by ClearEvent Support | Event Management
Part 1 of this series looked at the difference between tickets and registration. In Part 2, we covered when to use tickets and registration. This third and final part, guides you through choosing the best system for tickets and registration.
Before we look at systems, first let’s consider the experience of attendees using your tickets and registration system.
Attendee Experience Matters
So far, we’ve mostly looked at tickets and registration from the event planner’s perspective. It’s especially important to consider attendee experience when choosing a system. This often tips the scales in one direction or the other, and the capabilities of your current ticket and registration system becomes important here.
From the attendee’s perspective, the key differences between tickets and registration relate to:
- Signing up for other people
- How much and what type of information must be entered and uploaded?
Signing up for others
Signing up for other people is usually easy with tickets. Buyers simply enter the number of each ticket type. If the event collects information for each ticket holder, it is important that this step is easy for the buyer. Make sure buying multiple tickets is easy for your buyers.
Signing up other people using registration should be easy as well. Attendees want to register for themselves and complete registration for the other members of their group. The registration page must be easily shared. Then, each person in their group can also complete their own registration, if needed.
Information Collection
From the registrant or ticket buyer perspective, the less information entered the better! It’s that simple.
If you need to collect information from your attendees, make sure your registration form is really easy to use.
Make it really easy for people to sign up for your event. Keep your questions to a minimum!
Ticket systems are primarily designed to sell groups of tickets in a single transaction. Some ticket systems can collect information about the ticket holders at the time the tickets are purchased. The ticket buyer must enter information for themselves and for each ticket holder.
Entering more than a little information about each ticket holder can quickly become a chore for the ticket buyer. Keep questions to a minimum! If you want to collect more than a few items of information from your attendees, registration may be the better approach.
However, if you really want to use tickets, make sure your system is very easy to fill out and provides help and shortcuts to assist your buyers when making their purchase.
ClearEvent’s simple, well-designed ticket purchase page makes it very easy for ticket buyers to copy previous entries, keeping typing to a minimum.
Choosing a System for Tickets and Registration
You’ll need both
There is a bewildering array of online tickets and registration systems available to event planners. So, what should you look for?
As we noted in Part 1, simple events may get away with using tickets or registration. As events get larger and more complex, you’re going to need both tickets and registration for your events.
Not all systems do both
Buyer beware the system that only does tickets, or only does registration!
Some systems clearly only do tickets or registration. They were designed specifically for one purpose or the other, not both, and they have not been expanded to include both. Many single use systems claim to do both tickets and registration. Beware! Many only do one well!
How can you tell?
Ticketing-only systems lack the sophistication and flexibility needed to handle registrations. Everything is treated like a ticket or a ticket sale. Because tickets are best for situations with low personalization, ticket-only systems lack reporting and communications functions that are so helpful for tracking and managing all the different registrant types.
Registration-only systems are generally weak at offering tickets. Using a registration-only system to sell tickets can be difficult for both event planners and attendees because registration-only systems are not designed to produce tickets and manage reporting for tickets and ticket holders.
Your system should include separate ticket and registration systems in one application, allowing you to do everything you need in a single system.
A registration is not a ticket. A ticket is not a registration. Chose a system that has dedicated registration AND tickets capabilities that will each serve your needs well.
You should be able to register many different participant types and offer as many different ticket types for your entire event or for parts of your event.
What Else Matters in a Tickets and Registration system?
Expect more from your online event system!
These days event planners should expect an online tickets and registration system that is flexible, affordable and comes with great support.
Let’s look more closely at those important factors.
Flexibility
Make sure there are robust controls within the registration and tickets parts of the system to give you flexibility you need in your ticket and registration offerings.
Useful ticket controls include:
- Controls to create, copy and share tickets and registration forms quickly and easily
- Dashboards and detailed reporting giving you operational visibility
- Controls to manage when your ticket and registration offerings are available for sale
- Ability to preview upcoming tickets and registrations before they are available
- Ability to share all or part of your ticket or registration offerings – email, Facebook, twitter and other social media
- Able to make corrections after your tickets and registration forms are published
- Tickets and Registration forms branded for your event, not the event software company!
ClearEvent offers registration and tickets capabilities in an all-in-one online system, beautifully branded and themed for your event.
