Building a Website with Claude and AI Interactivity for Events Listings

A little passion project we created over the weekend at Okapi and Co has turned into something rather special.

It started with a familiar problem. How do you get people to add events to a website?

If you run a Chamber of Commerce, a town council website, a local tourism site, a community noticeboard or any kind of what’s on directory, you will know the issue. Everyone wants the listings to be up to date, but asking busy organisers to fill in yet another form is always a struggle.

Forms are fine in theory. In practice, they create friction.

That got me thinking about a different question.

What if adding an event to a website could be as simple as sending an email, taking a photo, or recording a WhatsApp voice note?

Building a website with Claude

This whole idea came about after I ordered a coffee in Lyme Regis and noticed a wall full of flyers advertising local events. There they were, gigs, talks, workshops, community events and all sorts of useful local information, but most of it was still trapped on paper.

I got back in the car and started talking it through with Claude.

Why couldn’t I photograph a flyer and have AI add it to the website?

Why should an organiser have to copy everything into a form?

Could the website receive an email, read the flyer, extract the event details, and create a listing ready for checking?

This is where building a website with Claude becomes really interesting. Claude is not just useful for writing copy or helping with code. It can help you think through the whole user journey, spot where the friction is, and then design a better way for people to interact with your website.

In this case, the problem was not really events listings. The problem was effort.

The easier you make it for people to contribute, the more likely they are to do it.

Adding AI interactivity to your website

The version we have created for The West List allows people to email event information to the website.

The AI can take the text, understand what the event is, extract the useful information, and create a new listing ready to be reviewed by a human before it is published.

That last part matters. This is not about letting AI publish anything it likes. It is about using AI to do the boring, repetitive first pass, while keeping a human in the loop for quality control.

Even better, the same idea could work beyond email.

We could set up a WhatsApp channel where an organiser records a quick voice note about an event, sends it to the site, and the AI turns that into a structured event listing. No login. No form. No faff.

That is the power of AI interactivity with your website.

Instead of a website being a static brochure, it becomes something people can actually talk to, email, send images to, or use in more natural ways.

Why this matters for local events websites

Local events websites live or die by the quality and freshness of their listings.

But the people organising the events are often volunteers, small business owners, community groups, venues, charities or very busy teams. They do not always have the time, confidence or patience to navigate a submission form.

If they already have a flyer, a poster, a PDF, an email announcement or a social media post, why make them start again?

AI can bridge that gap.

It can read the content they already have and turn it into something useful for the website.

• Event title
• Date and time
• Location
• Description
• Ticket or booking information
• Contact details
• Image or flyer reference
• Category or region

The result is a better experience for organisers and a more useful website for visitors.

Try it yourself

If you want to give it a go, email your flyer to flyers@parse.thewestlist.co.uk.

Please make sure it is an event in the South West and we will get it online as soon as we can.

A couple of caveats.

• JPGs are preferred.
• PDFs should work, but they use more AI tokens.
• I have a token limit set, so please do not try and spam it.
• The site is brand new, so there may still be gaps.

While you are there, have a look at what is going on in your local area on thewestlist.co.uk.

Watch the demo

Here is the video showing how it works.

Watch the demo on YouTube

SEO details

SEO title

Building a Website with Claude and AI Interactivity for Events Listings

Meta description

See how Okapi and Co used Claude to build an AI powered events listing workflow for The West List, making it easier to add local events by email, flyer or WhatsApp.

Focus keyphrase

building a website with Claude

Suggested URL slug

building-a-website-with-claude-ai-interactivity-events-listings

Internal and external links to include

• Visit The West List
• Submit South West event flyers by emailing flyers@parse.thewestlist.co.uk
• Watch the demo on YouTube

What this means for businesses and organisations

For me, this is a small example of a much bigger shift.

Websites are starting to move beyond pages, menus and forms. With tools like Claude, we can build websites that are more interactive, more helpful and much easier for real people to use.

That might mean the following.

• A town council website that accepts event flyers by email
• A hospitality website that turns customer questions into useful content
• A charity website that helps volunteers submit updates more easily
• A business website that guides visitors towards the right service
• A local directory that can accept information in whatever format people already have

This is not about replacing websites with AI. It is about making websites work better with AI.

The best use cases are often very practical. They remove a blockage, save time, and make life easier for the people using the site.

And if a quick weekend passion project with Claude can make local event submissions easier, it makes you wonder what else is possible.