How We Migrated Our Local Camp Calendar to a Free Hosting Stack — A Practical Guide

How We Migrated Our Local Camp Calendar to a Free Hosting Stack — A Practical Guide

Hook: Small budget, big calendar headaches? In 2026 many community organizers moved event calendars and small CRMs to free or near-free stacks. We walked through the migration and produced a repeatable playbook.

Why migrate in 2026?

Costs and vendor lock-in drove the move. With third-party platform pricing and a desire to keep data portable, many organizers sought serverless and free-hosting solutions for calendars and low-traffic registration. There’s a detailed case study that inspired our approach (Community Calendar Migration — Free Hosting).

High-level architecture we used

1. Static site with pre-rendered event pages (Netlify / Vercel free tiers or similar).
2. Serverless form endpoints for registrations; lightweight storage in serverless SQL for queryable rosters. The serverless SQL primer helped our developer choose a durable, low-cost back end (Serverless SQL Guide).
3. Public iCal feeds and an embeddable calendar widget for partner sites.
4. Simple admin UI for staff built as a single-page app with accessible patterns; we tested date-pickers and payment flows against accessible frontend patterns guidance (Accessible Frontend Patterns — 2026).

Step-by-step migration checklist

1. Inventory: list current pages, forms, and integrations.
2. Export data: download registrant lists and attachments as CSV/JSON.
3. Build static templates: one template per event type (day camp, weekend, specialty workshop).
4. Implement serverless endpoints: forms post to endpoints tied to serverless SQL or Google Sheets (depending on complexity).
5. Run a shadow period: keep old and new systems in parallel for two weekends; compare results and fix edge cases.
6. Cutover: update DNS and inform partners with a clear timeline and backup plan.

Cost and maintenance

The model reduces monthly vendor bills but shifts work toward occasional maintenance. We monitored serverless usage closely and set alerts for unexpected spikes — the serverless SQL guide includes cost-control patterns that helped (Serverless SQL Guide).

Security and privacy

We kept sensitive fields off public feeds, used encryption-at-rest on provider-supported tiers, and wrote a privacy notice in plain language. If you need a deeper checklist for securing creator or hybrid workspaces, this guide has practical setup patterns (Secure Hybrid Creator Workspace — 2026).

Lessons learned

• Start small: migrate a single recurring weekly event first.
• Design for the volunteer: keep admin interfaces accessible and forgiving.
• Document every step so future volunteers can take over easily.
• Use free tiers responsibly — monitor to avoid unexpected throttling during high-traffic sales.

Tools and links we used

• Static hosting free tiers (Netlify / Vercel equivalents)
• Serverless form endpoints + serverless SQL (Serverless SQL Guide)
• Accessible frontend patterns for date-pickers and payments (Accessible Frontend Patterns — 2026)
• Migration case study that framed our timeline (Community Calendar Migration Case Study)

"Migration is not a one-day event — it’s a cultural change for organizers who want control and portability." — Tech Lead, FamilyCamp.us

Final checklist before you begin

1. Pick one event type to pilot.
2. Export and archive current data.
3. Set up monitoring and alerts.
4. Plan volunteer handover docs and a weekend of shadowing.

We’re releasing our migration templates and serverless example code as open-source this spring. Sign up to test the beta and get a migration checklist tailored to camps.