We recently had a request to create a registration process for a private event. There were so many hang-ups and roadblocks we decided to put together a how-to-guide on how to create a free event registration experience. You’re welcome!
We wanted to create something that was 100% free. You don’t need dns servers, hosting, to pay a monthly fee to a registration company, you don’t need a bank account or a credit card. After some research, we found a streamline option that we love!
To capture attendees please use any event invite system you prefer, utilize an email address to capture attendee data and create a system to invite attendees to attend your private event. In this case, the event was promoted by word of mouth as well as on Instagram ONLY. The event didn’t have a website, only an email address to work with and an instagram account.
Our first attempt to figure out how to set-up the private event was to determine the customer experience. We wanted to be able to streamline the line at the door as there is a $10 cover charge and still capture new attendees that didn’t register for the event and didn’t have the invite in there email inbox or Instagram DM. It was also important to be able to capture all attendees as private club members to be eligible for a monthly membership and to have an easy way to attend events in the future. We determined that we would have a pre-registration email list that captured attendee data needed in advanced such as a copy of ID for 21+, this would be entered into a google sheet and recorded and then those attendees could show the email invite at the door, how could we do better?
The best free event registration experience we could determine is to set-up a form that captures data via a free link including taking a photo of identification. That data auto populates into a spreadsheet, that spreadsheet is loaded into a CRM and a digital membership pass is generated with a unique membership ID per member and the final unique digital membership pass is emailed out to each person. Think of this as similar to a boarding pass at the airport.
HERE IS HOW!
Choose your event app (we hope you choose Plans Mobile App!) - Invite attendees - RSVP via email
Organizer create a form to send to attendees pre-event - We started with Google forms but found that the Free form from JotForm was best for our needs - In our case we needed a take a photo button to log that attendees are over 21. Jot form allows the creation of a unique membership ID - Auto populate to a google sheet
Create digital membership pass - We used free software/CRM cherrypie: - Created a campaign - Upload the google sheet with content for attendee - Skin the membership pass
Send out via email to members/attendees, we used gmail - At event door keep two ipads to register new attendee
Load the jotform to ipads for new attendees to register and receive a private member digital pass at the door
Please reachout to us if you have more questions, we found the following resources to very informative: