep the list for things with a single date, so each entry stands out.

What to keep from past events

Move past events off the upcoming list the day after they end, into an archive marked plainly as past, with dates, the people involved and a photograph.

Keep each event's page at the same address, with a note at the top saying it has taken place and a link to what is next. Other sites and old newsletters may still point to it.

An archive shows a steady record. For a gallery, a club or a painter, years of past events are part of the case for coming to the next one.

The counter-case

A place with something on almost every day, such as a community centre with daily classes, gives a month grid plenty to show.

For it, a grid can help people plan a week on a computer. Offer it as a second view, with the dated list as the default and the only view on phones.

But an organisation with quiet stretches should not let its Events page open on one. The page should always lead with what comes next.

Rebuilding the Events page

1. Open your Events page on a phone and a computer.
2. Replace the month grid with a dated list of upcoming events.
3. Give each event its own page.
4. Say when the next event is at the top of the page.
5. List weekly classes once, with their schedule.
6. Move past events to an archive.
7. Keep old event pages at their addresses.

Step four costs one sentence and changes the whole page. Naming the next date turns an empty-looking page into one that tells a visitor when to come back.

Invitations to an opening are often a single large picture, and Gmail now loads newsletter images itself explains what Gmail's change means for them.

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