The link takes ten seconds. The night is the work.
A screening has a start time, a shape, a door that only fits so many, and a list of who said they were coming. Event Schedule holds all four, free, and takes nothing at the door.
Friday Movie Night
Fri Nov 13Doors 7:45 PM · out by 10:32 · drawn to scale
The feature is 112 of 167 minutes. The other 55 are doors, introduction and the conversation afterwards, and they are the reason people come back. Publish them and nobody has to ask when the film actually starts.
The unit
Every watch party tool sells you the stream. None of them run the night.
The socket
1 link
An online event has one Event URL field and it takes any link. No platform to connect, so nothing to reconnect when you switch.
The door
120 places
Free registration with a cap, counted for each date on its own. A full Friday does not close the following one.
The take
$0 platform fees
When you charge, you charge through your own Stripe account and keep the lot. That is true on every plan, including free.
The night is the unit. Everything below hangs off it. Start with its shape
The running order
A screening has a shape.
Add the parts of the night to the event, each with its own start and end time, and they publish on the event page underneath it. Free on every plan.
Doors before the feature
FreeFifteen minutes of people arriving is not dead time, it is the reason a watch party is not just watching. Put it on the sheet so people know to turn up for it.
Discussion after it
FreeThe half hour afterwards is the part regulars come back for. Give it a time and it stops being an accident that some people miss.
A long sheet, scanned
EnterpriseFor a marathon or a festival day with a dozen slots, point your phone's camera at the printed agenda and have the parts read off it instead of typing each one.
Marathon night
Sat Nov 21 · 6h 05mDrawn to scale again, because the intervals are the thing people plan their evening around. Six hours is a commitment, and a sheet that shows where the breaks fall is the difference between a full room at 10 PM and an empty one.
The house count
One event. Four different doors.
A weekly movie night is one recurring event, and the cap you set is counted for each Friday on its own. So this is what the door actually looks like.
| Date | Registered | Cap | Left |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fri Nov 6 | 118 | 2 | |
| Fri Nov 13 | 86 | 34 | |
| Fri Nov 20 | 41 | 79 | |
| Fri Nov 27 | 9 | 111 | |
Same event, same 120 place cap, four separate counts. The remaining number is shown on the registration form as places go, and one email address can only take a place once per date.
Name and email
FreeThat is the whole form, plus a phone number if you choose to ask for one. No account needed, so nobody bounces off a sign-up wall on their way to your movie night.
Ask one more thing
ProAdd your own questions to the form as text, a date, a toggle, a dropdown or a multi-select, and mark the ones you need answered. "Seen it before?" is a better icebreaker than anything you can improvise once people are in.
Not a viewer count
This is a registration list. Event Schedule never touches your stream and cannot tell you how many people are watching right now. Anything that claims to would have to sit inside the platform.
The one socket
One field in the booth. One lit page out front.
What you fill in
Event URL
That is the integration. Whatever is behind that link is between you and the platform, which is why nothing here breaks when you move from one to another.
- In your public calendar an online event shows its link's host where a venue name would go, so the row reads as online at a glance.
- There is no platform picker and no connected-account list, so there is nothing to re-authorise at 7:40 on a Friday.
- A hybrid night can have a venue as well, for the people who want to watch it in a room together.
What they get
You are registered
Friday Movie Night
Fri Nov 13 · 8:00 PM
This is the page the confirmation email links to, and the join link is on it. It carries a QR code too, so a hybrid night can scan the same registration in at the door, and scanning is free on every plan.
To be exact about it: times on your public page are shown in your schedule's timezone. The .ics file for each date is stamped in UTC, so that is the one to trust and the one to tell people to use.
The call sheet
You own the list.
Registration gives you a name and an email for every place taken. Following gives you a standing audience. Both are free, and both are yours to email.
Everyone who registered
FreeScope a newsletter to one screening and it resolves to the people who took a place for it. That is the email you send the afternoon before with the viewing notes.
Everyone who follows
FreeA Follow button on your schedule, and a downloadable QR code for the schedule page you can put on screen at the end of the night, so the room can follow while the credits roll.
