WhatsApp’s new event planning feature makes ditching your friends harder than ever

WhatsApp Communities was one of the best features of the instant communication app to have come out in recent years. It took chat organisation to another level, thanks to the ability to club together multiple groups inside a single community. Now WhatsApp Community groups get a new feature that will make events and gatherings much easier to put together.

WhatsApp Communities Events feature: What’s new?

WhatsApp has announced a new Events feature that will allow members of a group in a community to create an event that others in the group can respond to. An event, once created, can then be joined by other members, all of whom will be notified of the event when it gets closer.

Guests will also be able to find any upcoming events in a WhatsApp’s Community group’s information page, and can then easily join in. The event can also be pinned within the group, just like any other message.

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Thanks to the feature, those in WhatsApp Community groups, be it a school group, or a workplace group, will be able to quickly organise events. These can be a birthday dinner, an outing, or even an induction session for newer members.

With a mechanism to create, manage and remind members of events right within WhatsApp, everything from coordination to execution should become easier over time. Note that the WhatsApp event feature is currently only coming to groups within communities, but WhatsApp has mentioned that it will come to standard WhatsApp groups later on, probably around the time WhatsApp Channels are set to get verified badges.

Announcement Groups on WhatsApp

WhatsApp is also adding a second feature for Communities, and that is the ability to reply to Announcement Groups. Announcement Groups allowed WhatsApp Community admins to quickly get larger, major announcements across to all members across the community, irrespective of what specific group they were in.

With organised replies, members will be able to reply to these announcements without cluttering up the Announcement Group itself. Organised replies for each announcement will be neatly tucked under each announcement, so any members who open the group later on will not risk missing the announcement itself.

The feature will also be an important addition to Communities as a whole, allowing members to efficiently address any queries or concerns with larger announcements, and also letting admins understand the response to them.

Both features should be available to WhatsApp users on iPhones and Android phones already. If you can’t seem to find the new implementations in your app, we suggest checking if you’re on the latest version of WhatsApp by visiting the App Store or the Play Store.