144 lines
7.0 KiB
Markdown
144 lines
7.0 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Open Source Event Management
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date: 2025-12-27
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summary: Tools for organizing conferences, meetups, and community gatherings. When your event infrastructure belongs to you, every registration builds community assets rather than paying platform fees.
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draft: True
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featureImageCaption: "Photo by [Headway](https://unsplash.com/@headwayio) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/F2KRf_QfCqw) (Unsplash License)"
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---
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Events are the heartbeat of communities. They transform online connections into real relationships, create shared experiences that strengthen bonds, and provide regular touchpoints that maintain momentum.
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Conferences bring together practitioners and newcomers for knowledge exchange. Meetups provide regular connection points for local communities. Workshops enable skill-sharing and hands-on learning. Gatherings like hackathons and unconferences foster collaboration and innovation.
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But organizing events on commercial platforms comes with costs: Eventbrite takes 3.7% plus $1.79 per ticket. Meetup.com charges organizers $98-198 per month. And beyond the fees, your attendee data—your community's most valuable asset—lives on someone else's servers.
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Open source event management tools offer a different path.
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---
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## Why This Matters for Communities
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### The Fee Problem
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Consider a community running 10 events per year with 500 attendees each, charging $50 per ticket. Eventbrite would take approximately $25,000+ in fees annually. Self-hosted Pretix on a $20/month server costs $240/year.
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For free events, the savings are even more dramatic—commercial platforms still charge processing fees, while self-hosted tools cost only hosting.
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### Data Ownership
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Your attendee list is your community. On commercial platforms:
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- They own your attendee data
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- Export options are often limited
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- If they change pricing or shut down, you lose your audience
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- Your community data feeds their marketing systems
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Self-hosted tools mean:
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- You own your attendee list forever
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- Full export capabilities at any time
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- GDPR compliance in your hands, not a third party's
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- No risk of platform selling or sharing your community data
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### Customization
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Commercial platforms are designed for the average of everyone. Your community has specific needs: custom registration fields, particular workflows, integration with your other tools, branding that matches your identity.
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Open source tools can be modified to fit how your community actually works.
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### Values Alignment
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For communities built on open source principles, using proprietary event platforms creates a contradiction. Your conference about digital freedom shouldn't fund surveillance capitalism.
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---
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## Real-World Examples
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### CERN and Indico
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CERN developed Indico for their own needs—managing everything from small meetings to massive physics conferences. Now used by 200+ institutions worldwide, with 25,000+ users at CERN alone.
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Other major users include Fermilab, DESY, and United Nations agencies. The tool handles everything from small meetings to conferences with thousands of attendees.
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### Chaos Communication Congress and Pretix
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The Chaos Communication Congress—one of the world's largest hacker conferences with 17,000+ attendees—uses Pretix. So does FOSDEM (10,000+ attendees). Millions of tickets have been sold through the platform.
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Privacy-conscious technical communities trust Pretix because they can verify exactly how it handles their data.
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### FOSSASIA and Eventyay
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FOSSASIA developed Eventyay for their own open source conferences. It's now used for FOSSASIA Summit, OpenTech Summit, and events throughout the global open source community in Asia.
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---
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## Choosing the Right Tool
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### Indico: The Conference Powerhouse
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Best for academic conferences, research institutions, and organizations needing robust scheduling and abstract management.
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**Strengths**: Battle-tested at massive scale; exceptional conference management (sessions, tracks, abstracts); strong meeting management; room booking integration; mature and well-documented.
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**Used by**: CERN, Fermilab, DESY, UN agencies, major universities.
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**Considerations**: Complex setup (designed for large institutions); ticketing/payment features less developed; steeper learning curve.
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### Pretix: The Ticketing Expert
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Best for events focused on ticketing and registration, especially paid events.
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**Strengths**: Excellent ticketing and payment handling; beautiful, modern UI; powerful plugin system; seating plans and reserved seating; strong check-in app.
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**Used by**: Chaos Communication Congress, FOSDEM, many European tech conferences and cultural events.
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**Considerations**: Less focused on conference program management; no built-in call for papers or speaker management.
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### Eventyay: The All-in-One Option
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Best for open source communities wanting full conference features with modern UX.
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**Strengths**: Full-featured (ticketing + scheduling + speaker management); modern, clean interface; call for papers built-in; supports in-person, virtual, and hybrid events.
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**Used by**: FOSSASIA events, open source conferences globally.
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**Considerations**: Smaller deployment base; fewer payment gateway integrations than Pretix.
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---
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## Open Source Options
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| Project | Description |
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|:--------|:------------|
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| [Indico](https://getindico.io) | Comprehensive event management from CERN. Excellent for conferences with complex scheduling. <br><small>📊 200+ institutions, 25K+ users at CERN alone.</small> <br><small>📦 [GitHub](https://github.com/indico/indico) · MIT</small> |
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| [Pretix](https://pretix.eu) | Modern ticketing platform with excellent payment handling and check-in tools. <br><small>📊 Millions of tickets sold. Used by CCC, FOSDEM.</small> <br><small>📦 [GitHub](https://github.com/pretix/pretix) · AGPL-3.0</small> |
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| [Eventyay](https://eventyay.com) | Full-featured event platform with ticketing, scheduling, and speaker management. <br><small>📊 Powers FOSSASIA and open source events worldwide.</small> <br><small>📦 [GitHub](https://github.com/fossasia/open-event-server) · Apache-2.0</small> |
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---
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## Feature Comparison
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| Feature | Indico | Pretix | Eventyay |
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|:--------|:-------|:-------|:---------|
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| Registration | Yes | Yes | Yes |
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| Paid ticketing | Limited | Excellent | Good |
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| Session management | Excellent | Basic | Good |
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| Call for papers | Yes | No | Yes |
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| Speaker management | Yes | No | Yes |
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| Check-in app | Yes | Excellent | Yes |
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| Badge printing | Yes | Yes | Yes |
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---
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## The Bigger Picture
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Events are where communities come alive. They deserve infrastructure that serves the community rather than extracting from it.
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When your event platform belongs to you:
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- Every registration builds your community's database, not someone else's
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- Every dollar saved on fees can fund community programs
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- Every customization serves your specific needs
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- Every year of history stays under your control
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The tools exist. They're battle-tested at massive scale. They're free to use and modify.
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Your community's gatherings deserve infrastructure as thoughtful as the events themselves.
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