Affordability
You should reasonably expect to get a ticket and registration system along with a host of other powerful features that save you time, effort and reduce risk for your event.
There are many different payment models for event software, and most system will offer multiple plans which include varying features and services. All use some combination of three main payment methods – subscription fees, transactions fees and other service fees. It doesn’t matter whether you pay subscriptions or transaction fees, or other service fees or a combination of all three.
What counts is your total price your event must pay in order to use the software for your event.
Subscriptions
Subscriptions vary widely from $10’s per month to $1000’s per month!
Some use flat fees, others depend on how many ‘seats’ you buy for your planners. Annual subscriptions are usually cheaper than monthly subscriptions for the same plan. Make sure you understand what your plan provides and how many of your team will have access and how much that all costs.
Transaction Fees
Transaction fees occur every time the system processes a transaction. Make sure you understand whether fees are paid by your event or are paid by the your buyers and registrants (which you can ignore).
Transaction fees paid by the event typically cover credit card processing by a third party processor. Credit card processing fees are usually around 3% and you may also be able to negotiate better rates with your processor.
Make sure to set your ticket prices and registration fees to cover all included fees if you elect to include fees in your ticket and registration prices.
Other Service Fees
Other Service fees also vary widely from $100’s to $1,000’s! Some services fees are one-offs, others are recurring charges you must factor in to your cost of use.
Service fees cover services performed by the software supplier such as set up, training, design and customization.
Make sure you understand which services are necessary in order to make your software 1) operate, 2) do what you need it to do, and, 3) provide the end-user experience you want to deliver.
Adding all applicable prices and fees will let you know what your event software system will cost and whether it is value for money or something your budget can afford.
The Bottom Line
No matter what fees and charges, your total cost of event software should not exceed $1000 per year. For many events your software should be significantly less than this amount.
Event software and all charges related to it should be a minor cost on your budget.
Your event software should be inexpensive by comparison to other significant event costs such as venue, catering, and entertainment,
Support
Choose a supplier that has your best interests at heart.
Unfortunately, many large suppliers are not able to give you the attention you need and some just treat you like a number.
The best suppliers provide expertise in various ways throughout their tickets and registration system as well as providing access to live support when you need it.
Take time to choose a supplier who will be a true part of your success formula.
Tickets and Registration: You Need Both!
It is easy to tell when to use tickets or registration. Just look closely at the level of personalization. Consider these key factors to easily determine when to use Tickets or Registration in each sign up situation.
- Individual/Group signup.
- Approvals needed.
- Information Collection.
- Attendee Participation.
Use the handy table to make your choice:
Many events may start out as simple ticketed events. As they grow, tickets and registration both become important to successful planning and delivery of the event.
Make sure to use a system that is well-designed to do both Tickets and Registration, not just one of them!
Your registration and tickets system should provide a great experience for your attendees. It should be easy to use and provide the flexibility you need. As always, make sure your system is very affordable and well supported.
I hope this series of articles is helpful for you. Please contact us if you have any questions or would like to discuss any aspect of Tickets and Registration!
In the meantime, happy planning!
Interested in other topics?
As an event planner, knowing what options are available to you is key. Let us know the topics you’d like to hear about that could help your event planning success, at support@clearevent.com.
by ClearEvent Support | Event Management
We saw in our Seminar Signup example in
Part 1 that tickets and registration could both be used. In this article, we show two more examples. One shows when to use
tickets, while the other shows when to use
registration. Our final example shows tickets and registration used for
different parts of the same event.
Use Personalization To Decide Between Tickets And Registration
Recall from Part 1, if personalization is low, then tickets is the best choice.
If personalization of your attendee experience is low, use tickets. As the level of personalization increases, registration is the better approach.
Example 2: Entry To A Festival
In this example, a festival is collecting entry payments and providing a ticket to each attendee to enter the event. Very little personalization applies in this example. The event offers different ticket types such as single-day Child/Adult/Senior tickets and multi-day passes. Attendees purchase tickets or passes in order to gain entry to the event. Once in the festival, there is no additional personalization for ticket- or pass-holders.
Here’s how the table looks for attendees for this event.
All four factors fall under Tickets making Tickets a much better choice than Registration (only covers three) for this situation. Tickets the clear winner here because group sign up is a major requirement for the festival, .
