Automate Event Banner Creation with n8n and AI

1. Meet Alex: Struggling to Keep Up with Event Promotions

Alex runs a local tech community and relies heavily on social media to promote his events. Every week, Alex spends hours creating event banners manually using multiple tools—drafting event info, sourcing images, and designing banners. This tedious process wastes up to 5 hours every week, delays announcements, and sometimes causes errors in event details that confuse attendees.

To solve this, Alex wants an automated system that can instantly generate custom event banners from simple event inputs and post them directly to his community channels.

2. What This Automation Does

This n8n workflow automates Alex’s event banner creation and sharing process seamlessly. When the workflow runs:

• Captures event details through a simple n8n Form, including event title, location, date, and an image description prompt.
• Uses OpenAI (DALL·E 3) to generate a custom event image based on the prompt, turning text descriptions into visuals.
• Uploads the generated image to Cloudinary CDN to optimize and host the image, ensuring fast delivery and manageable file sizes.
• Sends event details and image URL to BannerBear which applies the information to a predefined banner template to generate a professional-looking social media banner.
• Downloads the final banner image and posts it directly to Alex’s Discord community with event info, notifying all members instantly.
• Reduces weeks of manual work to minutes by automating design, image generation, hosting, and distribution.

3. Prerequisites ⚙️

• n8n account to set up and run the workflow.
• Access to BannerBear with created banner templates for event display.
• OpenAI API account with access to DALL·E 3 for AI image generation.
• Cloudinary account for optimized image hosting with API access.
• Discord Bot account to post banners automatically into a server channel.
• Generic HTTP Request credentials configured for Cloudinary API upload.

4. Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Set up n8n Form Trigger to Capture Event Details

Navigate to your n8n canvas, click + Add Node → search for Form Trigger and add it.

Configure the form with these fields:

• Template: Dropdown with options like “n8n Meetup Template” and “AI Meetup Template”.
• Title of Event: Text area, required.
• Location of Event: Text area, required.
• Date of Event: Text area, required.
• Image Prompt: Text area, required, used for AI image generation prompt.

Set the webhook path as desired (e.g., d280e773-3bd8-44ce-a147-8b404251fce9). When you activate this node, n8n creates a URL for your form submission.

After completion: Your form will capture event data submitted by you or your team.

Common mistake: Forgetting to mark required fields will cause incomplete data issues downstream.

Step 2: Set Parameters Node to Map Form Responses

Add a Set node next and connect from the Form Trigger node.

Map the form response fields to variables your workflow will use:

template_id = 'lzw71BD6VNLgD0eYkn' or 'n1MJGd52o696D7LaPV' based on selected Template dropdown
  title = Title of Event
  location = Location of Event
  date = Date of Event
  image_prompt = Image Prompt

This mapping allows dynamic handling of different templates and event data.

After completion: You have structured parameters ready for AI generation and template rendering.

Common mistake: Incorrect mapping leads to empty fields in the banner.

Step 3: Generate an AI Image with OpenAI

Add the OpenAI node (from LangChain) and connect it after the Set node.

Configure to generate an image using DALL·E 3 with the prompt set to {{$json.image_prompt}}.

Set image options to 1024×1024 and quality standard.

After completion: This node returns a binary image file for your event.

Common mistake: Using an invalid prompt or missing API credentials will cause generation failure.

Step 4: Upload Generated Image to Cloudinary

Insert an HTTP Request node configured with POST to Cloudinary’s upload endpoint:

• URL: https://api.cloudinary.com/v1_1/your_cloud_name/image/upload
• Authentication: Generic HTTP Query Auth with your API Key
• Body type: multipart-form-data with ‘file’ set to binary data from AI image
• Query param: upload_preset=n8n-workflows-preset

After completion: The image uploads and Cloudinary returns a secure hosted URL, optimized for delivery.

Common mistake: Not correctly binding the binary image data causes upload errors.

Step 5: Send Event Details and Image URL to BannerBear Template

Add the BannerBear node linked next.