One strand of it
FreeOr a sub-schedule, so the documentary crowd hears about documentaries and the sports crowd does not. Pasted lists and the ticket waitlist work as targets too.
No newsletter goes out on its own
There is no job that emails your followers when you add a date, and no page here is going to pretend otherwise. You write the email and you send it, which is slower and also the reason your list does not quietly rot. Open and click rates come back afterwards so you can tell whether Friday's note actually landed.
Automatic mail is kept for the things a person asked for: the confirmation every registrant gets the moment they take a place, and the note to the waitlist when a full night frees up. And notifications run the other way too: when somebody asks you to add their screening to your calendar, you are the one who gets the email.
Recipients a month
- Free
- 10
- Pro
- 100
- Enterprise
- 1,000
Each recipient counts as one, so a note to sixty people is sixty. Selfhosted installs send through your own mail server and are not counted at all.
When you charge
Nothing is taken at the door.
A paid premiere, a benefit screening, a festival day pass. Selling starts on the free plan, twenty-five paid tickets a month, and five dollars a month takes the ceiling off and opens the door tooling. Payments run through your own Stripe account, and Event Schedule takes zero platform fees on every plan.
- Named ticket types, each with its own price, quantity and sales window. Inventory is counted per date, like the registration cap.
- Your own block of notes goes out in every buyer's confirmation email, so the join link and the house rules land with the ticket instead of in a separate mail you have to remember to send.
- A pass valid across a run of screenings, once each, for a festival week or a season of Sunday documentaries. On Pro. Scanning them in at the door is free.
- A waitlist that tells people when a full screening frees up, free while the door is free registration and Pro once you are selling tickets. Promo codes and gift cards are Pro if you want them.
To be clear about what this is not: there is no seating chart. These are priced ticket types with quantities, and nobody is choosing a specific seat.
Premiere night
Free, then Pro| Ticket type | Price | Qty |
|---|---|---|
| Watch at home | $8 | 250 |
| In the room | $18 | 60 |
| Supporter | $40 | 25 |
| Festival pass, 6 nights | $60 | 40 |
Stripe charges its own standard processing fee on each payment, the same as it would anywhere. Event Schedule adds nothing on top, on any plan.
See all ticketing features.
Everything else
The rest of the booth.
Analytics
FreeWhich post filled the room
Views by device, where the traffic came from, campaign tags on the links you post, rough locations and clicks on your social buttons. Built in, on every plan, with no third-party script and nothing to bolt on.
Embed
FreeOn the site you already have
Drop the calendar into your own page as an iframe and it keeps itself current. The registration form embeds the same way, free, and the ticket form on Pro.
Sub-schedules
FreeStrands on one link
Keep the documentary series, the sports nights and the game launches apart with their own names and colours, so nobody reads the whole year to find one strand.
A sub-schedule sorts and colours. It does not hide anything: to keep a screening off the public page while you plan it, leave it as a draft.
Calendar sync
FreeBoth directions, three calendars
Google, Outlook or Microsoft 365, and anything speaking CalDAV. Move a screening in your own calendar and it moves here; you choose what happens locally when something is deleted over there. See calendar sync.
Afterwards
FreePhotos and reactions
People who were there can post photos, YouTube clips and comments on the event with just a name and an email, and everything waits in an approval queue before it appears.
Twenty-five photos per schedule on the free plan. Pro takes the cap off and adds a bulk download when you want the lot.
Polls and feedback
ProLet the room pick the next one
Put a poll on the event and let viewers vote, or let them add their own suggestions, which land in a queue for you to approve rather than going straight up. After the night, ask for a rating and a comment. See polls.
Watch party software for every community
Whether it is a film club or a sports viewing party, Event Schedule works for you. Also see Event Schedule for Live Concerts and Virtual Conferences.
Film Clubs & Cinephiles
Classic screenings, director retrospectives and themed movie nights. Put the introduction and the discussion on the running order, where the club actually lives.
