Event Schema: Get Your Events Into Google Search

When people search for "comedy nights near me", "jazz festival this weekend" or a venue name plus "events", Google can show an interactive event listing with dates, venues and ticket links pulled straight from the web. Getting your events into that experience is one of the more practical uses of structured data for venues, promoters, theatres, attractions and community organisations.

The rules have tightened, though. In 2025 Google removed online-event guidance from its documentation, and it now says events must take place at a physical location. Plenty of older tutorials still tell you to mark up webinars with VirtualLocation; following them today wastes effort.

This guide covers what's eligible, the required and recommended properties, a working JSON-LD example, how to handle cancellations and postponements, and the mistakes that keep events out of Google in 2026.

Key Takeaways

• Event structured data can make your events eligible for Google's event experience in Search and other Google products such as Maps.
• Required properties are name, startDate and location (with name and address).
• Events must be held at a physical location; purely virtual events are not supported.
• Use eventStatus and previousStartDate to communicate cancellations, postponements and reschedules instead of deleting pages.
• Don't mark up coupons, business hours, trip packages or sales promotions as events.

What Event Schema Does

Google's documentation says the event experience helps people discover and attend events through Search and other Google products, with eligible events able to show details such as a description and logo. The page lists the regions where the feature is available, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Latin America, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States; check the current list before investing if you're elsewhere.

Google offers three routes in: list your events on a third-party ticketing or event platform that already provides markup, use a CMS plugin, or add structured data directly to your pages. If you sell through a major ticketing platform, it may already be handling markup for you, but adding it to your own event pages gives your site a chance to be the source shown.

What Is (and Isn't) Eligible

Google's updated guidelines are explicit about physical attendance:

“Virtual experiences that have no real-world component aren't supported.”

— Google Search Central, Event structured data

Search Engine Land reported in June 2025 that Google removed the section on online event properties, so if your event marketing relies on webinars, see our webinar marketing guide for other ways to promote them.

Eligible examples	Not eligible
Concerts, gigs and festivals at a venue	Online-only webinars and livestreams
Theatre shows, comedy nights, exhibitions	Coupons or vouchers (e.g. "5% off your first order")
Workshops and classes held in person and open to the public	Business opening hours
Sports events open to spectators	Trip packages and other products marked as events
Conferences and trade shows with public registration	Short-term sales prompts such as "buy tickets now"
Hybrid events with a physical venue	Membership- or invitation-only events; school-premises events for minors

Required and Recommended Properties

Property	Status	Notes
name	Required	The event's title, not the venue or a sales message
startDate	Required	ISO 8601 date-time with time zone offset
location (Place) with name and address	Required	Physical venue and full postal address
endDate	Recommended	Especially for multi-day events
description	Recommended	What attendees can expect
image	Recommended	High-quality images of the event or performers
eventStatus	Recommended	Scheduled, Rescheduled, Postponed or Cancelled
previousStartDate	Recommended	Original date when rescheduled
offers (price, priceCurrency, availability, validFrom, url)	Recommended	Ticket details and booking link
organizer (name, url)	Recommended	Can reference your Organization
performer (name)	Recommended	Bands, speakers, teams

Example: Event JSON-LD

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Event",
  "name": "Autumn Jazz Night",
  "startDate": "2026-11-21T19:30:00+00:00",
  "endDate": "2026-11-21T22:30:00+00:00",
  "eventStatus": "https://schema.org/EventScheduled",
  "location": {
    "@type": "Place",
    "name": "Example Hall",
    "address": {
      "@type": "PostalAddress",
      "streetAddress": "10 Example Road",
      "addressLocality": "Manchester",
      "postalCode": "M1 1AA",
      "addressCountry": "GB"
    }
  },
  "image": ["https://www.example.com/img/jazz-16x9.jpg"],
  "description": "An evening of live jazz with three local trios.",
  "offers": {
    "@type": "Offer",
    "url": "https://www.example.com/tickets/autumn-jazz",
    "price": "18.00",
    "priceCurrency": "GBP",
    "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock",
    "validFrom": "2026-09-01T09:00:00+00:00"
  },
  "performer": {"@type": "PerformingGroup", "name": "The Example Trio"},
  "organizer": {"@type": "Organization", "name": "Example Hall", "url": "https://www.example.com/"}
}
</script>

Use one Event object per event occurrence. For a recurring show, each date normally gets its own entry with its own startDate.

Handling Cancellations and Changes

Google's documentation defines four eventStatus values. Updating the status keeps searchers informed and avoids disappointed attendees.

• EventScheduled: the default when the field is omitted.
• EventRescheduled: the event has moved to a later date; update startDate and add previousStartDate.
• EventPostponed: delayed with no new date yet; keep the original startDate until you know.
• EventCancelled: the event won't happen; keep the page live with the cancelled status rather than deleting it straight away.

Step-by-Step: Getting Events Into Google

1. Give each event its own URL. A dedicated page with the title, date, venue, description and ticket link visible.
2. Add JSON-LD. Use a plugin for your CMS or ticketing system, or add it to your event template so every event is covered automatically.
3. Use full time zone offsets. Dates without offsets can show at the wrong time.
4. Test with the Rich Results Test. Fix errors; review warnings for recommended fields.
5. Submit and monitor. Include event URLs in your sitemap and check the relevant structured data report in Search Console where available.
6. Keep data fresh. Update status, prices and availability as they change.
7. Manage past events. Archive or consolidate old event pages so they don't pile up as low-value URLs; see index bloat.

Who Should Own the Markup?

Many events are listed in several places at once: the venue's site, the promoter's site, a ticketing platform and local listings. Google may pick any of these as the source it shows. That's not necessarily a problem, as long as the details are consistent everywhere. Conflicting dates, prices or venue names across sources are a common reason events show incorrect information.

Agree internally who publishes the canonical event page and make sure every other listing links back to it. If you're the venue, a clean events calendar on your own site with complete markup gives you the best chance of being chosen and keeps the booking journey on your domain.

Common Mistakes

• Marking up online-only events. Google no longer supports them.
• Listing a whole season as one event with a start date months before the end date, instead of individual performances.
• Using the event name for promotions such as "50% off tickets today".
• Markup that doesn't match the page. Google's general guidelines say structured data must represent the visible content.
• Deleting cancelled events immediately. Mark them as cancelled first so searchers see the update.
• Missing addresses. A venue name alone isn't enough; include the full postal address.

Events, Local SEO and Google Business Profile

Event schema works best alongside your wider local presence. Venues should keep LocalBusiness markup on their location pages (see local schema markup) and can promote upcoming events through Google Business Profile posts. For strategy beyond search, our event marketing guide covers promotion channels.

If you also publish news coverage or recaps of your events, mark those pages up with Article schema rather than Event, and if you're hiring event staff, use JobPosting schema on those listings.

{FAQ}

Fill More Seats From Search

Event markup is one of the few structured data types that turns directly into ticket sales when done well. If you run regular events and want them showing up reliably, our team can audit your templates and implement markup as part of our local SEO services. Request a quote and tell us about your events.

References

1. Event structured data – Google Search Central
2. General structured data guidelines – Google Search Central
3. Google updates event and recipe structured data – Search Engine Land
4. Event – Schema.org

Related Guides

• Job Posting Schema: How to Appear in Google for Jobs
• Article Schema for Blogs and Publishers
• Edge SEO: Making SEO Changes Without Touching Your CMS