Fill in the template ID dynamically based on the earlier Set node’s template_id.

Map placeholders for:

• placeholder_image: Cloudinary image URL with Cloudinary’s optimization tags (e.g., replacing ‘upload/’ with ‘upload/f_auto,q_auto/’)
• placeholder_text: Event title
• placeholder_location: Event location
• placeholder_date: Event date

Enable Wait for image to true with max tries set to 10.

After completion: BannerBear generates a finished banner image.

Common mistake: Incorrect template variable names cause no image generation.

Step 6: Download the Finished Banner

Add an HTTP Request node to download the BannerBear output using the image_url_jpg URL.

After completion: The final image gets downloaded to your workflow for submission.

Common mistake: Incorrect URL reference breaks image download.

Step 7: Post the Banner on Discord

Finally, add the Discord node, configured with your bot API credentials.

Set the content message to announce the event with placeholders for title, location, and date.

Attach the downloaded banner file to the Discord message.

After completion: Your community instantly receives a well-designed event banner.

Common mistake: Missing Discord permissions to post files can cause failure.

5. Customizations ✏️

• Change banner template: In the BannerBear node, replace template IDs with your custom BannerBear templates for different event types.
• Use alternative image hosting: Replace Cloudinary HTTP Request node with AWS S3 or another storage by updating the API URL and auth.
• Add social media posting: Extend workflow with Twitter or Facebook nodes after Discord to post banners on multiple channels.
• Enhance image prompt: Modify the image prompt input in the n8n Form to include event theme or style keywords for richer AI images.
• Multi-template dynamic usage: Expand the Set node mapping to support more BannerBear templates by adding cases for various event types.

6. Troubleshooting 🔧

Problem: “Cloudinary upload failed with 400 error”
Cause: Incorrect authentication or malformed form data.
Solution: Double-check HTTP Request node credentials and ensure ‘file’ is properly referenced as binary data from the AI node.

Problem: “BannerBear image generation timeout”
Cause: Template variables mismatch or network delay.
Solution: Confirm placeholder names exactly match your BannerBear template variables. Increase max tries value.

Problem: “Discord message fails to send”
Cause: Bot lacks permission or invalid channel ID.
Solution: Verify bot permissions on the Discord server and channel, update channel ID if needed.

7. Pre-Production Checklist ✅

• Test the n8n form webhook URL by submitting sample data.
• Verify OpenAI API key has image generation enabled.
• Ensure Cloudinary preset exists and API credentials are valid.
• Confirm BannerBear template IDs and variable names.
• Check Discord bot permissions on the target server/channel.
• Run a full test from form submission to Discord posting.
• Backup current BannerBear templates and Cloudinary presets before changes.

8. Deployment Guide

After verifying the workflow works end-to-end, activate the workflow in your n8n environment.

Monitor the executions tab in n8n to check successful runs or errors.

Optionally, set alerts on failures to notify you immediately.

If self-hosting, consider using services like Hostinger for stable uptime.

9. FAQs

Q: Can I use other AI services instead of OpenAI?
A: Yes, if you configure the image generation output as binary and adapt API credentials, other services can work.

Q: Will this workflow consume many API credits?
A: Image generation with DALL·E 3 and BannerBear API calls consume credits; monitor usage to avoid overages.

Q: Is my event data secure?
A: Make sure your n8n instance is secured and API keys are stored safely; use encrypted credentials.

Q: Can it handle bulk event creation?
A: This workflow is optimized for single event submissions; for bulk, batch processing designs are recommended.

10. Conclusion

By following this guide, you’ve built an efficient event banner automation that transforms hours of manual design and posting work into seconds. Alex can now focus on creating great events instead of tedious graphics work.

This workflow saves at least 4-5 hours per week, reduces human errors, and speeds community engagement.

Next, explore adding automated reminders for event attendees or integrating with Twitter and Facebook for broader promotion.

Happy automating your event promotions with n8n and AI!