Event

The startDate property is the only strictly required field for an Event, establishing its position in time. Use ISO 8601 formatting to disambiguate time zones and durations.

• startDate: The precise moment the event begins (e.g., 2025-10-15T19:00:00-05:00).
• endDate: The scheduled conclusion, critical for calculating duration in calendar applications.
• doorTime: A distinct property for admission time, separate from the performance start.
• previousStartDate: Used to record the original date if an event is rescheduled, preserving historical accuracy for knowledge graphs.

The location property connects an event to a physical or virtual space, enabling map integrations and local search relevance.

• Place: Link to a fully defined Place entity with a postal address and geo-coordinates.
• VirtualLocation: Use for webinars or live streams, specifying the url of the broadcast.
• Text: A simple string like 'Downtown Conference Center' is valid but limits entity disambiguation.
• eventAttendanceMode: A critical enumeration (OfflineEventAttendanceMode, OnlineEventAttendanceMode, or MixedEventAttendanceMode) that explicitly signals the delivery format to search crawlers.

The offers property links an Event to its commercial availability, enabling transactional rich results directly in search engine results pages.

• Offer: An embedded object specifying price, priceCurrency, and availability (e.g., SoldOut, InStock).
• AggregateOffer: Use when multiple ticket tiers exist, summarizing the lowPrice and highPrice range.
• validFrom: Timestamps the offer's activation, preventing premature display of early-bird pricing.
• free: A Boolean property that, when set to true, overrides price fields and signals a no-cost registration.

Distinguishing the agent responsible for the event from the agent performing at it is crucial for accurate knowledge graph entity linking.

• organizer: The Person or Organization that plans and is legally responsible for the event. This entity often owns the canonical event data.
• performer: The Person or Organization actively presenting or entertaining at the event, such as a speaker, band, or workshop host.
• composer and director: Specialized sub-properties for creative works like concerts or theatrical plays.
• Always use a full Organization or Person type with a sameAs link to Wikidata or a MusicBrainz ID to ensure disambiguation from similarly named entities.

The eventStatus property communicates the lifecycle stage of the event to prevent user frustration and maintain data accuracy in AI overviews.

• EventScheduled: The default state; the event is confirmed to occur.
• EventPostponed: The event is delayed but a new date is not yet finalized.
• EventCancelled: The event will not occur; this status should trigger immediate de-indexing of the offer.
• EventMovedOnline: A specific status indicating a shift from a physical location to a virtual one, preserving the original entity ID.
• eventSchedule: For recurring events, use a Schedule node to define repeat frequency rather than duplicating Event entities.

The about property and specific sub-types provide semantic context that helps generative engines categorize the event for topical queries.

• about: Links the event to a broader subject or Thing, such as a specific technology or historical period.
• subEvent and superEvent: Hierarchical properties that model relationships between a conference and its individual workshops.
• EventSeries: Use this parent type to group recurring events like monthly meetups, maintaining a single canonical entity for the series.
• keywords: A free-text field for internal tagging that, while not visible to users, provides additional signals to retrieval-augmented generation systems.

The top-level class in the Schema.org hierarchy from which Event inherits fundamental properties like name, description, url, and image. Every structured data entity ultimately descends from Thing, making it the root of all semantic relationships. When defining an Event, always ensure these base properties are populated to establish the entity's core identity for AI parsers.

An enumeration that defines the lifecycle state of an event. Key values include:

• EventScheduled: The event is planned and confirmed.
• EventPostponed: The event has been delayed but not cancelled.
• EventCancelled: The event will no longer occur.
• EventMovedOnline: The physical gathering is now virtual.

Accurate status markup prevents AI-generated overviews from presenting outdated or incorrect availability information.

A child class of Event specifically designed for commercial gatherings. Use this instead of the generic Event type when marking up trade shows, industry conferences, networking meetups, or investor calls. It inherits all Event properties while signaling to search engines that the occurrence has a professional or commercial context, improving relevance for business-intent queries.

A specialized subtype of Event for concerts, festivals, and live performances. Key distinguishing properties include performer (the artist or group) and subEvent (for multi-act festivals). Using MusicEvent rather than the generic Event type enables rich results that display artist names and performance schedules directly in AI-generated answers and search snippets.

A subtype of Event representing a presentation of a creative work such as a film, documentary, or broadcast. Critical properties include:

• workPresented: The Movie or CreativeWork being shown.
• videoFormat: Indicates 2D, 3D, IMAX, etc.
• subtitleLanguage: Languages for subtitled screenings.

This granularity helps AI models distinguish between a generic cinema listing and a specific screening instance.

An enumeration specifying how attendees participate. Values include:

• OfflineEventAttendanceMode: In-person only.
• OnlineEventAttendanceMode: Virtual only.
• MixedEventAttendanceMode: Hybrid events with both physical and remote options.

Combined with location (physical venue) and virtualLocation (stream URL), this enumeration provides AI crawlers with unambiguous attendance context for generating accurate event summaries.