When you’re organizing an event, getting the registration process just right is one of the most important steps.
After all, without successful registrations, your attendees won’t show up, and you won’t get paid.
Therefore, to make your event registration process as smooth and engaging as possible, you have to understand what it is and how it functions, before figuring out how to simplify and optimize it.
We’ve got you covered with this article, so let’s get right into it!
- What Is Event Registration?
- Benefits of Using Online Event Registration Tools
- Payment Options for Event Registrations
- How to Streamline Your Event Registration Process
- How to Increase Event Registrations
- Conclusion
What Is Event Registration?
Have you ever been to an event meant for dozens of people, but a hundred showed up? It’s not fun.
Overcrowded events can leave a bad taste in the mouth of attendees, especially if they paid to attend.
Such issues demonstrate that you’re not good at event organizing, which is likely to deter many of the invitees from doing business with you in the future.
Because of this, event registration is essential for event organizers. The Association of Event Organizers defines the term as an exchange between the attendee and the organizers.
Source: Regpack
The attendee gives some private information or pays a sum in exchange for a ticket to the event.
In other words, they confirm they will attend and get a ticket that guarantees them access.
If you or your company are hosting an event, you must know who to expect. In the past, most businesses did on-site registrations.
A person would show up to the event and register on the spot to be able to get a ticket and take part in what was happening.
Online event registration has become the norm as times change and technology blooms.
Through an online form, attendees can sign up for your event whenever they want and edit their data as quickly as they apply.
Software like Regpack will help you set up your event registration page. It is so good that users have reported 31% more completed registrations!
The technology behind the software adjusts the registration process to the attendee’s responses, making everyone’s experience quick, easy, and unique.
Source: Regpack
As a result, you’ll save 51 hours a month on registration tasks.
So, if you don’t want to start from scratch on your website, opt for an event registration software with integrated payments and watch the attendees flock to your site!
At the end of the day, online registrations are just more accessible and simpler for everyone involved.
Benefits of Using Online Event Registration Tools
Allowing users to register online will help you on multiple fronts.
Firstly, you’ll know exactly how many tickets you’ve sold. As a result, you’ll learn how many you can sell on the day of the event, in case people show up without tickets.
If you don’t use a registration system, you could sell more tickets than you were supposed to, leading to dissatisfaction and possibly dangerous conditions in case of limited space.
You may have limited seating options for different ticket types, in which case it’s particularly important to know how many people are coming.
For example, concert organizers sell limited tickets, usually divided into separate packages.
Source: AXS
AXS offers nine different ticketing options for a Celine Dion concert, differing in perks you get with the ticket.
Therefore, the organizers have to know how many people are getting which tickets to know which perks to provide to which user.
On top of that, online event registration allows users to:
- Get familiar with ticketing options
- Browse payment options
- Enter and modify their data manually
- Get their tickets sent to their email
- Have payment security
These are great options that will attract even more attendees to your events!
Payment Options for Event Registrations
It’s no secret that more payment options attract more people, especially in a day and age where we are used to having so many choices regarding payment.
Some prefer cash, others rely on cards, and many people are starting to use their phones to pay. Why alienate any of these payers?
Your event registration process should offer a choice of online payment methods, including the currently most popular ones, such as:
- Visa
- Mastercard
- American Express
- Discover
- PayPal
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
Including these payment options in your registration process will help you offer the customers exactly what they want.
If an event ticket is costly, consider implementing payment plans, an option that almost half of US citizens already use.
Instead of asking someone to pay an expensive ticket upfront, let them pay you off monthly according to a preset payment schedule.
You can even offer auto-billing, ensuring you get paid on time each month.
Coachella, the famous arts and music festival, understands the benefits of payment plans, which is why they allow and promote this payment type on their official websites.
Source: Coachella via Facebook
Namely, they promote the seven installments of $99, making the tickets affordable to those who couldn’t pay the total amount upfront.
That way, Coachella organizers are ensuring even more people will be able to attend.
With software like Regpack, you can choose which payment types to offer, including payment plans.
As a result, you’ll appeal to a broader audience and attract more event attendees.
How to Streamline Your Event Registration Process
Now that you understand what you’ll get out of event registration and what payment methods you should offer, it’s time to figure out how to improve the overall experience.
What can you do to make event registration as smooth as possible? Let’s go through three easy things to implement for event registration streamlining.
Make the Event Registration Mobile-Friendly
How easy is it to register for your event using a phone? If the answer is anything but very, it’s time to go to work and optimize the mobile experience.
Statista found there are currently 301 million mobile phone users in the US.
Source: Statista
The number is only expected to grow and will reach 311 million in three years. Why not cater to that many people?
Offer an opportunity to register for your event using a phone and watch the tickets sell out.
When you start building your online event registration form, immediately check what it looks like on mobile.
The site should load quickly, be easy to navigate, and offer relevant information without clogging the screen.
