Get your event into their calendar.

Read this before you print: how time zones work

This is the one behaviour worth understanding properly, because it is invisible until it bites.

The times you enter are written into the code as local wall-clock times with no time zone attached. A scanning phone interprets them in its own time zone. So an event you set for 7pm shows as 7pm to a phone in Berlin and 7pm to a phone in Denver — not the converted equivalent.

For a physical event this is exactly right, and it is why the format works this way. Everyone scanning your poster is standing in the same time zone as the venue, so "7pm" means the same thing to all of them, regardless of where their phone was last set.

For a remote or international event it is wrong. Someone in another country will get an entry at the wrong absolute moment and will miss it. For those, link to an event page that states the time zone explicitly instead of using this type.

Start and end times

A start date and time is all you need. Leave the end blank and the event defaults to lasting one hour, which is right often enough to be a sensible default and easy to override when it is not.

The end must be after the start. If it is not, the generator shows an error and blocks downloading and saving until it is fixed — an event that ends before it begins is not valid, and calendar apps handle that in several different broken ways rather than one predictable one, so it is refused outright rather than shipped.

You can also leave the dates blank entirely while you work: the preview uses a sample event, so you can style the code before the date is confirmed and fill it in later.

Keep the description to one line

The description is encoded in full inside the pattern, so a paragraph makes the code substantially denser and harder to scan from a poster at walking pace. Use a line, not a brief.

If there is more to say — a schedule, a lineup, parking, accessibility, ticket terms — put a URL in the description and let people follow it. The calendar entry then carries a tappable link into the event page, which is more useful than a wall of text nobody reads in a calendar app anyway.

The location field is worth filling in properly, though. Most calendar apps make it tappable straight through to maps, which quietly solves the "where is it again?" problem on the day.

Where it earns its place

Posters and flyers for a one-off event, conference session signage, wedding invitations and save-the-dates, class and workshop schedules, gallery openings, fixture lists, term dates on a school newsletter.

Its value scales with how far away the event is. For something tonight, a poster is enough. For something in six weeks, the entire problem is that people intend to come and then forget, and a calendar entry with a reminder is the only intervention that actually addresses it.

Conference programmes are the strongest case of all — one code per session, on the printed schedule, and attendees build their own day without typing anything.

Frequently asked questions