Learn moreContent Creators & YouTubers
Premiere a new video with your audience, host a reaction watch-along, or sell tickets to an exclusive screening. One link, whatever you are streaming through.
Sports Fan Communities
Game day watch parties, playoff screenings and draft nights. Free registration with a cap tells you how many are coming before the kickoff you cannot move.
Gaming Communities
Esports watch parties, launch nights and tournament screenings. Set the whole season up as one recurring event with the weeks you are skipping taken out.
Learn moreCorporate & Team Building
Team movie nights and company screenings for people in different offices. The .ics file for each date is stamped in UTC, so everyone's own calendar shows their own hour.
Learn moreEducation & Documentary Groups
Documentary screenings with discussion, film series and classroom viewings. The discussion is a part of the event with its own time, not an afterthought.
Learn moreHow to host a watch party online in three steps
Open the doors
Create the event, paste your join link into the one Event URL field, turn on free registration and set the cap for the room you can actually handle.
Post the running order
Add the parts of the night with their times: doors and chat, the introduction, the feature, the discussion afterwards. They publish with the event.
Roll it
Every registrant gets a confirmation email linking to their own page, with the join link on it. Afterwards, collect photos and comments from the people who were there.
Key features
Free forever. Upgrade when you're ready.
Zero platform fees on ticket sales. You only pay Stripe's processing fee.
See all plansFrequently asked questions
What screening hosts ask before they move a series across.
What streaming platforms work with watch parties?
Any of them, because Event Schedule does not integrate with any of them. An online event has one field, Event URL, and it takes whatever link you have: YouTube, Twitch, Discord, a Zoom or Teams room, or your own player. There is no platform picker and nothing to connect, so nothing breaks when you change platforms next month.
How do I know how many people are coming?
Turn on free registration and set a cap. Registering takes a name and an email, one registration per email per date, and the remaining count is shown on the form as people take places. On a weekly series the cap is counted for each date on its own, so a full Friday does not close the following one. This is a registration list, not a live viewer count: Event Schedule never watches your stream.
Can I charge for watch party access?
Yes, and you can start charging on the free plan: 25 paid tickets a month per schedule, with free registration never counted against that. Create named ticket types with their own prices, quantities and sales windows, sell through your own Stripe account, and keep everything: Event Schedule takes zero platform fees on ticket sales at every plan level. Scanning tickets in at the door is free on every plan, and Pro at $5 a month removes the monthly cap and adds the live check-in dashboard, passes, promo codes and the ticket waitlist. Stripe charges its own processing fee (typically 2.9% + $0.30).
Can I schedule recurring watch parties?
Yes, and it is one event rather than fifty. Pick the days of the week, add date exceptions for the weeks you are skipping, and end the series on a date or after a set number of screenings. Registration caps and ticket inventory are counted per occurrence. Two-way sync with Google Calendar, Outlook and CalDAV puts the next occurrence in your own calendar as a single entry; the subscribable iCal feed is the one that carries every date of the run.
Do my followers get emailed when I add a screening?
Not automatically, and no page here will tell you otherwise. No newsletter goes out on its own: you write it and you send it. What you get is the list and the targeting, free, so you can send to everyone who follows the schedule, to everyone who registered for one particular screening, or to one sub-schedule. The free plan covers 10 recipients a month, Pro 100 and Enterprise 1,000.
Is Event Schedule free for hosting watch parties?
Yes. Unlimited events and screening series, one join link per event, free registration with per-date caps, the published running order, built-in analytics, the embeddable calendar and two-way calendar sync are all free forever, and so are selling up to 25 paid tickets a month and scanning them in at the door. Pro at $5 a month lifts that cap and adds the live check-in dashboard and the rest of the door tooling, and there are zero platform fees on ticket sales at any level. You can also selfhost Event Schedule on your own server, where every Enterprise feature is included.
Free forever
House lights down. Roll it.
The running order, the door and the list are free forever, and so are your first twenty-five paid tickets a month. Five dollars a month takes the ceiling off, and nothing is taken at the door.
No credit card required