The event platform problem
Looking for a free Meetup alternative, a free Eventbrite alternative, or a free Facebook events alternative? We get it.
You want to host something. A community meeting, a fundraiser, a workshop, a neighbourhood clean-up, a crop swap. You want people to know about it, RSVP, add it to their calendar, and actually show up.
Simple enough. Except the tools built to help you do this have quietly made themselves the point.
Eventbrite charges booking fees to your attendees — a surcharge on a free community event is a fast way to kill it before it starts, and even paid tiers leave you fielding questions about why the ticket price doesn't match what people actually paid. Meetup requires a paid subscription just to organise. Others require tickets that many volunteer and neighbourhood events don't need.
And then there's Facebook.
Facebook Events are still popular, despite Meta's drawbacks. But there are real costs to running your community through Meta — to your members' privacy, to the values your organisation represents, and to the slow normalisation of handing your community's data to an invasive advertising machine in exchange for a free events tool.
You shouldn't have to choose between convenience and ethics.
What Gather does instead
Gather lets you create events and invite people. That's it. No booking fees. No subscription tier. No algorithm deciding who sees your event based on whether you've paid to promote it.
Creating an event takes a few minutes. You add a name, upload an image, write a description that tells people why they should come, and include directions. Gather generates a shareable link that works for anyone — members of your group and people who aren't on Gather yet.
You can invite anyone by email. If someone isn't on Gather, they receive a clear invitation, can see the event details, and just need to make a quick Gather account to RSVP. No one is excluded because they left Facebook years ago and haven't looked back.
When you create an event you can set the rules around who can invite people to attend - just you, members of your group, or anyone.
Attendees can add the event directly to their calendar — one tap, no faff - and share it with people they think should come. Your event spreads the way good events always have: because someone who was going told someone else about it.
Events that build community
Here's what makes Gather events different from a standalone platform: they live inside a group.
When you create an event in Gather, you make it inside a group - a collection of people that might want to do things together more than once. Your group can use Gather for conversations, tasks, shared resources, and automatic newsletters that bring them closer together — whether you're a climate club, a political campaign, or a babysitting co-op.
After the event, the community is still there. People can share how it went, post photos, coordinate the follow-up. The momentum doesn't evaporate when the event ends.
At the same time, people are able to attend your event without joining the group if you want. They can just click the link and show up. Your event gets the energy of a core group of attendees and anyone else who wants to come. Everyone wins.
How to create an event on Gather
- Sign up to Gather - a free not-for-profit platform for groups
- Create your group. It could be based around the event - "Mike's Birthday Camping Trip", or a broader thing that brings you all together - "Kapiti Coast Adventure Crew"
- Use the 'Events' button to create your first event. Set it to 'open invite' or 'members only.'
- Use the 'Invite' button to invite people by email
That's it! Done in less than 4 minutes.
What you're not supporting
Gather is a not-for-profit built in Aotearoa New Zealand. It isn't driven by an algorithm that's trying to sell ads. It isn't owned by a billionaire with a political agenda. It doesn't charge your attendees a booking fee on a free community event. It doesn't track your members across the internet and sell what it learns.
Every time you use a free Meta product to organise your community, you are paying with something — your data, your members' privacy, your implicit endorsement. The product is always the people.
Gather exists because community tools shouldn't work that way. It's the not-for-profit Meta alternative your community deserves.
Create your first event today
Free. Simple. Invite anyone. No fees, no noise, no billionaires.