Building a website for an event whether it’s a conference, summit, or festival is not the same as building a website for a restaurant, a college, or an eCommerce store. Each type of website serves a different purpose and requires a different technical architecture.
Most generic website builders like WordPress, Webflow, and Wix are engineered for small businesses, blogs, or online shops. While they can technically be adapted for events, they consistently fall short of addressing the specific needs of the event. Yes, a skilled developer can manipulate almost any platform to create any type of websites; even transforming a plumbing website template into a website for a billion-dollar corporation or universities. But just because something is possible doesn’t make it practical, cost-effective, or wise.
Here’s an analogy that illustrates the problem:
You could technically ride a bicycle 500 miles across states in a day—if you hired an engineer to rig it with an electric motor.
But is it safe? Is it practical?
And more importantly, is it worth paying an engineer to force a solution that was never designed for that purpose?
In this post, we will explore about the limitations of generic platforms, and how purpose-built solutions for events like Spiny Events can save organizers time, money, and frustration while delivering better experiences for attendees.
The unique demands of event websites
Event websites must handle complex, interconnected requirements that generic platforms struggle to accommodate. Managing dynamic schedules, comprehensive speaker profiles, session listings, ticketing integration, and post-event content distribution, these aren’t optional features. They’re fundamental requirements.
An event website needs to adapt to the three core phases of an event:
- Before: Event Promotion, Ticketing, Speaker info, and Sponsors Profile.
- During: Dynamic Event Schedule, Timezone-aware, Mobile-first website.
- After: Easy access to recordings, post-event materials
Most tools are great for the “before” phase — few don’t even think about “during” and “after.”
The three critical phases every event & event website:
Most website builders focus on creating static sites without understanding the core reality of events. Every successful event website must support three distinct phases, each with unique requirements.
1. Pre-Event
Before events begin, websites play crucial roles in marketing and promotion of the event. A good event websites need features like countdown timers to build anticipation and excitement. Since speaker lineups are rarely finalized early, organizers need the ability to reveal speakers one at a time.
It’s common practice to avoid revealing exact schedules during pre-event phases, since speaker lineups and session times frequently shift before events, the platform must allow organizers to showcase speakers without committing to rigid scheduling details that may need adjustment later. A proper event website builder should understand these simple but essential features: the ability to hide schedules before conferences begin and the capability to post individual speakers as confirmations are received.
Additionally, Sponsor listing should not just be a logo slider. The event website should have a feature to rearrange sponsors by tier or category (e.g., Gold, Silver, Partner) and provide dedicated profile pages for each sponsor. This not only gives sponsors the visibility they deserve for their investment but also allows their profiles to be shared on social media with unique URLs.
2. During-Event
This is where generic website builders completely break down. When speakers cancel at the last minute or rooms need to be reshuffled, organizers need real-time schedule updates that attendees can access instantly. Mobile-optimized schedules become essential for attendees navigating multi-day, multi-track events on their phones.
This is where generic website builders completely break down. When speakers cancel at the last minute or rooms need to be reshuffled, these changes should not be a developer-dependent task, and they should be done quickly so that the attendees get access instantly.
In the case of mobile optimization, it goes far beyond responsive design. It means displaying times based on attendees’ local time zones, which is especially crucial for international participants. It also means showing countdown timers to the next session instead of static schedule listings. Additionally, it includes live session indicators that highlight what’s happening now, transforming a static schedule into a dynamic event guide.
During the event, the organizers can anticipate that attendees won’t continuously refresh their phones. Instead, the schedule should automatically update times and countdown displays, providing a truly dynamic interface that keeps pace with the live event.
3. Post-Event
We have consistently observed patterns where attendees contact organizers or speakers after conferences to get slides or presentations. Most organizers end up sharing Google Docs or Dropbox links, which creates friction requiring attendees to contact organizers or speakers, provide email addresses, and engage in regular follow-ups. These processes are simple but annoying aspects of post-event management.
An effective event website must have features for speakers to upload PDFs and slides directly, allowing attendees to download materials from the conference website without additional contact or coordination. Additionally, a feature of embedding recorded sessions on speaker and session pages extends the event’s value proposition well beyond the final day. This post-event phase helps build momentum toward next year’s event, transforming your website from a temporary landing page into a year-round resource hub.
