From a Global Hub for Accessible Events to a Network of Microlabs Studying Inclusion
Discover how Eventida evolved from a global event platform to a research-driven initiative, identifying gaps in accessibility and inclusion, working with diverse communities to create lasting impact.
Introduction
Eventida started as an innovative platform dedicated to helping event hosts be more inclusive and accessible worldwide by facilitating communications and providing accommodations. Founded by Lisi and Lee, who faced numerous accessibility challenges in their personal and professional lives, Eventida aimed to bridge the gap in event accessibility.
From 2016 to 2019, it grew into a global hub for event and venue listings, helping event organizers and attendees connect with inclusive and accessible experiences. Eventida provided free tools and features to ensure events could accommodate diverse needs, striving to make every event welcoming to all. Despite its success of over 100,000+ events and 30,000+ venues listed in more than 200 countries, the platform was shut down in late 2019 due to technical and financial challenges, marking the end of an era and the beginning of a new mission focused on bridging the experience gap in accessibility and inclusion.
What Happened with Eventida
Original Inspiration
Lee and Lisi founded their first business together in 2004, offering creative services through over 300 web development and event projects. Both are Deaf, and Lisi has a soy allergy. Their event experiences ranged from positive to disheartening, often due to a lack of awareness of accommodations. From a disappointing concert experience on their wedding anniversary to business conferences without interpreters or soy-free meals, and feeling left out at their children’s events, they faced numerous challenges as event participants.
As a certified event planner, Lisi understood the complexities of event planning firsthand. She quickly realized how accommodating diverse needs could be overwhelming and unexpectedly costly, often blindsiding those who hadn’t planned for it. Many event hosts are unprepared to provide accommodations, and at times, outright refuse.
When participating in Knowbility’s AIR challenge, which teaches web developers how to build accessible websites, the founders learned how other disability groups had even bigger problems, due to inaccessible technology and promotional materials used by event hosts.
These problems inspired Lee and Lisi to establish Eventida as a free event listing site. By 2016, they transitioned to full-time work on Eventida, committed to making events inclusive and accessible, keeping key features forever free.
The Solution
Organizing inclusive and accessible events is multidimensional, requiring consideration of a wide range of accommodation categories. These include sensory, cognitive, neurological, speech, language and communication, dietary, mobility, and multiple disabilities.
Many event hosts were only aware of the accommodations needed once prompted to select accessibility categories while posting their events. This underscored the necessity for more robust education and awareness efforts within the event planning community.
On the Eventida platform, we not only enabled managing accommodations for Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing participants, but we also introduced a language selection feature. This allowed event hosts to specify spoken or signed languages and offered accommodation categories like voice interpreters for hearing attendees at Deaf events—ensuring inclusivity and accessibility in both directions.
Additionally, event hosts could manage accommodations for often-overlooked needs, such as food allergies and large-print documents, as failing to acknowledge these can lead to feelings of exclusion.
Eventida’s Success Story
Eventida quickly became a major event-promotions planning platform, becoming a global hub for inclusive event listings. The platform attracted a diverse user base, with over 3,000 verified users actively engaging from across more than 200 countries.
At its peak, Eventida users listed 100000+ events and over 30000 venues, making it a go-to resource for anyone hosting and promoting their events, particularly to underrepresented, hard-to-reach markets.
This rapid growth is reflected in the platform's 300,000+ visitors and 1.5 million pageviews from 2016 to 2020, highlighting the widespread demand for inclusivity in event planning.
The Mission Drift: Success in Reach, Shortfall in Impact
While we were successful in terms of volume and reach, it may not have effectively communicated or encouraged the importance of accessibility accommodations to event organizers and attendees due to constraints like bandwidth and resources.
While conscientious event hosts utilized accessibility categories, accommodation requests were few, and promotional features attracted limited customers.
In 2019, we surveyed 38 members and allies of the Deaf community in the DMV (DC, MD, VA) area to gather information about events and accommodation requests such as ASL interpreters, meal substitutions due to food allergies, specific technology for speakers, etc. Out of 38 participants, 47.4% of the participants found it difficult to get accommodations at events and 45% the participants found it difficult to educate the host about their legal requirements. Over 20% do not try at all. This made us question whether the solution we’d developed was truly effective.
Essentially, Eventida became a repository of global event and venue information rather than a driver of accessibility and inclusivity.
This growth trajectory and Eventida’s challenges mirror the broader landscape of accessibility and inclusivity in event planning. The data tells a compelling story—not just of our platform’s rise and fall, but of the evolving needs and expectations of a global audience striving for more inclusive experiences.
