Event Schema: Complete Reference

By Amit Patel

Event schema describes a scheduled event — a concert, webinar, class, or conference — with its name, dates, location, and offers, making it eligible for the event experiences and date-rich listings Google shows in search and Maps. It is one of the more actively supported rich results, and it has specific handling for online events and status changes that trips people up. This reference covers the required fields and the properties that keep event markup accurate.

What Event Schema Does

It makes an event eligible for Google’s event listings — a prominent card with date, venue, and a link to tickets — across Search and, where relevant, Maps.

Event markup is genuinely useful and still well-supported, unlike some retired types. Each event page should mark up one event (or a series correctly), with accurate dates and a real venue or online URL. Ticketing links via offers add commercial value.

Required Fields

The essentials are name, startDate, and location; strongly recommended are endDate, eventStatus, eventAttendanceMode, offers, and performer or organizer.

startDate should include the time and time zone. location is a Place with an address for in-person events, or a VirtualLocation with a URL for online ones. Missing or vague dates and locations are the most common validation failures. Confirm fields with the Rich Results Test.

Online and Hybrid Events

Use eventAttendanceMode to declare OnlineEventAttendanceMode, OfflineEventAttendanceMode, or MixedEventAttendanceMode, and set location accordingly — a VirtualLocation with a URL for online, a Place for in-person, or both for hybrid.

Online events became first-class after 2020, and getting the attendance mode and location type right is what makes them display correctly. An online event with a physical-address location, or vice versa, is a frequent error.

Status: Cancelled, Postponed, Moved

Use eventStatus — EventScheduled, EventCancelled, EventPostponed, EventMovedOnline, or EventRescheduled — to reflect changes, and keep the page and markup in sync so Google shows accurate status.

When an event changes, update eventStatus rather than deleting the page — Google uses it to annotate the listing (“Cancelled”). Leaving stale “scheduled” markup on a cancelled event is misleading and a poor experience. Keep the visible page and the markup aligned.

Example Markup

A minimal in-person Event (shown as code):

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Event",
  "name": "Example Conference",
  "startDate": "2026-09-01T09:00-05:00",
  "eventAttendanceMode": "https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode",
  "eventStatus": "https://schema.org/EventScheduled",
  "location": {
    "@type": "Place",
    "name": "Example Hall",
    "address": "123 Main St, City"
  }
}
</script>

See JSON-LD vs Microdata for the format.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line

Event schema is a well-supported, high-value type when you have real events: get the dates, location type, attendance mode, and status right, and it earns prominent event listings. Keep the markup honest and in sync with the page, and it works reliably — one of the types in the schema cluster that still delivers a visible result.