There is a little personalization for the festival, however it is handled by using different tickets for different types of attendees. A multi-day pass provides a different experience for holders of those passes. However, the personalization is limited to the number of days pass-holders may enter the event.
Example 3. Registration For Vendors, Entertainment And Volunteers
Events often have vendors, entertainment and volunteers. Each has a high degree of personalization in their experience at the event.
All of these types of attendees are expected to signup individually, not as groups. Vendors will be manually approved and payment will occur on approval. Entertainers provide a range of information about their act and experience which organizers use to approve or decline each applicant. Volunteers are automatically approved for this event.
They will have badges which indicate their attendee type. This helps the event organizers keep track of which parts of the event each may enter. Vendors have access to the vendor hall during set up and teardown. Entertainers have access to backstage areas. Volunteers have broader access than delegates or audience members at the event.
When signing up, applicants provide a range of information to the event organizers as well as make selections. Vendors chose booth details and options. Entertainers provide stage details and information about their act. Volunteers provide information on experience, skills, job preferences and availability.
They will each experience the event in very different ways. Each vendor’s booth is a personally selected combination of size, shape and structure. Entertainers each need a particular stage setup. Volunteers have their own job assignments. They all need different information about where they need to be, what they need to do and when they can come and go.
Here’s how the table looks for Vendors and Entertainers:
And here is the table for Volunteers, the main difference being automatic approval:
Clearly registration is the best approach for all three participant types. Tickets does not enable the information exchange needed in order to provide the personalized experience needed by each of these event participants.
Example 4. Registration And Tickets For A Conference
Registration is strongly associated with conferences. However, we’ll show that conferences, and many other events, use registration and tickets for different parts of the same event.
Conference Registration
In this example, Conference Delegates will have personalized entry, they’ll be signed up for various parts of the conference program and the organizers will be collecting information from delegates for various purposes.
Here’s how the table looks in this situation for delegates:
Registration is the obvious choice for this type of attendee sign up. It’s a more personal experience. Organizers collect information from registrants. Registrants choose different event options such as training, seminars, demonstrations and so on. Organizers use the information to provide personalized and specific itineraries, based on delegate selections from the conference program.
The high level of personalization makes it difficult for tickets to work well in this scenario. Registration is the best choice.
Tickets For The Special Dinner
In this event, a special dinner is also available to all delegates, regardless of how they registered for the conference.
Delegates sign up as individuals and as groups. Not all delegates will attend the special dinner. There is a fee to attend. Attendees just need to show they have paid, and there’s no need for badges. The event will collect email, first name and last name to build an attendee list and there are no other special options to sign up for.
Here’s how the table looks for the special dinner sign up:
Tickets is the best choice for the dinner. While personalization is high for conference registration, it is low for tickets for the special dinner. This is the best approach. The same delegates use registration for the main conference and tickets for the dinner sign up.
Other “side events” like the special dinner can also have their own separate online signup. The table indicates whether tickets or registration is the best approach for each one.
Having both tickets and registration options gives planners the best approach every time
Why not just use one big registration form?
Some might suggest “just add the dinner as an option on your registration form“. You could do this, but think about the experience of your delegate!
Delegates often register months before the event, so many wont know if they’ll want to attend, or even be able to attend the dinner at the time they register. Providing a separate dinner sign up lets delegates make an informed decision when ready. They could sign up at the time of registering, or decide any time before to the cutoff date for sign up as specified by the organizer.
By separating conference registration from the dinner sign up, the organizers avoid scenarios where delegates delay registering till they know if they’ll attend the dinner or any other side events.
Tickets are ideal for side events since they provide a clean, flexible approach to handling entry to the side event.
Which Events need Tickets and Registration?
As you’re aware, many events have many different types of attendees and participants. Aside from the main sign up, there are often side events or activities that attendees and participants can sign up for. In each case, use the table to determine if tickets or registration is better.
Most events need tickets and registration to cover all their needs.
Personalization tells us if tickets or registration is better. So, let’s now make sure the ticket and registration system we use for our event is up to the job.
How is Your Tickets and Registration System Performing?
Take a sample run through your own system for tickets and registration as if you were signing up. It is important to find out if the experience of your attendees needs some improvement!
