Developing an Online Event Booking Services Application with React JS

Online businesses have extended their base from a mere online presence to more crucial roles. In fact,

OpenTable claims it seats more than 29 million diners every month via online reservations only.

The number quite speaks of the new trends popular among the customers- Book online and get served offline.

Event booking websites like Ticket Tailor have gained immediate popularity with their unique services where the users can book themselves a place without actually queuing up for hours. Local businesses can make the best benefit of these services which renders them with more leads and an edge over their competitors. 

Through this article, we will learn the insights of these event booking applications, their features and how our React JS development team led to a successful event booking website for one of our clients. 

Let’s take a quick glance at these applications and the exact purpose they serve.

About Event booking application

Event booking applications are web applications that let the users book tickets online for the events and parties in their locality. The users can save themselves time and effort at finding reservations. 

On the other hand, local event organizers can reach out to potential customers with more efficient marketing channels and an easier seat reservation system. Most apps have their own payment methods to make things easier, while few let the end parties handle this part. They make sure that the event organizer gets the right exposure and audience. 

Registering for these applications is generally free where users can create an account and get notified for every event of their interest. The users can create a temporary personal group based on common interests. The group members can chat over the application without sharing personal details stored by the app.

Must-have Features in the Event Booking Services Application on React JS

Event booking services are backed by several third-party integrations. Like, they need to fetch addresses with laser-sharp accuracy, plus they have to suggest the shortest ways to reach the event, plus booking seats and whatnot. Above all, they need to find the right audience for the events.

Being an app that is loaded with every event in the locality, we added features that match the requirements correctly. The event promoter can thus manage all the events, users, groups and plans from a single admin panel. 

Here are a few factors that come into play:

• A Google Map
• Online booking
• Marketing the events
• Creating Groups
• User Analytics
• Managing expired plans

Let us discuss how we managed these requirements while developing the Event booking site on ReactJS.

Managing locations with Yelp API

The Event booking website is supposed to find the location of the user as well as the event. There were quite a number of options to get this done. But then again we had to update them with the local businesses to make it more effective for Event booking. 

We chose the Yelp API to resolve this part. The API lets you trace the desired businesses directly on a custom Google Map. The users can locate the event with their reference location.

The custom API developed at our end collaborates with the Yelp API to track the right directions for the user.

Features offered:

• Tracking the destination
• Contains accurate location of the local businesses

Managing Online bookings with Opentable API

The heart of this application is to let the users book tickets with no third-party interference. To allow this facility, we took the help of Opentable API. The parent company Opentable is a giant in online reservations and offers open-source APIs for the developers to complete the bookings. 

By integrating the same, our app lets our users book themselves individual as well as group tickets for the said event.

Features offered:

• Helps to create tickets for the user
• Confirms booking to the event organizer to avoid reselling the ticket

Marketing events to the users with Push Notifications

It is important to create buzz for the events before finding the right user. Marketing them in the form of messages can have a permanent impression regarding the meetup. Push notifications can be one effective way to attain the needful.

Our Event Promoting app notifies the users of the upcoming events in their locality. The user analytics help the promoters to approach the right audience.

For this part, we took the help of the Twilio API. 

Features offered:

• Pushes event notifications straight as messages
• The cron job makes sure they are sent every day until the event is organized
• API removes the plan once it is accomplished

Managing Groups

Finding people of the same interest is great. Strangers can interact with each other over the app by creating public or private groups. They can reserve combined tickets online. They can chat and share better details about the events to acquaint themselves better.

Our Event booking app considers the following information to process the results:

• The custom API runs processes to extract the age of individual members
• It matches the age with the eligibility of joining the group
• The API extracts the preferred localities and if the user is interested in the event locations.
• The Cron runs it as per the adjusted frequency in terms of hours.

For example in the following image, the event recurs weekly that counts the frequency at 168 hours(24 hours * 7 days).

Features offered:

• Take group Reservations
• Group privacy
• Location preference

Collecting user analytics with React JS based Event booking website 

The promoters and the event organizers can get better leads only when they reach out to the right people. For obvious reasons, genders and various age groups are meant to respond differently to the same event. 

With our custom app, the admin can run plan promotions along with the ability to track them. As a result, the promoters can approach a more converting audience. Here is an example where the tracker differentiates the users on various aspects.

From the stats, it can be inferred that the plan is attracting more men aged 30. The event promoter can pitch the plan prominently to this circle for highly effective outreach. 

Features offered:

• A closer look at the user circle
• Understanding the market better

Managing the expired plans

Event planners can reorganize events based on their popularity. The event booking app shall thus be able to recreate the events with minimal inputs.

With our custom app, the promoters can keep a track of the expired plans, recreate them or remove them as needed. The admin can manually delete or schedule them for recreation.

The API runs a Cron job on plans to scan its activity, including the expected dates.

Features offered:

• Recreate the expired plans
• Delete them

React JS-based Event booking application as the solution

Popular CMSes are mostly designed by conventional technologies that are often rigid at allowing custom designed templates and functions. They have their own set of functions running at the backend that often slow down the processes.

React JS comes as a solution that offers the desired space to add sufficient customizations at various stages. The javascript platform backs a robust stage to allow multiple APIs running in sync. 

On our way to develop the Events promotion app, we had to deal with multiple APIs working in line to support the entire system. With React JS, the hidden clutter was naturally removed allowing the APIs to take the lead. 

Key Learnings 

One of the biggest challenges to manage all the APIs was to pipeline them in the desired pattern. We added a cron job to automate tasks like sending push notifications, creating plans and more and everything had to work. It was obvious as the app is supposed to serve for Event management and time plays a crucial role.

Concluding on Event Booking application development on React JS

With an Event booking application, event organizers can enlarge their customer base not only at the user circle but also with their contracts. They can fetch great exposure in their immediate locality helping them to enhance their recurring revenue. 

At The Brihaspati Infotech, we emphasize business needs and personalization. We understand the purposes and roadblocks. Being said that, our React JS experts designs custom APIs to offer a clutter-free solution for easier admin control.

If your business seeks high-end customization or professional consultation, you can contact us here.