Managing timezones correctly is crucial for the smooth operation of your event, especially when it comes to scheduling emails, notifications, and sessions. Setting the appropriate timezone at the beginning of your event planning helps avoid confusion and ensures accurate data in analytics reports. This guide will help you understand how the event timezone impacts your event and how attendee timezones are managed across different event formats.
How timezones impact your event
The event timezone is a critical setting that influences several key aspects of your event:
Impact on scheduling: The event timezone determines the timing of all scheduled emails, notifications, and sessions.
Analytics Reporting: If the event timezone is changed after actions have been tracked (such as session joins or clicks), the reported times for these actions will remain in the original timezone, potentially causing discrepancies.
Best Practice: Set the event timezone right at the start of your event setup and avoid changing it once your event is live to maintain consistency across all scheduled activities and reports.
How Attendees' timezones work
The way times are displayed to attendees varies depending on the type of event:
Virtual Events:
Times are automatically adjusted to match the attendee’s device timezone. This means each attendee sees the schedule in their local time, providing a personalized experience.
Hybrid and Physical Events:
Times are displayed in the event timezone by default, regardless of the attendee’s location. This ensures uniformity for in-person components where the event takes place in a fixed location.
Ensure that the correct event format (Virtual, Hybrid, or Physical) is selected during setup to manage how times are displayed to your attendees.
This setting can be reviewed or changed under Event Builder > General Information > Format.
Important Considerations
Consistency is key: Set your event timezone early and keep it consistent to avoid confusion in communications and reporting.
Correct format selection: Selecting the correct event format is essential to ensure times are displayed correctly for all participants.
Attendee awareness: Communicate clearly with attendees about how times will be displayed, especially for virtual events where local time conversions are automatic.