Real Ideas: Events API Migration & UI Improvements — Have you actually booked this room?

In October 2025 I redesigned and rebuilt the Real Ideas website in Webflow, consolidating several fragmented sites and teams into a single, clearer digital home. The events feed launched in a 'good enough' state so we could ship the wider platform, with the understanding that ticketing and discovery would need focused attention post-launch to meet the organisation's growth targets.

Initially, events were powered by Eventbrite, connected via REST API and webhooks. This mirrored their legacy setup and allowed us to launch on time, but known reliability issues persisted: events occasionally failed to sync, room availability became misaligned with the facility management system, and staff had to manually cross-check three different platforms to confirm what was actually bookable.

A few months after launch, Real Ideas started trialling Ticket Tailor alongside their facility system and asked me to assess whether the website could move across as well. The goal was to make events a dependable, scalable part of the new site rather than a fragile integration.

Three constraints shaped the work:

• Existing Eventbrite events with tickets sold needed to stay live until August.
• Eventbrite and Ticket Tailor use fundamentally different data models.
• The events listing itself needed to evolve from a stop-gap into a more purposeful discovery experience.

Success meant: no downtime, no lost events, and both providers running in parallel until legacy events completed.

I revisited flows with the Operations and Systems Lead and Marketing Manager, mapping how events moved from creation, through promotion and booking, into space management and reporting. This clarified where Eventbrite's webhooks repeatedly failed and surfaced a key difference: Eventbrite handled multiple dates inside its checkout, while Ticket Tailor required separate listings per date.

The original Webflow CMS mirrored Eventbrite with two collections (Events and Series Events). Simply swapping endpoints would have broken listings, filters and templates. I redesigned the data model to use a single Events collection capable of representing both providers. Legacy Eventbrite events were reshaped into this format and tagged with their source, while conditional logic on the template decides whether to render an Eventbrite or Ticket Tailor checkout.

Changes were developed and tested on a duplicate site, with existing Eventbrite Make scenarios kept as a fallback until Ticket Tailor's webhooks and API proved reliable.

Alongside the back-end changes, I turned the events feed into a more deliberate discovery surface. Event cards now highlight the primary date and time, reveal 'other dates available' directly in the card, and surface all relevant venues as coloured tags so multi-space experiences are obvious at a glance.

Filters expanded from a simple building selector to include search, date-range and optional theme/venue filters. On mobile, advanced options sit behind an 'Additional filter options' control, keeping the default view lightweight while still giving power users more control.

The migration ran with no downtime and no lost events, and Real Ideas can now manage everything from a single Events collection while running two providers in parallel when needed. Operationally, the team spend less time reconciling systems, and marketing have a more trustworthy, flexible events hub that better matches how visitors actually choose what to attend.