Cancel an event the right way

Status: stub. Full guide coming before launch.

When an event won't happen as planned, you have two options that look similar but behave very differently: cancel it, or delete it. Almost always the right call is to cancel — that leaves an audit trail, tells anyone who was planning to attend that the event isn't happening, and propagates correctly to any calendar that's reposting from yours. Deletion is for a smaller, more specific set of cases.

Cancel an event

The mechanics. What changes for visitors. What changes for any calendar reposting yours.

Delete an event

When deletion is appropriate — typically when the event was created in error, not when a real event won't happen.

Cancellation vs. deletion at a glance

A short reference for the call you'll have to make under time pressure.

Cancel a single occurrence of a recurring event

Different from cancelling the whole series. The single-occurrence case.

End a recurring event entirely

When the program is done, how to wind it down without disturbing the history.