20 - Enable registration to build your audience

The below article will provide an overview of the registration page capabilities, and show you the attendee registration journey for each public (open) and private (RSVP) registration.
To find out exactly how to create your registration page in Backstage, please refer to:
Set up a public - open registration page
Set up a private - RSVP registration page
Set up a combined public - open & private - RSVP registration page

Registration page overview of capabilities

To build your audience, confirm attendance, collect attendee information, and manage access to your event app, you can enable registration for your event.

This is done using a fully customizable online page with forms that registrants can access and complete as part of their registration journey.

With a registration page you can:

• Create a registration landing page with all your event details.
• Add a main registration form to collect mandatory information, as well as optional additional forms that can even be conditional based on the information that your registrants provide in the main form.
• Collect attendee registrations to agenda sessions.
• Adjust the design and branding of your registration page to fully match your organization or event's identity.
• Fully control who can register and access the event, by opening and closing registration, allowing only certain registrant email address domains, adding a manual approval step, making it private - RSVP, and enable SSO (for open registration or public & private combined only).
• Add a registration capacity limit with optional waitlisting.
• Select exactly which emails will be sent out during the registration process, based on the  information provided by attendees when they register, and even apply targeting.
• Allow your registered attendees to go back and update their profile information or RSVP response, if needed.
• Track your event registrations.

There are three types of registration approaches that you can use:

• Public (open) registration: the event attendee list is not known and is open to public registration via the URL.
• Private (RSVP): event with a set list of attendees who will be specifically invited to the event. Attendees cannot access it if they are not invited.
• Public (open) and Private (RSVP): The event is open for public registration, but a section of the audience will be specifically invited to attend via RSVP.

Important notes:
- To avoid losing part of the registration page's forms when a workspace is created from a workspace template (or is unarchived), the registration page in the workspace must to be enabled in the same mode (open/public, RSVP/private, or combined public/RSVP) as it was in the template or in the previously archived workspace.
- Do not delete metadata fields that are used in registration forms. You must remove them first from registration forms before deleting them.

Public - open registration page

With a public - open registration page, you don't need to have a list of attendees uploaded to your workspace. You can openly advertize your event in order to sign-up attendees, collect any information you need from them, and fully manage their access to the event.

These are perfect for virtual events that have no limits to the number of registrants, or for large hybrid events that you want to make open to the public.

Registration journey for public - open registration

1. Attendees access the registration landing page, and register using their email address.
   This page contains the event details and the Register now field where attendees will sign-up by adding their email address. It also contains optional Add to calendar and Log in buttons ("Log in" button is only visible if enabled and the event is in "production" status).
   
2. Attendees complete  their profile information in the main registration form
   After entering their email address in the landing page and clicking Register now, attendees can access the main registration form. This is made up of customizable fields designed to collect all mandatory and optional information from the attendees in order to create their profile page in Backstage. Once the attendee has filled in the necessary fields, they can click on the Complete registration button:
   
   
3. Attendees are taken to additional optional/conditional forms
   OR (if no additional forms are configured) Attendee registration is confirmed
   After filling in the registration page main form and any optional additional forms, attendees see the below screen:
   
   They also receive a registration confirmation email that can be customized to align with your specific registration journey. For example you can navigate attendees to your event if the app is ready, or simply thank them for their registration and inform them that they will receive more information closer to the event.
   
   To note, access to the event can be fully controlled at all times, and a manual approval can also be added to the registration page if needed.

Find out how to set up a public - open registration page, and discover all the available options 

Private - RSVP registration page

With a private - RSVP registration page, you will invite a specific audience to your event via email.

You will upload or import your list of attendees to the workspace user list, and then send them an RSVP invitation email to request that they confirm whether they are attending the event.

Registrants must use the invitation link included in the RSVP invitation email to access the RSVP registration page and confirm their attendance. If they do not use the link, they will not be able to access the main registration form.

This can be perfect for private in-person events with limited seats, and with a known list of potential attendees that you want to receive confirmation that they are attending. This is a great way to facilitate planning and logistics for events.

Registration journey for Private - RSVP registration

1 - Attendee receives RSVP invitation email
RSVP email contains three options: "YES, I will attend" / "NO, I won't attend" / "View event details":

2 - Attendee clicks on "View event details" in email
Attendee is taken to the registration landing page, where they can see the event details and choose to click on Yes, I will attend or No, I will not attend.

3 - Attendee clicks on "YES, I will attend" or "NO, I will not attend" in the invitation email
OR after clicking on Event details
The attendee is taken to the main registration page form, where they can confirm their response to the RSVP and fill in any necessary fields with their profile information:

If they select NO, I will not attend, the attendee is always taken to the following form, where they can either click on "Submit" to confirm the they decline the RSVP invitation, or they can click on "Back" to return to the main registration form and change their response./modify their profile information.


If they select YES, I will attend, the attendee is taken to the following confirmation screen:

When creating your RSVP registration fields, you can add additional forms designed to collect information such as "Why are you not attending" (if the RSVP response is NO) or "How are you traveling to the venue?" or "Where are you staying?" (if the RSVP response is YES). More details on this are available in the how to set up a private - RSVP registration page article.

After responding  attendees can click on Go back to the registration page. This will take them to the landing page with the events details, where they will see an Update my profile button (if this is enabled in the settings):

Find out how to set up a private - RSVP registration page, and discover all the available options 

Public & Private registration page

Design your registration page so that it caters for both public AND private RSVP registration.

Examples:

An in-person event with a high number of seats (that can be made available via public - open registration), and a limited number of "VIP" seats for potential attendees that you have already identified and have their contact information (and that can be invited to register via private - RSVP).

OR

A hybrid event with unlimited seats for remote attendees (that can be made available via public - open registration) and a limited number of in-person seats for potential attendees that you have already identified and have their contact information (and that can be invited to register via RSVP)

Using a combination of the two approaches described above can allow you to offer a tailored registration journey to each attendee type.

Find out how to set up a combined public - open & private - RSVP registration page, and discover all the available options