How to Promote a Community Event: A Practical Guide for Local Organisers
Key Takeaways
Even a free event is worth listing on a platform like Eventbrite. Having an estimate of how many people are planning to attend helps with everything from seating to volunteers.
When several things are happening as part of one programme, holding them all in one place is always a good idea. You can then use individual posts, emails and other promotions to highlight each part.
Asking local businesses to help spread the word does not have to involve money. A poster in a window or a share with their customers is often an easy way to support something happening in the local area.
The people already connected to your venue, your area or a previous event are usually the easiest audience to reach, so start there before looking further afield.
Six to eight weeks is usually enough time to promote a community-scale event. What you learn and collect this time can also give you a much stronger starting point for the next one.
Why Community Events Are Worth Promoting Well
Community events are some of my favourite projects to work on.
What makes them special is not just what happens on the day. They are often the result of local people, businesses, organisations and community groups deciding that they want to make something happen for their area, whether that means bringing people together, supporting local businesses, giving families something to do, raising awareness of a local cause, or simply creating a space for people to enjoy themselves.
There is usually a lot of work behind them too. Ideas, conversations, favours, volunteer hours, last-minute changes and plenty of blood, sweat and tears can go into getting an event off the ground. That is part of what makes them feel so connected to the place they belong to.
Promoting one also works a little differently to promoting a conference or a commercial event. There may be no tickets to sell, several things happening rather than one main event, and a modest budget to work with.
That does not mean you need a complicated marketing plan. It means being thoughtful about where your limited time and budget will have the most impact.
Start With Your Local Audience, Then Widen the Reach
It helps to think about promoting a community event in two stages: start with the people who are already connected to the area, then look further afield.
The people already connected to the event, the venue or the local community are usually the easiest to reach and the most likely to come along. Once you have those channels working, you can look at ways to reach people who may be travelling in from further away.
Promoting a Local Event for the First Time
If you do not have a mailing list or much of a following yet, that is not necessarily a problem.
Start by making a list of all the people and organisations that already have a connection with the audience you want to reach. This could include the venue's own following, local Facebook and WhatsApp groups, the library, community centre, nearby schools, parish newsletters and any organisations already involved in the event.
Think beyond your own channels. One of the strengths of a community event is the network of people who already have a reason to care about it.
Practical tip: Put your list in order, starting with the groups that are most closely connected to the people you want to reach. Then start with those. You do not need to ask everyone at once.
A relevant share from a well-connected local group can be much more useful than putting the same post in lots of places where the connection is weaker.
Promoting an Annual Community Event
If the event has happened before, you have a head start.
Last year's sign-up list, photos, feedback and notes about which channels brought people in are all useful. Before you start planning this year's promotion, take a little time to look back at what happened last time.
Practical tip: Look at where people said they heard about the event. If you did not ask that question last year, consider adding it to this year's registration form.
You do not need a complicated reporting system. Even a simple question can give you useful information to work with next time.
Reaching People From Outside the Area
Many community events want to reach beyond the immediate neighbourhood, particularly festivals or events that run across several days.
This is where event listings can be useful alongside your own social media and email channels.
Depending on the type and location of your event, look at your county or city tourism website, regional what's-on listings, Fáilte Ireland's events portal and other relevant local or regional event directories. If the event has a partner organisation, community group or twinned-town connection, their networks may also be worth using.
The important thing is to think about where someone who does not already know about your event might go looking for something to do.
Getting Local Businesses to Help Spread the Word
This is one of the things I particularly like about community events.
A local café, shop or other business already has a connection to the area, and supporting something that brings people into the community can be useful for them too.
The ask does not have to be about money. Often, you are simply asking them to help make more people aware of something happening locally.
Things a local business might easily be able to offer include:
Displaying a poster in their window or at the counter
Sharing the event with their customers or mailing list
Putting a few flyers beside the till
Mentioning the event to people who come in
Reposting your social media posts to their own followers
How to open the conversation
Keep the first request simple and specific. Lead with the event and the local connection rather than starting with what you need from them.
For example:
"We're running the [event] on [date] and expecting people from around [area]. Would you be open to putting a poster in the window?"
A small, specific request is easier to say yes to than a vague request to "help promote" something.
And that first yes can be the start of a useful relationship. Building relationships with the businesses around you takes time, and a poster in a window this year might become a more involved partnership next year.
If it is a first-time event, bring something that helps the business understand what you are creating, such as the programme, the venue, the organisations involved or some initial promotional material.
If it is a returning event, last year's photos and attendance figures can help show that there is already an audience for it.