In the final part of this series, Registration and Tickets Part 3: Which System is Better? we’ll cover the key considerations for selecting a system for Tickets and Registration.
Interested in other topics?
As an event planner, knowing what options are available to you is key. Let us know the topics you’d like to hear about that could help your event planning success, at support@clearevent.com.
In the meantime, happy planning!
by ClearEvent Support | Event Management
Deciding between tickets and registration is confusing. It’s hardly surprising because tickets and registration are similar in some ways and quite different in others.
In this first of a three part series of short articles, I’ll clarify the difference between tickets and registration. In Part 2, I’ll show you when to use tickets or registration. In Part 3, I’ll show you what to look for in an online ticket and/or registration system.
Let’s start with the basics for tickets and registration.
Tickets and Registration: Let’s break it down
An Online Ticket System allows you to:
- create and publish your tickets
- sell tickets online and accept payments
- collect information from ticket buyers
- send purchased tickets and a receipt to the buyer
- receive the revenue from ticket sales in your bank account
- provide you with key reports and status information about ticket sales.
An Online Registration System allows you to:
- create and publish your registration forms
- accept online registrations and payments
- collect information from registrants
- send registration confirmation and a receipt to the buyer
- receive the revenue from registrations in your bank account
- provide you with key reports and status information on your registrations.
They sound pretty similar, right?! No wonder it’s confusing!
Tickets and Registration: How to Decide?
Some event planners use tickets and others use registration for the same situations because of the similarities between tickets and registration. However, for most situations, you’ll need to determine which is the better approach.
There’s an important difference between tickets and registration that is the key to deciding when to use tickets and when to use registration.
It comes down to Personalization
Decide between tickets and registration by considering how personalized is the attendee experience? The more you provide a personalized experience for attendees, the more registration will be the better option for you.
We can break personalization into four key factors which make it really easy to tell whether to use tickets or registration.
1) Individual or Group Signup?
Will you be signing up individuals or groups or both? Tickets work well for individual and group sign ups while registration is better for individual sign ups.
2) Signup Approvals
When someone signs up for your event, will they automatically be approved, or is there a manual review or curation process to determine if the applicant may attend your event? Automatic sign up can be used for both tickets and registration, whereas manual and special approval options only apply to registration.
Thinking about this from the attendee perspective, it is very unusual to purchase tickets but not be approved to attend the event. Tickets are always an automatic approval. On the other hand, it is quite common that registrations must be manually approved by organizers before an attendee is permitted to attend the event.
3) Collecting Information
To personalize the experience for each attendee, organizers collect information from their attendees when they sign up. This information allows organizers to provide the personalized experiences for participants and attendees based on the information they provide to the event.
Collected information may include any of the following examples:
- Contact info
- Company info
- Background
- Experience
- Preferences
- Affiliations
- Interests
- Event-related selections
Registration works great for collecting information.
Many ticket systems only have limited ability to collect of information for each ticket holder. This is intentional because ticket buyers expect a fast purchase experience. The ticket buyer may not have, or may not be willing to enter, all the information you request about each ticket holder.
The more information you collect from your attendees, the more registration will be the better option for you by a wide margin. If you’re collecting limited or no information, tickets or registration could be used.
4) Attendee Participation
Events have many different types of attendees such as audience members, delegates, exhibitors, volunteers, performers, VIP’s and event staff. Think about the level of personalization for each of these participant types. It varies from no personalization to a very personalized experience for the attendee, depending on the type of attendee.
For example, audience members participate in the event in much the same way after entering the event.
When the level of personalization is low, use tickets.
On the other hand, each delegate can select their own combination of activities offered by the event. Each delegate’s participation is personalized to them. In this scenario, it’s not sufficient for delegates to all have the same entry ticket as each delegate selected and paid for a combination of event selections such as courses, tours and so on.
When personalization is high, use registration.
Tickets and Registration Table
To make it easy for you, these key aspects of personalization are organized in a helpful table below. For each type of attendee coming to your event, use the table to determine the overall degree of personalization and whether tickets or registration will be better.
The table helps you quickly clarify whether tickets or registration is better.
