Taking bookings for an event

When people need to sign up for an event, whether it’s a church weekend, a course or a Christmas lunch, the right tool depends on whether you need to take payment. Here’s how to choose, and how to set up the most common option.

Taking sign-ups with a form

1. For free events, or events paid for on the door, a form on your website is the simplest route. Create one in the group the event belongs to; our guide on creating a form walks through it.
2. Ask only for what you need: name, contact details, numbers coming, and anything practical such as dietary requirements.
3. Link the form from the event. Open the event, use the ‘Link’ icon to point at the form’s page, and consider the option that sends people straight to the link.
4. Responses are stored in the web office, and can be exported or emailed to whoever is organising; see the form response guides in our Documents section.
5. Test the whole journey yourself: find the event on the site, follow the link, submit the form, check the response arrives.

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Good to know

• People don’t need an account on your site to fill in a form, which keeps sign-ups friction-free for visitors.
• If you need to take payment online for tickets or bookings, or you want ticket limits, per-person choices and age restrictions even for a free event, that’s a payment group: start with taking bookings for a free event or the full Finance guides.
• Booking rooms and equipment for the event itself is a different job from taking attendee sign-ups: that’s handled through the event’s Bookings tab and the Resources guides.