Wikipedia 25/Events/Planning an event

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Over the coming year, you may want to plan an event to celebrate Wikipedia's 25th birthday, or your own community's relevant milestone. This events toolkit helps you identify your event needs to help plan a successful birthday event.

How to get involved

15 January 2026 marks Wikipedia's 25th birthday, and there are many ways to celebrate. You can:

Attend a Wikipedia 25 event
Create your own Wikipedia event
- Grants are also available if financial assistance is needed
Share a message on social media.

Create your own Wikipedia 25 event

Event suggestions

Creative and public activations

Collaborate with a local street artist to create a Wikipedia-inspired mural, revealed at a community event.
Host a block party with music, t-shirts, and Wikipedia-themed activities.
Organize a Wiknic (picnic-style meetup for Wikimedians and friends).
Launch a custom selfie filter (e.g., “Knowledge is…”) and encourage community use.
Create a Wikipedia Poster Campaign in key city locations.
Create artistic mappings celebrating Wikipedia’s 25th anniversary in key spots throughout your city.

Knowledge-sharing events

Partner with a local GLAM institution or university to host a celebration.
Run a 1-minute lightning round open mic for community members to share inspiring stories.
Host an editathon focused on local community content, aiming for a milestone like 2,500 edits, with live edits projected on a wall.
Partner with your city municipality or local GLAM institution to design and install QR codes that link directly to Wikipedia articles and images related to the places where they are located. To highlight the initiative, a special plaque can be added at each site with the message: “25 years of sharing your place in the world.”

Photo-focused celebrations

Tie community events with the Wiki Loves photo campaign.
Host a photo walk with local communities.
Set up an online gallery or museum to showcase photos.

Fun and interactive gatherings

Organize an interactive game night with prizes (trivia, scavenger hunts, races).

Example event ideas

Human Library of Wikimedia Stories

Invite community members, and newcomers to act as “living books,” sharing their personal journeys with Wikipedia and free knowledge. This could be a mix of in-person and online sessions where participants “borrow” a person for 15 minutes to hear their story.

The House of Knowledge Exhibition

Create a public exhibition—either physical or digital—that showcases Wikipedia’s impact over 25 years. Include milestones, regional stories, and interactive displays where visitors can “add their knowledge” on the spot.

Wikipedia Cake-Baking Contest

Host a community-wide baking challenge where participants design cakes inspired by Wikipedia (logos, knowledge themes, or their local language version). Share entries on social media to spark fun and visibility.

Finding a venue

Match the size of your venue to event needs. If you are having an edit-a-thon, you'll need internet access power options and more. Consider requesting public spaces for your events such as libraries, school spaces, or public gathering points. Galleries and museums may also be good venues.

Online events

Planning a virtual event is very similar to planning an in-person one. You need to take the time to design the program, have speakers, and engage your participants.

The good news for event organisers is that virtual events have less expense than a face-to-face event. Virtual events save costs related to: travel, lodging, venue rentals, catering, printed items (signage, posters, conference programs), A/V equipment, etc.

Your content strategy must be interrelated with the goals you would like to achieve. Plan with the outcome in mind. What is the change you would like to initiate through an event?

Your program should be anchored in the overall goals that you have set out for the event. For example, if you want to attract newcomers, you might want to consider having content that is easy to engage with.

If you are planning a celebration, spend some time defining what feeling you would like to create with your event. What are the elements that make for a celebration? Will you be sharing highlights or achievements? Ideally how many people would you like to attend? What is the format in which you would like people to engage with your content?

Choosing the right technology should only be done as soon as you have established goals and a format to achieve those. Your choice of technology should be aligned with the goals you want to achieve.

Are you inviting subject matter experts to deliver program content? Do you want the content to be live, recorded, or both? Are you facilitating participation across multiple time zones and languages? Your choice of technology should support these wishes.

Promoting your event

Start by listing your event on Wikipedia 25 Events.

Then consider sharing event details on your community mailing lists.
Invite attendees to bring friends, colleagues, and family members along.
Announce the event on social media channels, using the hashtag #Wikipedia25 to help others find it.

Where can I get support from the Wikimedia Foundation?

Apply for one of the Wikipedia 25 grants available to all members of our community to obtain funding for your event.

Add your event to the calendar and the map

Prepare useful information

In order to communicate efficiently about your event, make sure that you have the following information ready:

Name of your event
Date, time, duration
Short and catchy description to get people excited and tell them what to expect from the event
Expected audience: is it open to beginners? are there any prerequisites to join?
For an onsite event: Location, address, directions to arrive
For an online event: Tools used, access links, requirements to join
Registration form if any, open list of participants
Place to ask questions or way to contact the organizers

In order to add your event to the list that is displayed on the main Events page, we're encouraging the use of the Event Registration tool. Here are the instructions to follow:

Step 1: Prepare all the information listed above.

Step 2: Use the Event Registration tool to create your event. On large wikis, you'll need the "Event organizer" user right, which is controlled by local wiki admins. On medium wikis and small wikis, Event Registration is available to all autoconfirmed users.

You can ask for the Event Organizer user right here on Meta-wiki or on your wiki of choice. Here's a video guide for Meta-wiki that might be helpful.

Step 3: Create your event page. Be sure to use the phrase "Wikipedia 25" in the title of your event. For example: Wikipedia 25 – South Africa meetup celebration

Need more help? Learn how to use the EventRegistration tool.

Once you have added your event with all of the relevant information, your event will appear on the the main Events page.

Updating the map

If you are hosting an in-person event and would like it to appear on the map, open this page and add the following template for your event. The important part is the "location item" variable. Use a Wikidata Q-item. For example "Q90" is the item for Paris, France.

{{WP25/Event
| event = Wikipedia 25th Anniversary: Zimbabwe 
| time = 05 February-13 February 2026
| organizer = Beatrice Kaseke 
| languages = Chishona, Ndebele and English
| location = Zimbabwe
| location item = zimbabwe
}}

Note: The Movement Communications team at the Foundation will also be updating the Map on a monthly basis.