When most of the answers fall under ‘Tickets’, (i.e. on the low end of personalization) use tickets for that type of participant. Likewise, when most of your answers fall under ‘Registration’, (i.e. not on the low end of personalization) then use registration.
The table also helps you see when it’s not clear which to use, and why it’s not clear. For example, ticketed attendees can have personalized badges, registration may collect almost no information, ticketed attendees may have some personalized participation based on ticket type. If you have answers in both columns, go with the column with the most answers.
Some may say the choice between tickets and registration comes down to the capabilities of your online tickets and registration system. Not true! Don’t use a ticket system for registration and vice versa. More on selecting a system in Part 3.
Show me some examples!
Let’s look at examples using tickets and/or registration. We’ll start with a simple example you may be familiar with, where tickets and registration both work. Then in Part 2 we’ll look at when it is better to use one over the other. Lastly, we’ll look at an example of using both tickets and registration for different purposes in the same event.
Example 1. When Tickets and Registration Both Work
When personalization is low, it is perfectly ok to use tickets or registration.
Consider the following example. Signing up attendees to attend a seminar. No additional information is collected from attendees. Attendees will sign up as individuals and possibly a few small groups. As an organizer, you just need to know who had paid and is coming. Attendees just want to know they are signed up and have proof of payment and admission.
Tickets or registration both work in this situation.
Why is this true? It’s because the degree of personalization is low. The following marked up table makes it clear.
Answers for each of the four factors fall under Tickets AND Registration. So, for this scenario, either approach could be used.
If both tickets and registration are an option, go with the method that is simpler for your attendees
The signup experience is somewhat similar when tickets or registration is used. However, even in this simple case, tickets will be simpler for your attendees, especially for people who are signing up for a group of people. (More about attendee experience in Part 2.) So, while both could be used, tickets is a better option based on the possible need to sign up small groups.
So, not all events are like the simple example above. And we don’t want to just memorize all the situations when registration is better than tickets and vice versa! Fortunately, by using our handy table, you don’t have to.
In Part 2 Tickets and Registration: When to use them? we’ll show examples of when to use tickets, when to use registration, and when to use both for different parts of the same event.
Interested in other topics?
As an event planner, knowing what options are available to you is key. Let us know the topics you’d like to hear about that could help your event planning success, at support@clearevent.com.
In the meantime, happy planning!
by ClearEvent Support | Event Management
What’s New In ClearEvent For April?
Last month the ClearEvent team shipped a number of great new features to help improve event manager productivity, as well as reduce friction for registrants in the event registration experience. A lot has been happening, so we thought we’d recap what we accomplished in April. All of these features are available today, so be sure to check them out!
Streamlined Registration Experience
We’ve improved the registration experience by removing the requirement for participants to sign in to a ClearEvent Account before they can complete a registration form. This approach means that there is less friction for registrants, no password needed, and registering for your event is event simpler & faster!
To take advantage of the new streamlined registration workflow, you’ll simply need to update any links to your registration forms to use the new registration form Share Link format.
Registration Form Permalinks
Registration form permalinks (permanent Share Links) can now be used to share registration forms links that will not change if/when your event is rolled over.
In the past, when your event was rolled over, event organizers were required to update any registration form links to point to the newly rolled over event registration forms. Now, the same registration form Share Link will still work, even after your event is rolled over.
Here’s an example of the new, simplified registration form Share Link:
https://app.clearevent.com/register?form=23456789-2345-2345-2345-234567890123
Manually Register Event Attendees
Event Organizers can now easily sign up on behalf of event guests. This is great if you have guests that are unable to register themselves, or if you already have event registrants that have been manually registered for your event through some other means. Event Organizers can simply open the desired registration form and then use the registrant’s email address & name to complete the registration form on their behalf. ClearEvent will automatically send the registrant an email confirmation when their registration is received by the system.
Learn More
Auto-Linking In Plain-Text Fields
Any web links pasted into common text fields (e.g. description, summary, etc.) will now be automatically converted into clickable hyperlinks. This includes event setup, forms, tickets, schedules, messages and products description setting fields. For example:
Learn More
Happy planning!