The event doesn’t end when the last session wraps up!
Why Generic Website Builders Fall Short
The three-phase event lifecycle we’ve outlined requires specialized functionality that generic platforms simply don’t provide by default. Achieving this functionality demands custom development, which means additional cost, time, and ongoing maintenance.
Generic platforms struggle with events because they weren’t designed for them. Their limited capabilities mean you’ll need additional coding for anything beyond basic speaker lists and static information pages. Most lack built-in timezone support for international attendees, and making real-time updates during events often requires technical knowledge that most organizers don’t possess.
The fundamental architecture of these platforms assumes static content that changes infrequently. Events require dynamic, interconnected content that updates in real-time—a completely different paradigm.
The true cost of forcing a generic website builder to work for events
Generic website builders like WordPress, Wix, Webflow, and Squarespace are often promoted as easy-to-use, affordable options for building websites. And honestly, that’s true in many cases. But when it comes to event websites, things get a little more complicated.
Back in 2017, when we were organizing the Agile Asia Conference, we built our first event website using one of these builders. It looked great and got the job done. But here’s the catch: we had over 15 years of experience working with website builders. So it was not a big deal for us.
Over the next five years, we used platforms like Wix, WordPress, and Webflow to create websites for more than 30 conferences. And while they served us well, the process started to feel repetitive and limited. Every single time, we had to set everything up from scratch, configure plugins, install themes, and tweak layouts, which was time-consuming. Even with all our experience, building a decent event website still took about a week.
As our events grew, we needed all the features that an ideal conference website needed, like live schedule updates, multi-day scheduling, and post-event content management. To make all that work, we had to purchase extra plugins, hire help for customizations, or hack together workarounds. It quickly stopped feeling “easy” or “affordable.”
Here’s our take on a generic website builder:
1. WordPress
WordPress remains one of the most flexible and customizable website builders, and it’s particularly powerful when paired with plugins like ACF. With thousands of themes, plugins, and integrations, WordPress provides unmatched flexibility. However, it requires finding hosting, installing WordPress, selecting themes, configuring plugins, and managing ongoing updates.
When we used WordPress for our event websites, the initial setup alone would cost anywhere between $1,500 to $2,500, just to get something decent up and running. And if you want all the bells and whistles—live updates, post-event content, multi-day schedules—it can quickly climb to $8,000 or more. That doesn’t include the time you spend or the cost of maintaining the site over time to keep everything functional, secure, and up to date.
2. Webflow
Webflow excels when it comes to creating beautifully designed websites, especially if you’re looking for a simple landing page with a list of speakers and a straightforward schedule. It’s a great choice for those who want an easy, no-hassle setup without the complicated installation process.
However, Webflow is not ideal for dynamic scheduling. Unlike WordPress, which supports dynamic plugins for things like event scheduling, Webflow doesn’t offer this flexibility. While Webflow is a cloud-based solution with excellent design capabilities, it lacks the ability to handle complex dynamic content such as real-time schedule updates or integration with external event management systems. If your event requires such features, you may find Webflow limited in this aspect.
Building an event website with Webflow can cost $3,000 or more, especially with all the features that are needed in an ideal conference website.
3. Wix
Wix is a user-friendly website builder that makes it easy to create simple event websites without the need for technical skills. It’s great for those looking for a quick setup and aesthetically pleasing design, especially for landing pages with speaker lists, event details, and basic schedules.
However, Wix struggles with dynamic scheduling. Like Webflow, it doesn’t offer the flexibility needed for more complex event features, such as real-time schedule updates or dynamic content management. While Wix provides a range of templates and tools, it falls short when it comes to handling intricate event details, such as multi-day or multi-track schedules. Additionally, integrating external tools for event management is more challenging compared to platforms like WordPress. If you’re planning an event with dynamic needs, Wix might not meet all your requirements.
The cost of using Wix would be $79 per template; however, it won’t have all the features an event needs. In fact, you will get a landing page that is good enough to show what your event is.
The opportunity costs extend beyond immediate expenses. Every hour spent troubleshooting technical issues is an hour not invested in speaker coordination, attendee experience enhancement, or sponsor relationship development.
