Event pre-registration and how it could work for your events

Event pre-registration is the process prior to actual registration when people register their interest in attending an event rather than committing to attend it.

Why use event pre-registration?

• It gives event organisers the ability to get important information up front in terms of expected numbers and popular content.

• It gives attendees the opportunity to pre-register for an event without committing themselves.

Here are a couple of scenarios where event pre-registration could help event planners:

1. You're running a public-facing event that you expect to be oversubscribed

You could be running an event that you are pretty confident will be a sell-out. How do you know? It could be an event that you've run in the past and have first-hand knowledge of its popularity or you might have an "A-lister" headline speaker that consistently sells out venues globally.

How it could work:

i. You open up the site to take pre-registrations;
ii. Visitors go onto the site and register their interest to attend;

iii. You can see everyone that has pre-registered and select who will be sent an invitation to register and who won’t;
iv. The invitation email is sent to those who you want to invite and a decline email is sent to those that haven't made the list.

Using pre-registration for this type of event helps manage oversubscription upfront, rather than at the registration stage.

2. To determine if an event is worth running

You may be considering running an event, but you're not sure how popular it will be. Events are expensive in time and money to organise, so you'd like to get a good feel upfront of how feasible this event will be.

Running an event pre-registration page is a good way to accurately gauge interest, get valuable feedback and save yourself a bundle of time and money if uptake is low. The only outlay you have is to set up the pre-registration page and form.

How it could work:

1. Create an event pre-registration page and form;
2. Visitors go onto the site and register their interest;
3. You get an immediate and clear picture of the level of interest;
4. If it's good, an email goes out to all pre-registrations inviting them to register, along with opening the main event site up to the public;
5. If uptake is low, an email is sent out to all pre-registrations letting them know the event will not be happening yet.

The end result is you'll know if the event is a go or no-go. If you've asked for suggestions regarding popular content, you'll have that information upfront giving you the opportunity to tailor the event accordingly.