All Good Things Come To An End…
System Failure
In November 2019, a system failure occurred due to increased server demands and an outdated content management system. Resolving this required a complete upgrade and overhaul of custom features developed since the first beta release in 2009. Despite plans and a third-party firm agreement, the deal fell through, underscoring our vulnerability and vendor dependency.
By the time it crashed, Eventida had registered over 3000 verified users who posted nearly 100,000 events across 30,000 venues in over 200 countries. However, the platform couldn't handle the demand for computing resources needed to maintain its expanding database.
COVID-19 and the End
Like many businesses, Eventida was significantly impacted by COVID-19. Our active user base dropped drastically, from around 900 weekly users in the summer of 2020 to just 200 by the fall, marking a turning point for Eventida.
With the global shutdown, compounded by system challenges and mission drift, the founders recognized it was time to pivot. Rather than focusing on recovering our original app, we chose to reimagine Eventida’s mission. We decided to create lasting, sustainable change by designing experiences that ensure accessibility and inclusion, rather than just providing a platform for listing inclusive and accessible events.
This shift in intention sparked the genesis of Eventida’s research-driven initiative—focused on identifying gaps in accessibility and inclusion and collaborating with inclusive leaders and their communities to develop impactful, long-term solutions.
… For A New and Better Beginning
Why We’re Pivoting
Eventida’s mission to create a more accessible and inclusive world is evolving into a sharper, more strategic focus.
Amidst the platform's technical crisis, we were deep in several major contracts, which ironically became the catalyst for our pivot. The contract work exposed us to exploitation within the gig economy, inspiring us to reassess our direction.
It took over a year to recover from burnout and redefine our go-to-market strategies. We realized that, despite our best intentions, our efforts did not result in a meaningful improvement in accessibility.
We’ve recognized several key challenges that demand our attention:
Underrepresentation of Disabled Talent: The disabled community faces systemic barriers that make it difficult to access opportunities. The hiring and employment processes are often not designed with equity and inclusion in mind, leaving disabled talent overlooked.
Lack of Diverse Leadership Voices: To be a truly inclusive leader, one must ensure that those most affected by inaccessibility and exclusion are given a seat at the decision-making table. These community members should be among the driving forces behind innovation.
Data’s Failure to Capture Diversity: The current data landscape often lacks intersectionality, leading to the invisibility of minorities and reinforcing sampling biases. This flawed data skews the design process, resulting in products and services failing to meet diverse populations' needs.
Our New Vision
In response to the identified challenges, Eventida has relaunched as a research, insights and development lab studying inclusion. Our approach emphasizes amplifying the voices of those most affected by exclusion and underrepresentation, ensuring that universal design principles are instilled in the R&D space worldwide.
Our journey to the New Eventida is built on four pillars:
Accessibility + Diversity + Equity = Inclusion
Wellness = Mental Health @ Work & Learning
Diverse Talent + Collaborations = Collective
Insights = Research + Guidelines & Best Practices
These pillars converge to form the foundation of the New Eventida, where every voice matters and every experience is considered.
Our goal is to close the experience gap we've identified. We partner with service providers to offer research-based tools, training, and skill development to leaders and their teams to become more inclusive and accessible. Our mission is to make accessibility the norm, by bringing together a collective diverse cohorts, full of intersectional people, who will work tirelessly to ensure that products and services are truly inclusive, with minimal effort and cost on the provider's part.
What’s Next?
Imagine a workspace where diversity isn’t just represented—it’s celebrated. A space where inclusion is woven into the fabric of every interaction, and every decision. Our team, a vibrant mix of voices and perspectives, is redefining what it means to create accessible and inclusive products.
The future holds exciting developments and innovations that will surprise and inspire. While Lisi is now focused on building a new Eventida, Lee has started a new journey of his own with Impact Mind LLC; utilizing his business acumen, technical expertise, and creative problem-solving skills to deliver impactful results for his clients, including Eventida, Inc.
We’re taking our lessons learned and channeling them into something greater.
Follow us on our journey, starting with the 30 Reasons campaign, as we embark on this new chapter. Every step forward brings us closer to a world where accessibility and inclusion aren’t just goals, but realities. Join us as we build this vision together, collectively.
How can you co-build this vision with us? Comment and like the posts that resonate most strongly with you - on your preferred platform:
LinkedIN: #30Days30WordsChallenge
Facebook: Album: 30 Reasons #NewEventida
Instagram: #30days30wordschallenge; #neweventida
If you are interested in exploring the reasons behind Eventida’s transformation and how they shaped the New Eventida, driving us forward through challenges to a new era of inclusion and accessibility, read our latest blog post: Revealing the Brand New Eventida
Posted as part of a series #NewEventida
ICYMI, earlier posts in this series: