How do I make money from a local events calendar or featured event slot?

"I know it works because it gets tons of clicks, but I haven't put the effort into selling it to venues, even though I think I could and should."

I run a featured event at the very top of my newsletters, big. It probably gets the most clicks of anything in the issue, every week. Events are a big reason people read local newsletters at all.

And for about a year, we gave that slot away free. That's a demand signal I haven't turned into a sales motion. Sell the calendar before you host anything yourself.

How does the free-versus-paid model work?

Everybody gets listed for free. Paying gets you to the top.

The free list might have 20 events that all look the same. The paid slot is one custom graphic, made in Canva, that says "featured event of the week" and pops out as the first thing readers see. You're charging one venue $50 or $100 instead of trying to charge 20 events for a spot in the list.

It also reads like content. In a newsletter, you can't really tell what's an ad and what isn't, which is part of why it works.

How much should I charge for a featured event?

Offer	Price I'd start with
One-off featured event, small local business	About $100 per issue
Weekly featured slot at $100	About $400 a month
Venue owns the slot every other week	$250 to $400 a month
Venue, one slot a month for a year	About $1,000 a year
Busy venue, two slots a month for a year	About $2,500 a year
Featured event on the website homepage	About $100 for three days

I know a lot of operators who sell the newsletter slot for $50 to $100 per issue. A partner on one call suggested $250 to $500 a week in front of about 10,000 subscribers. I think that's more than is realistic for small events.

Use a stock price and adjust. The local cookie shop doing a Halloween decorating night isn't going to pay you $500. If a big company with real money is behind the event, charge more.

Who should I pitch it to?

Places that host events constantly: concert venues, arenas, event centers, bars. That's a narrow list, since 99% of businesses don't really have events, so treat it as its own product.

For a venue with two or three events a week, don't pitch $100 per event. Pitch a semi-annual or annual deal where they own the slot once or twice a month.

Think beyond the usual advertisers like the insurance agent and the realtor. Event promoters are their own category of buyer.

This is also why I think natural salespeople, like insurance agents, should own these brands. Most people who start them don't want to sell anything.

What else can I sell on an events calendar?

• Featured event in the newsletter. Top of the issue.
• Featured event on the website. On my local media site, I scrape local events so the page is full from day one, and the top slot is for sale.
• Event post plus social carousel inclusion.
• Logo placements on the events map.
• A quarterly venue special. An idea from late 2024: one issue a quarter with only events from three big venues, each paying to feature eight to ten events with their logo and a hero image. I built the mock-up in Canva right away so I'd have something to show them. If one venue says no, find another. Readers want to see the big events, so it's a service to them too.
• Self-serve paid boosts. One events-calendar tool, CitySpark, costs $175 a month, embeds on your site, scrapes events and lets businesses pay $25 to $50 to promote theirs, which drops into the newsletter automatically after you approve it. Sales is the hardest part of this business, so automating even small sales helps. Someone I know reportedly makes $300 to $400 a month from a similar setup.

One map idea I haven't launched yet: give the calendar list, calendar and map views. Then sell a few logo placements on the map.

Your roofer buys the top package and gets their logo on the map where the business is. Sell four or five at most and rotate them through the year, so it stays scarce.

What do event submitters pay?

A guest who runs an Instagram-first brand with an events calendar shared his numbers:

• About 70% of people submitting events through his form click to ask about advertising.
• $650 for an event post plus carousel inclusion.
• $1,500 for a package with a giveaway, a voiceover reel and a list-reel inclusion.
• Buyers ask for annual contracts, so he thinks he's underpriced.
• 50 to 60 inbound inquiries a week, with carousels alone adding 2,000+ followers a month.

Those are his results, in a market with lots of events. A smaller town has fewer exciting events, so it won't be as easy, but it's still worth doing. The competition is way less.

Events can turn into something bigger, too. I heard about an operator in Canada who became the brand for a group of farmers markets. The organizers reportedly pay him around 30%, and he just covers them in the newsletter and on Instagram. You can't predict what the audience turns into. That optionality is a reason to build it.

How do I promote the calendar?

We planned twice-weekly Instagram carousels with five local events each: a Thursday weekend edition and a Monday weekday edition. We started it as a manual proof of concept in Canva before automating it in lightbreak. No inquiry numbers from that yet.

Should I build it for myself first?

Yes. Building something so other people can buy it adds five to ten times the complexity. Build the calendar and the offer for your own newsletter, prove it sells, then worry about making it a product. See testing a local event if you want to host your own.