As part of your event planning you should seriously consider 
registering a special event domain. That should in fact be the 
first step for your planning of any event.

Whatever it is: 

 - your big wedding event 
 - any other big family event 
 - a festival 
 - a course / training event 
 - a celebration event in your local community 
 - an international seminar or conference event 
 - a campaign event / promotion event 
 - a school class event.


It is much easier to find a proper domain name for an event 
website than for a permanent website.

In many cases you can use the formula:

   www.EVENTNAME2005.com or 

   ...Net or 

with a national domain like ...co.uk 


You can use the formula:

   www.musicfestival2005.com 
   or
   www.music-festival-2005.com 

or for your wedding event

   www.maryANDpeter.com
   or 
   www.wedding-mary-peter.com


You can use this formula or similar ideas for domain registration
for all events of any kind, whatever it is special events or 
annual event or more frequent events. Think of:  

A course day for training: www.MarketingTraining2005.com

A sports day: www.Soccer-championship-2005.com

and so on for all events.


If your event is an ongoing event, year after year, (I don't 
think of your wedding!) and you can get a really good domain 
name, then register this domain name, and use it year after 
year for the annual event. 

This is fine for the branding of the domain name, as well as 
for the re-use of printed material, internet links etc. 

Remark, that you can write the domain name of the event in 
different ways, using capital letters to make the domain name 
more readable, as the capitalization of the letters in the 
domain name doesn’t matter. Only if you refer to specific pages 
other than the home page you need to have an exact match for 
the letters. This is one of the good reasons, too, to go for a 
completely new domain name.

You only get help from the domain name registration if you also 
set up a website.

In the big picture to register a domain and to have it hosted 
is a very little part of the expense for all events.

If you are really on a shoestring consider a service like Direct 
Nic, see http://www.domainregistrationhosting.net/directnic.htm
The registration costs as little as 15 USD per year and you can 
set up a f*ree website without any extra costs. This web hosting 
company allows you to upload 20 MB of web pages on the free 
account just for your cost of the domain name registration. That 
is more than enough for most event websites. Just be careful 
with the graphics, including pictures. All the graphics have 
to be optimized for web use for the lowest possible file size. 
This should not give you any problems.

What to use event domains and event websites for?

In your event planning make use of your event website to tell 
about: 

 - What is the background of the event? 
 - If it is a special event, then why is it a special event.
 - Where and when and for whom? 
 - Will it cost something and how to register to participate 
   in the event? 
 - Are you expecting presents other things guests have to 
   prepare for? 


The website after the event should also be a part of your event 
planning

Most visitors will use the event website after the event, so 
remember that in your planning.

You can post photos from the event - this is a very popular 
aspect of any modern event, so plan for that. You can incorporate
the photos on your event website or you can link to a special 
service that makes it easier for you to upload the event pictures
after the big day. I have put some of the best offers together 
here and some are f*ree: http://www.OnlinePhotoSharing.net

You can highlight special messages, lessons learned, info for 
further work, cooperation and event planning - may be try to 
coordinate all events after the common big event? 

I am sure you have many more ideas already to be included in 
your event planning - just remember for all events - plan in 
time, that makes everything much easier for yourself and for 
other event participants.

And, PLEASE, don't close down your successful event website just 
a few months after the event. Visitors will first arrive in 
numbers to websites after some time.

Lesson: If possible, include in your event planning some years 
of hosting of your event website and keep your event domain as 
long as you can.

Soren Breiting 

Get help from Soren Breiting to find the right domain name at 
http://www.DomainRegistrationHosting.net for your event website. 
Enjoy Soren’s wonderful stock photos at: http://www.azFOTOS.com
Soren has written more than 20 printed books, and countless 
articles in journals and magazines about his special fields 
of interest. He is widely published on the web, too.