How to Promote Multiple Events at Once
Many community events are not really one event. They are a programme, with workshops, talks, performances and activities happening across several days or even weeks.
That creates a small marketing challenge.
If every activity is promoted completely separately, someone might see a post about a Tuesday workshop and another about a Saturday walk without realising that they are both part of the same programme.
Create one place for the full programme
A platform such as Eventbrite can be useful here. You can keep the different events together under one organiser account while still giving each activity its own booking page.
That gives people somewhere to see the programme as a whole, while your individual posts and emails can still focus on specific activities.
Holding everything in one place is always a good idea, but it does not replace individual promotion. The two work together.
Alongside your online listing, a single poster showing the full programme can also be very useful offline.
You can create one in Canva and reuse the basic design across the campaign. A few things are worth keeping in mind:
Make the programme easy to scan at a glance.
Use consistent colours and visual elements so the event is recognisable wherever people see it.
Give each activity a clear date, time and location.
Link people directly to booking or registration information where possible.
Add a QR code for easy scan and access to the bookings.
Keep the original design editable so you can update details if something changes.
Make sure the version being shared is always the most up to date one.
The main goal is to make it easy for someone to answer three questions quickly:
What is happening?
When is it happening?
And how do I take part?
Promoting a Free Event When There Are No Tickets to Sell
A lot of event marketing advice is built around selling tickets, with early-bird deadlines, limited availability and ticket prices creating urgency.
A free community event works differently.
You still need to give people a reason to come, but the message is less about the transaction and more about what they can expect from the day.
Set up a listing anyway
Even when an event is free, having an estimate of how many people are planning to attend is useful.
A free Eventbrite listing, or a similar platform, can help you get a better sense of numbers. That information can help with practical decisions such as how many chairs to put out, how many volunteers you need and how much material to prepare.
It also gives you a way to keep in touch with people who have registered, and gives you useful information to build on for future events.
Show people what the day will be like
With no ticket price involved, people need to understand what they are actually going to experience.
What is happening? Who is involved? Who is it for? What will the atmosphere be like?
Photos can help a lot here.
For a returning event, last year's photos are particularly useful because they show people what the day actually looked like. For a first event, you can use photos of the venue, speakers, performers or other elements that help people picture what they are going to experience.
What to Keep for the Next Event
Whatever you gather around this event can make the next one easier.
If this is your first event, the day itself is your best opportunity to collect material and information that you will want later.
Take photos, including photos of the crowd. Ask people one short question as they leave. Keep the registration list somewhere you can find it next year. Make a note of which organisations helped and which promotional channels seemed to work.
If your event comes back every year, this information is already there. The useful habit is to look at it before you start planning the next event, rather than afterwards.
Three things are particularly worth keeping:
Which channels brought people in — so you can spend more time on what actually worked.
Photos and quotes from previous years — because they give you authentic promotional material without having to create everything from scratch.
Your list of previous attendees — because people who have already chosen to come are often a much warmer audience for the next event.
When to Start Promoting Your Event
The right timeline depends on the size and complexity of the event.
For a community-scale event, six to eight weeks is usually enough time to promote it properly. Larger events may need considerably longer, particularly if there are multiple partners, ticketed elements or a significant audience coming from outside the area.
For an annual event, promotion for the following year can sometimes start before this year's event has even finished — because the photos, feedback, contacts and lessons you gather are already useful for the next one.
Event listings are slightly different. Tourism websites and regional calendars may work months ahead, so it is worth submitting your event as soon as the dates and key details are confirmed.
A rough shape for a community-scale event could look like this:
Six to eight weeks out: Publish the programme, set up the Eventbrite listings, put up posters and start asking local businesses and partners to share.
Two to four weeks out: Keep a steady rhythm of promotion, highlighting individual activities and asking partners to share again.
Final week: Focus on practical details — what time it starts, where to park, what to bring and anything people need to know before arriving.
Afterwards: Thank people, share photos, collect feedback and keep the information that will help with the next event.
The exact timing can vary. The important thing is to give yourself enough time to build awareness without trying to do everything in the final week.
Where to Start With Promoting Your Community Event
Promoting a community event is rarely about doing more for the sake of doing more.
Most of what works comes down to making it easy for people to find the information they need, starting with the audiences and organisations already connected to your community, and making good use of the local relationships around the event.
If you take one practical step from this, set up the main event listing first. Then build your promotion around it.
And whichever stage you are at — whether this is your first event or your fifteenth — keep what you learn this time.
The photos, sign-up list, feedback and simple note of where people heard about you can make the next event easier to plan and promote.
If you would like support planning how to promote your community event, I would love to help. Get in touch and we can work out the right approach for your event.