P.S. If you enjoy using ClearEvent, please tell a friend about us! 😀
by ClearEvent Support | Event Management
Organized events are a great opportunity to make new connections. This is a key objective for attendees. Including opportunities to network on the agenda contributes to the overall success of your event. Participants will remember your event as educational, fun and most importantly provided value to them with connections that live on beyond the event itself. Look for ways to build in specific networking activities during your event to help your attendees get the most out of your event.
“Attendees taking a random walk in a crowded space may not meet the folks that could be most helpful to them, not to mention getting stuck talking to the wrong people.”
Traditional networking usually involves some kind of social dinner/drinks activity at the beginning or end of the event. Attendees taking a random walk in a crowded space may not meet the folks that could be most helpful to them, not to mention getting stuck talking to the wrong people! No one wants to appear rude in a fun, social setting. Some attendees may not feel comfortable with it. Some may feel frenzied and overwhelmed. Or, attendees may simply not want to spend all their time networking at a social function. So when is enough?
“attendees may not feel comfortable networking, sometimes feeling frenzied and overwhelmed”
Other styles of networking involve team activities or other group gamifications. However, these scenarios limit attendees to only their immediate team for the entire activity. This reduces access to other key people with whom an attendee may want to connect.
“beyond traditional options is the use of speed networking”
A new alternative beyond traditional options is speed networking. With similarities to a speed dating format, speed networking allows attendees to meet a lot of people in a very short time period. This can be especially helpful if the event has a full agenda with limited time available for making connections. This approach is an additional opportunity beyond the dinner/drink social style activities.
Speed networking is a structured process with facilitators. The “speed” element brings in a fun and efficient aspect to the event. Networkers have a few minutes to connect one-on-one. Then it’s on to the next person. This format has the added benefit that if you’re not connecting well with someone, or you discover they are not the right person to connect with, it’s very easy to move to the next conversation. Each round is only a few minutes long. There is no need to appear rude to move onto a new conversation. It’s fast and efficient. After the session, attendees can expand the connections from the speed networking session during the rest of the event. This is a good reason to include speed networking early in your agenda.
“Technology can further enhance the success of any speed networking activity”
Technology can further enhance the success of any speed networking activity. One example is a company that goes by the same name, Speed Networking. They offer a full-service speed networking solution which includes matching software that minimizes situations like getting stuck talking to the wrong folks. They also measure trackable results and an ROI analysis so you can ensure you’re adding tangible value to your events. Then, to ensure attendees take full advantage of the session, the event planner should remind attendees in advance to bring business cards and have an elevator pitch ready to go regarding who they are and what they’re interested in.
Ensuring your event generates great connections is easy. Build opportunities into your agenda to network, especially in the early stages. Help your attendees by providing fast and efficient methods to network such as speed networking. Leverage technology to make it effective and provide you the feedback you need to keep improving your events!
As an event planner, knowing what options are available to you is key. If you would like to hear about other topics that could help your event planning success, please let us know at support@clearevent.com.
In the meantime, happy planning!
References:
by ClearEvent Support | Event Management
What’s New In ClearEvent This Month?
March has been a busy month for the ClearEvent Team and we’re excited to announce a number of new and highly requested product features that are available today!
Copy A Form Between Events
Quickly copy an existing registration form between multiple events that you manage.
At the click of a button, you can now build new events using forms you created for previous or concurrent events as templates. Once you copy your registration form, just open the copied form and made any necessary adjustments needed.
Learn More
Promo Codes
Offer promotional discounts on ticket purchases to encourage early purchases and increase sales.
There are many benefits and uses of Promo Codes. Here are just a few ways you could use Promo Codes for your event.
- Create time-sensitive Promo Codes to encourage event guests to sign up early.
- Create special one-off Promo Codes for friends of your event, sponsors or special guests.
- Use different Promo Codes for various advertising channels to help track ROI.
Learn More
Fee Groups
Organize multiple fees and customize which form fields & products are shown to registrants based on the fee they select during checkout.
Learn More
Free Tickets
You can now sell both free and paid tickets to your event on the same ticket order. Even if you don’t charge to attend your event, or have a gate, setting up free tickets are a great way to help you collect and build your contact list for future events.
If you have a chance, please jump in and try out these new features and let us know what you think!
For a list of all recent release notes, click here.
Happy planning!
P.S. If you enjoy using ClearEvent, please tell a friend about us! 😀
