Nothing happens unless people show up.
That goes for everything from bike parades to committee meetings. And for over 10 years, promoting local events has been a key part of our work here at BikePortland. We do that by posting stories about events, promoting them, hosting them ourselves, and so on. But the ultimate tool to strengthen our event coverage is a robust calendar that we can integrate right here onto the blog. Sounds simple right? Just embed a Google calendar! Ummm, no. We’ve tried several calendar tools in the past but nothing met our high standards. Until now.
I think we’ve found the solution and we’re excited to share it with you.
If you follow us on Twitter (and you should) you’ll notice we’ve been posting links to events for several weeks now. That’s because we quietly launched our calendar about a month ago. We’ve been working with our web developer (Bozz Media) to get it ready for prime-time. And with one final tweak made last night, it’s finally ready. Check it out at BikePortland.org/events.
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As you can see on the calendar’s page, the default view shows the entire month (hover your cursor over an entry to see an image and brief description):
You can switch the views by clicking the upper right. Your option is to view the events in a list or in a single-day format:
In the single event view, you’ll see a lead image, the event description, a map to the venue, and all the other details:
And look over to your right and you’ll see a list of upcoming events posted in the sidebar —>.
Our calendar allows you to: search for events by date, keyword or location; export the entire calendar (ICS file) or a single event (to Google Calendar or iCal); share an event with your friends via email, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or Google+.
You’ll notice that we’ve populated the calendar with a wide range of events. Just like the mix of stories you read here on BikePortland, our calendar features all the different aspects of the Portland region’s robust cycling culture — from races and rides, to political rallies. With very limited staff capacity, we have to be careful embarking on new projects like this. That’s why I’m very excited about one specific feature of this calendar: It allows us to automatically import events from Facebook. We think Facebook is swell; but BikePortland is about stitching all the different threads of our community together. And to do that, it’s imperative that people can browse events from all types of groups and interests all in one convenient place.
Our mission is to help create “A future where every aspect of cycling’s vast potential is realized.” Events are at the heart of that mission and it’s our goal to get more people to show up to them. What do you think? As always, we’d love your feedback.
If you have an event you’d like to see on our calendar, drop us a line via email or share the link on Twitter, Facebook, or wherever else it’s convenient.
— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org
This new feature would not be possible without the support of our paid subscribers. You too can be a part of our work. It’s just $10 a month and it’s quick and easy to sign up.