Your event

Waitlist

Collect the names of people who miss out on a ticket, and offer them places that free up.

When a ticket type with a waitlist is fully booked, its row on your event page shows Join the waitlist. People leave their name and email, and answer any questions you chose. Each person joins for one place, and nobody is charged.

When a place frees up

When a place becomes free, it stays off your event page while anyone is waiting for it, so buyers still see Fully booked. If the ticket type is set to Open a waitlist and email people in order, they’re emailed in the order they joined. The first person hears straight away, and each person after them hears when the time you chose under Email one person every has passed. The first to register gets the place, and everyone else stays on the list.

A place becomes free when an order is canceled or refunded, when somebody doesn't finish paying, when a ticket is moved to another type, or when you raise the number available.

Offering places by hand

If a ticket type is set to Open a waitlist and choose who gets each place, nobody on its list is emailed when a place becomes free. The Waitlist screen shows how many places are free, and Offer to the next person… offers them to the people who have waited longest.

To offer a place to somebody further down the list, open their record and choose Offer a place… under Actions, or use Select to pick several people. You can do this on any ticket type, including one that emails people in order.

Before anything is sent, you choose how long each place is held. The email's boxes start empty, and leaving them empty sends our standard email in each person's own language. Start from a suggested message fills them with our words for you to change. Sent unchanged, they still go out in each person's own language.

Nobody else can buy a held place until the time runs out. If they haven’t taken it by then, they go back to waiting in their old place on the list.

You can offer more places than are free. Whoever is too late to take theirs is told the place has gone and stays on the list.

To take an offer back, open their record and choose Withdraw the offer under Actions. They aren’t sent an email.

What people are sent

Joining sends them an email that says it isn't a ticket. Every waitlist email has a link to leave the list, and leaving asks them to confirm first.

Somebody who joins a second time keeps their place and is sent an email saying they're already on the waitlist.

The email's Take the place button opens the ordinary checkout with the ticket already chosen. Somebody who gets there after the place has gone is told so and stays on the list. If someone else takes the last place during checkout, the person returns to their own offer page to see its current status.

A place is paid for by card or PayPal. Bank transfer isn't offered when somebody takes a place, so on an event that only takes bank transfer, the offer page says the place can't be paid for online and they stay on the list. The Waitlist screen warns you when that's the case, with a link to connect Stripe or PayPal.

The Waitlist screen

Waitlist appears in your sidebar, under Manage, once a ticket type or a workshop has a waitlist switched on. People are listed in the order they joined.

Export downloads everyone on the list as a spreadsheet, in the order they joined. Each time in it can have two columns: one in UTC, and beside it one in the event's timezone, which its heading names. Tito's starting points tick both. A selection you saved before keeps the columns it had.

Open someone's waitlist record to see their answers, their details, the emails they've been sent and their place in the queue. Only you see the place in the queue.

Message these people opens Messages with Everyone on the waitlist chosen, narrowed to the ticket and status the screen is showing. Nobody who left the list is sent it.

To take somebody off the list, open their record and choose Remove from the waitlist under Actions. They aren't sent an email. They're counted under Left the list, along with people who left themselves.

Adding someone by hand

Add someone puts a person at the back of the queue. Email them to say they’re on the waitlist is ticked to start with. Untick it to add them without an email.

Switching a waitlist off

Switching the waitlist off hides Join the waitlist from your event page. Everyone already on the list stays on it, and Waitlist stays in your sidebar.

Workshops

A workshop can have a waitlist too. Switch it on from the workshop's own page, under Waitlist. It covers every option in that block.

People who already have a ticket that includes the workshop join from their ticket. A fully booked option shows Join the waitlist, and they keep the option they have until a place becomes free. They can only join for an option at the same price as the one they have. Someone whose ticket has no option yet can join too, for an option at the ticket's own price, and the email's button gives them the place.

When a place becomes free, everyone waiting for that option is emailed in the order they joined, one person every so often, as you chose under Email one person every. The email's button moves whoever presses it first into the option and out of the one they had. Nobody is charged. The place they leave goes to the people waiting for it, or back on sale if nobody is.

A ticket that admits several people is only emailed when there's room for all of them. Someone behind them who fits may hear first, but after one gap between emails, places that free up are kept for the bigger ticket, and nobody else can take one until it has had its own turn.

On the Waitlist screen, somebody waiting for a workshop is listed under the workshop's name and the option they're waiting for. An option with no name goes by the day and time it starts.

To give somebody a place yourself, open their waitlist record and choose Move them to… under Actions.

Somebody whose ticket is refunded, passed to someone else or given a different email address, or who can't change their options any more, is taken off the workshop's list. If they're taken off because changes have closed, or because the option has changed so their ticket can't move into it, they're emailed to say why, and which option they're booked into. Nobody is emailed when the ticket was refunded or passed on, or when their own change to their options caused it.

Good to know

• The button shows only while the ticket's sales are open.
• The button appears on your event page. The widget, audience pages and invitations don't show it.
• A place you sell yourself, from the door or by adding an attendee, can be one that’s held for somebody on the list.