Registration

Common RSVP Scenarios

Step-by-step setups for the RSVP situations teams ask about most. Approve public registrants, close at capacity, offer Maybe or Virtual, skip the landing page, split an event into sessions, and more.

Why it matters

Your event rarely wants the default

Invited partners should walk straight in while strangers from LinkedIn wait for your review. The dinner caps at 40. Some guests are joining by video. Each of these is a handful of settings, and this page names them.

How to use this page

Find your situation

Each item is a question teams ask us. Open it for the exact settings to change and what tends to trip people up.

Check the result

Most settings live on Registration » Invite Landing Page. When you’re done, set Previewing as to each kind of guest and read the line naming their buttons.

How do I make public-link registrants wait for approval, while guests I invite are confirmed right away?

Go to Registration » Invite Landing Page and set Are RSVPs open? to Open.
Under How guests get in, turn on Public link.
Turn on Waitlist everyone who uses this link.

Guests on your personal links are accepted when they RSVP. Anyone who comes in through the public link lands on your waitlist, and you approve them from the guest list.

There’s no separate “require approval” setting. The waitlist is how you approve. Don’t set Are RSVPs open? to Waitlist for this, because that waitlists your invited guests too.

Someone already on your guest list who registers through the public link skips the waitlist and is accepted. To waitlist them as well, turn on Also waitlist guests you already added.

The button doesn’t have to say “waitlist.” Rename it to “Apply to Attend” or “Request an Invitation” in the template editor.

How do I approve someone from the waitlist so they get the confirmation email and calendar invite?

Open the guest list and filter RSVP status to Waitlisted.
Change the guest’s status to Accepted.
When asked, choose to send the confirmation email.

The Accepted confirmation email carries the calendar invite by default, so approving and sending is one step. The waitlist email has no invite attached, which is why guests don’t see the event on their calendar until you approve them.

Never set a waitlisted guest to Declined to turn them away. They can come back and accept themselves. See Capacity & Waitlists for how to reject a guest without that risk.

How do I let guests forward the invite, see where registrations came from, or keep it from spreading?

A personal link belongs to one guest. Whoever opens it responds as that guest, so a forwarded personal link can overwrite your guest’s RSVP.

To let guests pass it on: turn on Public link and include it in your invitation for guests to share.
To see where registrations came from: create a referral link for each channel or co-host from Referral links. The source shows in the Referral Link column on your guest list.
To keep it contained: turn on Require password and share the password only with the people who should register, or pair the public link with Waitlist everyone who uses this link so you approve each one.

Referral links are variants of the public link, so they only work while the public link is on. See Registration Links.

How do I remove Decline, or add Maybe, and show different choices on personal and public links?

Go to Registration » Invite Landing Page and use What guests can choose. Each row has a Personal switch and a Public switch, so a guest you invited can see Decline while the public link shows only the yes button. Accept is always on and can’t be turned off.

The template editor won’t do this. Deleting a button’s label there leaves a blank button on the page. The template only decides how the buttons look.

The Public column appears once the public link is on. If you don’t see a Decline row at all, your org always shows Decline.

How do I offer a Virtual option alongside attending in person?

Under What guests can choose, turn on Maybe for the links that should offer it.
In the template editor, rename the Maybe button to “Attend Virtually.”
In your survey, add the virtual follow-up questions and show them only when the RSVP is Maybe.

Those guests still show as Maybe on the guest list. Filter by that status to see your virtual attendees.

How do I control what guests see after they say no?

In the survey, switch between Will attend and Will not attend at the top of the questions. Guests who decline see only the Will not attend questions, so you can ask one question about why, or none.

To change the heading on the page they see after declining, go to Registration » Invite Landing Page, open Everything else, and edit After RSVP no under Confirmation page.

The Will not attend questions appear the first time a guest replies through their personal link. A guest who changes an earlier yes to no doesn’t see them.

How do I close registration when we hit capacity or a deadline, and waitlist everyone after that?

Go to Registration » Invite Landing Page, set Are RSVPs open? to Open, and turn on Close them automatically.
Under Close when, turn on Capacity is reached and enter a Guest capacity, turn on A date and time passes and pick the cutoff, or both. Whichever happens first closes RSVPs.
Under Then guests get, choose Join Waitlist to keep collecting names, or RSVP Closed to stop.

Capacity counts plus-ones, because each one is its own row on the guest list. A 40-person cap with 30 guests and 15 plus-ones is already over.

These rules only run while RSVPs are Open. If you switch to Closed or Waitlist by hand, the automatic close stops, and your capacity and date are kept for when you switch back.

How do I skip the landing page so guests go straight to the form, or confirm with one click?

Go to Registration » Invite Landing Page and turn on Skip the page, go straight to the survey under How guests get in. It applies to every link, personal and public.

With survey questions, guests land on the form. With no survey questions, clicking the link confirms them, and the confirmation email with the calendar invite goes out. That’s the one-click save the date. See Save the Date Pre-Registration.

Because there’s no page, there are no buttons, so nobody can decline from the link. If guests need to say no, leave this off and use the landing page.

How do I let guests register once, pick sessions or days, and get a calendar invite for each?

Each event sends one calendar invite, so anything that needs its own calendar entry needs to be its own event in Gatsby.

Create an event for each session, dinner, or day.
On the main event’s form, add an Event RSVP question, Multiple Events - Multiple Select, and choose those events.
Invite guests to the main event.

Each session a guest picks sends its own confirmation email with the right time on the invite. Guests appear on the main guest list and on every session they chose.

You don’t need to link the sessions to the main event as parent and child. See Forms and Surveys for single-select tracks and follow-up questions based on what guests pick.

How do I show certain questions or sessions only to certain guests?

Give guests a tag or a custom field, such as a Guest Type of VIP, Speaker, or General. Then, under any custom question, click Only ask Question If… and set it to that field.

Everyone gets the same page and form, and the form shows each guest only what applies to them. To offer a session to some guests only, put its Event RSVP question behind the same condition.

See Forms and Surveys for the setup.

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