What qualifies as an event? Can anything be entered?

This open ability to post events and the restrictions on what qualifies as an event are new features for the site, and as such, some examples may help to explain what is expected:

Encouraged Events

• Live Performances: These will continue to be posted to the section. Live music, theatre, dance, DJs, and readings are of great interest to the community. The only time that these events may not receive full event section exposure is when they are weekly or nightly events that end up being more a feature of the business where they take place rather than an actual “event” of note. In these cases, they will be entered as weekly repeating events, but will only display on the spot page of the business in question, or in a separate section for Group events on the Events page (in the case of non-commercial, community generated events.
• Art Events: The opening nights of art exhibitions and one-off film showings are the ideal examples here. For longer running affairs, businesses like art galleries and cinemas will have other options for promotion.
• Lectures/Presentations: Educational and cultural talks are greatly encouraged and welcome to be posted. Various cultural organizations have events that fall into this category, as do several of the business organizations and national chambers of commerce who offer presentations at their networking events.
• Excursions: Many groups of Vietnam residents enjoy organizing trips outside of the city. These will continue to be encouraged, though travel companies that attempt to present their tour packages as general excursions will have their content removed.
• Fundraisers: TNH will continue its support of non-profit fundraising via its Events page and other outlets on the site.
• TNH Group-Organized Events: The “Groups” section of this site will continue to be one of the most compelling sources of event activity in the city. For those who are regularly organizing events around a central point of interest, this will still be the best way to go about it. It will not only get the event in the Events section, it will also make it easier to announce the event to all the Group members you’ve recruited.
• Sporting Events (participatory): Those who organize and take part in sport are more than welcome to list their times and places for the rest of the community to discover.
• Sporting Events (spectator): Live sporting events occurring in the city are of particular interest, though it is possible for events centered on televised sport to be entered as well. However, this must be made perfectly clear: for a televised sporting event to be considered an event, all the details of that particular sporting clash must specifically be entered and made the focus of the on-the-ground event. Simply saying something like “Premiere League Football this Saturday Night!” is not an event. That is simply a feature of your business. The details of the contest must be entered, and the event itself must somehow be tailored to the details of that contest.
• Parties: Everyone loves a good party, though this category of event is also the most likely to be abused. Many businesses will attempt to force themselves into the Events section by throwing up some generic approximation of a party happening at their place. This will not be sufficient. To qualify as a party in the TNH Events section, the party will need to have a theme that is a significant departure from what typically happens at the place of business. Preference will be given to parties organized by outside groups, or ones that revolve around major holidays and easily acknowledged reasons for celebration. If you can’t be bothered to demonstrate an actual reason for having the party and why it is different than business as usual, don’t expect it to stay listed.

Not Events on TNH

• Sales/Promotions: These once flooded the event section on the site. They were one of the biggest criticisms of the site, and made the event section virtually unusable. They are no longer welcome. Business have been given other options for the posting of this sort of information. They may not post them as events.
• Food & Drink Specials: Virtually all restaurants and bars have food and drink specials. While the TNH will continue to work to find productive outlets for this information for both businesses and site users, the Events section will not be that outlet. Businesses may still enter them and have them appear only on their Spot pages, but they will not get the same exposure as before.
• Routine Business Features: If what you are trying to enter as an “event” is actually something that is always available at your business anytime somebody might be dropping in, then you do not have an event. Don’t post it.
• General Announcements: It should go without saying that these are not events, but you can be sure that someone is going to try and use the Events functionality to post these sorts of things. Whether they are simple innocent mistakes or more concerted efforts at spamming the site, know that all such posts will be removed.
• Classes: All commercial classes (classes with a fee or provided by a commercial educational organization) will be removed from the Events section.  There is a special category of TNH Offers specifically set up to handle these cases.  Users of the TNH Events section find the inclusion of classes to be a nuisance and make undermine the sections usability.  The only classes that will be found there are those of non-profit TNH groups that organize educational events without fee.
• Sensitive Content Violations: As noted elsewhere in the site posting policies, the cultural and legal nature of Vietnamese society makes certain types of content of a particularly sensitive nature. Content that is overly religious, political, or sexually explicit in nature will be removed.
• Duplicates: Users frequently tend to have more enthusiasm than patience when it comes to choosing to make their entries. It is important a user first ascertain whether or not an event has already been entered. Duplicates will be removed and the frequent posting of duplicate event entries may result in event privileges being revoked.

The Events section of the site will be moderated by both site admins and volunteer moderators from the pool of general site users. While we fully encourage TNH members to post relevant events to the site, please take the time to read and understand these policies before doing so to prevent any confusion or wasted effort.

Related Links:

• Events Overview
• How can I get more attention for my event?