Category: Community Event

Community events are different. Zapigo is built for them.

When Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography hosted a free, public two-day conference on dance and choreography in Malleshwaram, the challenge wasn’t attracting interest—it was managing complexity without turning the event into a ticketed one.

The conference included:

• Two full days of programming
• Morning and afternoon sessions
• Performances, panel discussions, and an exhibition
• Multiple speakers with detailed bios, photographs, and video references

Natya needed three things at once:

1. A way to present a rich, multi-day agenda clearly
2. A dignified way to understand who was attending
3. A simple system to manage entry at the venue

What Zapigo did

• Designed a single digital invitation that captured the full structure of the conference
• Included session-wise agendas, speaker profiles, images, and embedded YouTube videos
• Shared the invite via WhatsApp and collected RSVPs seamlessly
• Generated QR-based digital gate passes automatically after RSVP confirmation

Each attendee received a personal QR pass on their phone, which they could show at the gate for entry—no printing, no lists, no manual checking.

The result

• Smooth entry management for a free public event
• Clear visibility into attendance without ticketing or payments
• A respectful, non-intrusive experience for guests

Zapigo helped Natya focus on the cultural and intellectual work—while invitations, RSVPs, and gate entry quietly took care of themselves.

Cultural institutions and community organisers don’t run events like commercial shows—and tools built for ticket sales often feel out of place.

Community events are often:

• Free and open to the public
• Spread across multiple days or sessions
• Content-heavy, not transactional
• Shared primarily via WhatsApp

Yet organisers still need:

• Structure without rigidity
• Attendance visibility without paywalls
• Order at the gate without turning people away

Invitations, RSVPs, and entry—without ticketing

Zapigo helps community organisers:

• Create detailed, multi-day invitations with rich context
• Share invites naturally on WhatsApp
• Collect RSVPs without forms or forced accounts
• Issue QR-based digital gate passes for smooth on-ground entry

Every attendee carries their pass on their phone.

Every organiser gets clarity—without selling tickets.

Designed to respect culture, not commercialise it

Zapigo’s gate passes are not tickets.

They’re simply a way to:

• Manage crowd flow
• Ensure safety and capacity
• Document participation for future outreach

No pricing.

No checkout flows.

No friction.

Free to invite. Built for continuity.

Zapigo invitations and passes are free because:

• Community trust matters
• Cultural events grow through openness
• The same organisers host again and again

We help communities run meaningful events today—and quietly support everything they build next

What a Two-Day Dance Conference Taught Us About Community Events

A real community, a real problem

Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography is one of those rare Bangalore institutions that quietly holds the cultural fabric together. When they planned a two-day, free, public conference on dance and choreography at Sabha, a beautiful heritage space in the heart of Bangalore, the intent was simple: open the doors, invite the city, and create space for insightful conversations around movement, performance, and practice.

But the execution was anything but simple.

This wasn’t a single evening event.

It was two full days, each with:

• Morning and afternoon sessions
• Performances followed by panel discussions
• Multiple speakers, each with their own bios, photographs, and body of work
• An exhibition showcasing costumes and archival material
• A need to share context—who is speaking, why they matter, and what the audience should expect

And because the event was free and open to the public, Natya had one crucial question they couldn’t answer easily:

Who is actually coming?

---

Where community events get stressed

Most cultural and community organisations face the same invisible problems:

1. Information overload, scattered everywhere: Event details live across WhatsApp forwards, PDFs, posters, Google Docs, and Instagram posts. No single place tells the full story of the event.
2. Complex agendas don’t fit simple tools Tools built for birthday parties or single-slot events fall apart when there are:
   • Multi-day schedules
   • Parallel sessions
   • Speakers who appear more than once
   • Supporting content like videos, images, and long bios
3. WhatsApp is unavoidable. Unmanaged Invitations have to go out on WhatsApp. But replies come back as:
   • “Will try to come”“Only Day 2”👍 emojisSilence
   None of this turns into usable attendance data.
4. No dignified way to document participation For institutions like Natya, knowing who attended matters—for archives, outreach, grants, and future programming. Yet asking people to “fill a form” at a free cultural event often feels wrong and gets ignored.

---

What Zapigo did differently

Zapigo stepped in not as a ticketing tool, but as an event companion built for real gatherings.

1. We turned complexity into a clear, beautiful invite

• A single digital invitation that captured:
  • Both days, broken into sessions
  • Morning vs afternoon agendas
  • Speaker profiles with photographs
  • Embedded YouTube videos for context
  • Exhibition details, without clutter

Attendees didn’t just know when the event was.

They understood what they were walking into.

2. We met the audience where they already were: WhatsApp

• Invitations were shared directly on WhatsApp
• RSVPs were collected naturally, without forcing logins or forms
• Guests could respond once and specify their intent

Behind the scenes, Natya finally had a live, structured view of interest and attendance—without awkward follow-ups.

3. We helped Natya document their community, quietly

No ticket prices.

No paywalls.

No long registration form friction.

A quick RSVP led to a free gate pass

Natya walked away knowing:

• Who engaged with the invite
• Who planned to attend which day
• Who their extended audience actually is

That data didn’t interrupt the cultural experience—it respected it.

---

What this unlocked for Us

For us at Zapigo, this experience made something clear:

Community events don’t need more tools.

They need tools that understand how communities actually gather.

Zapigo is building for:

• Cultural institutions
• Resident welfare associations
• Collectives, clubs, and interest groups
• Conferences that are rich in content but light on commercial intent

We stay free at the point of invitation because that’s how trust is built.

We earn relevance by showing up when the event is complex, meaningful, and human.

---

Why this matters to Zapigo

Every Natya-like event introduces Zapigo to:

• Hosts who organise repeatedly
• Audiences who attend often
• Communities that grow over time

By helping them invite better and document gently, Zapigo becomes part of the ecosystem—not an interruption to it.

That’s how community events become the quiet foundation for everything else we’re building.