The registration form should work perfectly on both desktop and mobile to ensure everyone can easily apply to an event.
Half of mobile phone users will abandon their shopping cart if the site doesn’t load fast enough, and the same problem will leave a negative impression on 45% of users.
Why risk losing viable business over something that’s easily fixable with mobile optimization?
Stay in Touch With the Attendees
It goes without saying that you should inform the participants of any details of the event they might be interested in before the fact.
You can keep them in the loop through your website, social media, and emails.
If attendees have to bring an ID or wear a mask at the event, you can email them the instructions and remind them a day or two before the event to ensure they don’t miss this information.
This step allows you to build up the hype before the event, send teasers to attendees, and contact them after the event.
It’s just as important to understand where you excelled and where you can improve when it comes to the event itself.
The input from your event participants can help you offer an even better experience in the future.
Moreover, you can use the survey results to promote the next event, as the IT Nation Connect conference does.
Source: IT Nation Connect
The company sent a questionnaire to the participants and used the data for promotion. IT Nation Connect stresses that everyone who attended found the event useful for their career.
Doesn’t that sound promising for someone wanting to grow and advance?
Staying in touch with event participants will create a good rapport, help you promote future events, and have happy attendees.
How to Increase Event Registrations
Great checkout and mobile optimization will help you with user satisfaction, but how do you get people to find out about your event and register for it?
Once you figure this out, you can continue putting on successful events.
Promote the Event Online
Nowadays, social media is king. The usage of different social media sites is either already high or slowly growing, which means those sites are here to stay.
Since everyone seems to be on social media, it’s a great way to attract more participants and spread the word.
After all, you want to reach a wider audience and inform people of an event you’re organizing. What better way to do that than the app people use daily?
Hootsuite recommends posting a countdown to the event on your Instagram stories, creating a Facebook event, using an event hashtag, or running ticket giveaways.
Source: Later
Giveaways usually include a phase where people have to share your post on social media, which immediately increases the number of people the post reaches.
Because of this, giveaways are a good way of attracting more customers.
Aventri suggests using LinkedIn for business and networking events, while Instagram might be better for consumers and influencers.
Source: Aventri
However, nothing is preventing you from advertising your event on all types of social media to attract as many attendees as possible.
Create posts catered to that social media and promote the event just like you would on your website or over email.
Since so many people use social media daily, use it to your advantage and promote your event online!
Highlight the Key Performers
One of the best ways to get people to attend an event you’re organizing is to highlight the main attractions.
The attractions could be keynote speakers, performers, movie projects, guests, or anything similar, depending on the type of event you are throwing.
If you’re in the festival business, you’ll want to spread the word about all the artists joining your event.
Cannes Film Festival posted a short interview with actor Javier Bardem an hour before his masterclass at the event, thus promoting the event.
Source: Twitter
If you’re organizing a business event, highlight the speakers or the workshops people can attend. After all, these things are what attract people to buy a ticket and come to the event.
So, post about everything you have in store for the attendees, explain what each event will be, and what the speakers will cover.
More information will attract those who might be on the fence about attending.
Understanding the value of their keynote speaker, The Qatar Economic Forum announced that Elon Musk would be speaking at the event, which attracted admirers of the business magnate.
Source: Drive Tesla Canada
What’s stopping you from doing the same with your event? You don’t have to promote just the main event and speakers.
For example, if you’re throwing a music festival, you’re not just going to promote the biggest act to get their fans to come.
The more artists you promote and connect to your event, the more fans will attend.
Make Tickets Limited
A great way to get your tickets to sell fast is to claim they are selling fast.
How often have you seen an article title or social media post stressing how fast the tickets go?
These posts usually also state that the number of tickets is limited or that the time to buy a ticket is running out.
Source: Tech Crunch
Either way, the reader and potential attendee gets a sense of urgency. If they don’t act fast, the tickets might be gone. It’s a good marketing tactic because it works.
You don’t want to miss out on a conference that could help further your career or a festival performance of your favorite musician.
So, the next time you organize an event, think of ways to promote this sense of urgency.
You could announce how many tickets have been sold like MCM Comic Con did on Twitter.
Source: Twitter
Their tweet claims that over half of the tickets are sold and encourages people to buy tickets and not miss out on the event.
If you don’t want to give away the number of tickets sold, you can always add a countdown timer to your website, showing how much time there is left until the event.
These timers are known to increase sales, which is why you can look into using them on your site to sell more tickets for your event.
Increase ticket sales by announcing how fast they sell out and watch people scramble to get one for themselves!
Conclusion
Event registration can make a massive difference in your attendees’ overall experience.
An incomplete registration form, laggy website, and limited payment options can lead to dissatisfaction before the event occurs. Why take that risk?
You can use event registration software to curate a fantastic event registration experience and stay in touch with your attendees pre- and post-event.
As a result, you’ll have insight into attendees and their payment status while increasing their satisfaction.