Attendee experience costs emerge when websites fail to meet expectations. When attendees can’t easily find session information on mobile devices or when last-minute schedule changes aren’t reflected on the website, it directly impacts their event experience and your organization’s reputation.
That’s why we build Spiny Events.
Read story behind Spiny Events
How Spiny Events addresses these challenges
Spiny Events is purpose-built and architect specifically for event websites, not adapted from a general-purpose platform. It’s not just a website builder that can handle events—it’s a platform designed exclusively for events and conferences.
Features that are built-in Spiny Events:
1. Adaptive to different phases of the event
One of the biggest reasons to consider Spiny Events is that it’s been purpose-built to support the full lifecycle of an event—before, during, and after. That means features automatically adapt depending on where you are in the event timeline. Before the event, your site focuses on the event info, countdown, speaker lineup, and registration. When the event goes live, the interface shifts to show real-time session indicators and, dynamic schedule. And once it’s over, Spiny Events pivots again to highlight on-demand sessions, recap content, and follow-up resources—without you needing to redesign or reconfigure anything manually.
In other words, you get a site that’s always in sync with the moment, saving you time while giving your attendees a far more seamless experience.
2. Event-Centric CMS
The event-centric CMS eliminates unnecessary features while providing exactly what event organizers need. Unlike general website builders that overwhelm users with irrelevant options, Spiny Events focuses exclusively on conference and event functionality.
3. Dynamic Schedule Builder
As event organizers ourselves, we know that building a conference is nerve-wrecking. We’ve all started with an Excel sheet, only to end up redoing everything on the website.
With Spiny Events, our intuitive drag-and-drop scheduler builder makes creating your event schedule a breeze. For conferences with short sessions like lightning talks or 5-minute pitches, you can easily adjust times using our list view schedule builder. The system supports all common scheduling formats: single-day single-track, single-day multi-track, multi-day single-track, and multi-day multi-track events.
Plus, for virtual conferences with international attendees, you can switch time zones to see how your sessions will appear across time zones, ensuring your global audience is on track.
4. Mobile-First Design
From our experience organizing conferences, we’ve identified a critical pattern in website usage: Organizers receive maximum desktop traffic before events as people purchase tickets and research conference information. However, this trend completely reverses on event day, when 95% of attendees access conference websites for schedules and speaker profiles on their phones.
Having a mobile-friendly website isn’t just about making your site look good on smaller screens; it’s about making the entire experience work better on mobile. Small details like countdowns to the next live session rather than static schedule listings—no mental math required. The mobile site is super fast to load even when there are 1000s of people browsing the site from the same conference venue. In short, Spiny Events doesn’t treat mobile as an afterthought. It’s built for the way modern attendees experience events.
5. Real-time updates
When there are any changes in the schedule or speakers’ info, you can make instant changes without technical expertise. Be it updating speaker profiles, adjusting schedules, adding sponsor information, or correcting details, the user-friendly admin panel enables immediate adjustments through simple clicks. Plus, attendees won’t need to constantly refresh the website to see what’s coming up next.
6. Cloud-hosted Solution
The cloud-hosted solution provides enterprise-grade reliability without requiring technical expertise. All updates, patches, and security measures are handled automatically, ensuring sites run smoothly and securely around the clock.
7. No-Coding Required
The no-code approach means no programming experience is required to create professional conference websites. If you can browse the web, you can build your event website quickly without technical skills.
The cost of using a purpose-built website builder – Spiny Events
Spiny Events comes with very simple pricing: $129 per event with $29 annual renewal. It delivers significantly better value than WordPress solutions ($3,500+), Webflow solutions ($3,000+), or custom development projects.
If you also need a dedicated Mobile app for your conference, then you can contact us for the pricing and process.
The Bottom Line
Events don’t need generic websites adapted for their use—they need specialized tools that understand their unique requirements. Spiny Events is that tool, designed specifically to support conferences, summits, and festivals across all three critical phases of the event lifecycle.
Rather than forcing generic solutions to work for specialized needs, choose a platform built for your specific requirements. Your time, budget, and attendees will thank you.
A website builder for events cannot simply be a general business tool adapted for conferences. It must be architected from the ground up with a deep understanding of how events function.
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