I’ve been asked about better event management and event planning, so here’s a few ideas:

1) you can make a dedicated event post, in the appropriate regional forum, and link to it. Use it for planning, attendance etc. it can be tagged event to make it stand out, or have multiple tags.

2) is an advanced version of option one, that also has a Google Calendar set up. This calendar can act as a feed to pull in events from APIs or other feeds. A Moderator can add approved calendar feeds and events to it. Users can make an event in their profile and the calendar would be instantly updated. It could be one main calendar or a calendar for each region that feeds into a main one.

3) Google location Api could be used to make a location map that shows a users location, visible yes/no rules could apply so only members or verified accounts can see other members. This seems like overkill, and can get expensive for api calls, but could be a solution for the “instant meet up” idea.

As of now, I plan on leaving it as option 1, like a normal forum. Encouraging event planners to do their own thing.