Event Submission Guidelines

What can be posted?

Events should have a clear date or time, a location or participation method, and a real activity or purpose. Good examples include:

• community events and neighborhood gatherings;
• festivals, fairs, markets, celebrations, and yard sales;
• arts, music, theater, and cultural events;
• classes, workshops, lectures, and educational programs;
• family and children’s activities;
• sports, recreation, hiking, biking, and outdoor activities;
• UMD events and student activities;
• club, civic, library, museum, and community organization events;
• volunteer opportunities and community cleanups;
• open houses and other scheduled activities relevant to the College Park community.

Both free and paid events are welcome.

Location and audience

MyCollegePark primarily focuses on events taking place in College Park and the surrounding community. Events outside the immediate area may be accepted when they have a clear connection to College Park or are especially relevant to local residents, students, or visitors.

An event does not have to be open to everyone. It may be intended for UMD students, families, children, seniors, neighborhood residents, club members, registered participants, or another clearly identified audience. Important eligibility or participation restrictions should be stated in the listing.

Online-only events may be limited or excluded unless they have a strong local connection.

What should not be posted?

• private personal events that are not intended for public discovery;
• internal organizational meetings with no public or community participation;
• fraudulent, misleading, or intentionally inaccurate listings;
• duplicate listings of the same event;
• spam or repetitive promotional listings;
• advertising that does not describe a genuine scheduled event or activity;
• content promoting illegal activity, credible threats, targeted harassment, or serious safety risks;
• sexually explicit content or content that violates the Community Guidelines.

A sale, promotion, restaurant special, or business announcement by itself is generally not an event. A scheduled workshop, demonstration, performance, grand opening, community activity, class, or similar experience hosted by a business may be listed.

Religious and political organizations

Organizations may submit public community events such as festivals, cultural programs, community meals, volunteer activities, public forums, lectures, and similar activities.

Routine worship services, prayer meetings, religious instruction, campaign advertising, fundraising solicitations, and routine internal organizational activities may be excluded from general event listings.

Listing an event does not mean that MyCollegePark endorses an organization, candidate, political position, religion, or viewpoint.

Information to include

Please provide accurate information whenever possible:

• Event name: use the actual name of the event rather than promotional copy.
• Date and time: make sure the starting and ending times are correct.
• Location: provide the venue name and accurate address when applicable.
• Description: explain what will happen and include anything participants should know.
• Organizer: identify the organization, business, group, or individual responsible for the event.
• Registration or tickets: make any registration requirement, eligibility restriction, or cost clear.
• Image: use a relevant image that you have permission to publish.

Automatically discovered events

MyCollegePark may discover publicly available events from websites, calendars, and other public sources. Automatically discovered listings may be reformatted, categorized, geocoded, combined with information from multiple public sources, or updated to make them easier to discover.

Whenever practical, MyCollegePark may provide a link to the original source or organizer. If you are an organizer and information about your event is incorrect, please report the listing so it can be corrected.

Duplicates, changes, and cancellations

Please avoid creating another listing if the event already exists on MyCollegePark. When the same event is discovered from multiple sources, MyCollegePark may combine those listings into one event.

If you created an event, keep its information current. If an event is cancelled, postponed, moved, or substantially changed, update the listing whenever possible. For imported events, MyCollegePark may update information when changes are detected, but attendees should verify important details with the original organizer when necessary.

Moderation

MyCollegePark may edit, categorize, merge, hide, reject, or remove event listings when necessary to correct obvious formatting or location problems, remove duplicates, improve categorization, protect users from spam or misleading information, enforce these guidelines, or maintain the usefulness and safety of the platform.

Submitting an event does not guarantee that it will remain published.

Reporting a problem

If an event contains incorrect information, has been cancelled, is a duplicate, appears fraudulent, violates these guidelines, or presents another problem, use Report a problem on MyCollegePark.

A community calendar built by the community

MyCollegePark works best when the people who know what’s happening can share it. If you’re organizing something in College Park that neighbors, students, families, or visitors might enjoy, add it to the map.

The goal isn’t just to show what’s happening in College Park. It’s to help College Park make things happen.