For the longest time, a big part of Sri Lankan tech culture were its many events. Across Colombo, whether it was at a coworking space, office, or hotel, there was always someone organizing a tech event. Then like everything else COVID-19 happened and froze everything. However, many of the events quickly shifted online taking the form of webinars by utilizing platforms like Zoom to reach audiences. Now, Bhasha – the company behind Helakuru and PayHere wants to help their organizers monetize these digital events with their latest venture called EventsHere.
What is EventsHere?
Think of it as a free online hub where you can find, promote and monetize events. Much like Facebook and Meetup, each event on EventsHere has its own dedicated page where you can gather details about it. Visit the “Browse” section and you’ll see a list of all upcoming webinars. But what sets the website apart from others is its focus towards letting organizers monetize their webinars. The process is pretty straightforward.
Assuming you’re an event organizer, you’ll first need to create an account on the website with your email address. On your profile, you can add details about your organization and bank account to receive payments. You can then create your events by clicking the, “Create an Event” button on the top banner. Here you’ll find a simple form where you can enter details of the event, set the number of tickets you wish to sell and their price, then you’re done.
With everything set up, you can promote the event page where attendees can purchase tickets. They can do so by paying for it online through PayHere with their debit/credit card, eZcash, mCash, Frimi, Genie, etc. Attendees would then receive an encrypted link, which would allow them to access the webinar after logging in through their own EventsHere account. Thereby, ensuring your meeting link isn’t exposed to the public.
For each ticket sold, EventsHere charges a 10% commission. However, with academic events, the commission is 7% and for free events, the platform doesn’t charge anything. EventsHere states that the total sales of tickets minus the fees will be deposited into your bank account the next day after the event.
The future of events?
While restrictions are now being eased, the threat of COVID-19 remains very real. So it’s unlikely that we’ll see a return to having events physically any time soon. As we shift towards hosting public events online, platforms like EventHere are likely to be welcome by event organizers as a means of continued revenue during these tough times. If you wish to host an event or simply want to learn more about the platform, you can visit the website here.