How to Run a Waitlist for a Sold-out Paid Event in Eventonomy

How to run a waitlist for a sold-out paid event in Eventonomy, step by step. Keep Waitlist when full ticked on Eventonomy, then Settings, then Registration. When every ticket is sold, the ticket type reads Sold out and the button on the event page reads Join waitlist. Joining is free. A member who joined sees that they are on the waitlist, and you see everyone waiting under the Waitlist filter of the event's Attendees tab.

Transcript

In this tutorial you will run a waitlist for a paid event that has sold out in Eventonomy. The waitlist is in the free Eventonomy plugin. Selling paid tickets needs Eventonomy Pro and a payment gateway. It takes about three minutes. There are six steps. Turn on the waitlist. See a sold-out event as a visitor. See the waitlist as a member. See who is waiting. Know what happens when a seat frees. Then see the email the waitlist gets. Step one. Turn on the waitlist. In your WordPress admin, open Eventonomy, then Settings, then Registration. Find Waitlist when full. It is ticked on a new site. The same box covers free events and paid ones. After a change, click Save changes. Step two. See a sold-out event as a visitor. Every ticket for this event is gone, so its ticket type reads Sold out. Under it the box says, This event is sold out. Join the waitlist and we will let you know if a spot opens up. The button reads Join waitlist. Joining is free. Nothing is paid at this point. Step three. See the waitlist as a member. Now signed in as a member who joined the waitlist. The box reads You are on the waitlist. The line under the ticket says an email will come if a spot opens. Step four. See who is waiting. Back in the admin, open the event from Events. On its Overview tab, Seats taken reads six of six. Click the Attendees tab. The row of filters counts three people on the Waitlist. Click Waitlist to list only the people who are waiting. Step five. Know what happens when a seat frees. These are the orders that sold the event out. A seat comes back in ways such as these: an order is cancelled or refunded, or an unpaid order expires. On a paid event, nobody moves from the waitlist to Going automatically, because each seat has to be bought. Instead, an email goes to all the people waiting, to say a seat is open. The first person to complete checkout gets it. Step six. See the email the waitlist gets. The free plugin sends it. With Eventonomy Pro, Settings has a section named Email templates. This one is Seat open for the waitlist. Live preview, on the right, shows the email with sample details. A ticket is available again, it reads, above a button named Buy your ticket. That is all six. The waitlist on, a sold-out event seen, the waitlist seen as a member, the people waiting found, a freed seat explained, and the email seen. A sold-out event now keeps a list of people ready to buy. Next in this series: Take donations on an event.