Events: Overview

Events let you run ticketed and invitation-only events end to end: build the registration page, sell tickets, invite constituents, email them, and track who came.
​
Registrations and revenue tie back to donor records, so an event is part of the giving history rather than a side spreadsheet.
​

Open Events from the left navigation.

Every event appears with its name, start date, and status. Search by name, and use the tabs to filter:
​

All is everything. Published is live and accepting registrations. Draft is still being built and is not visible to anyone outside your team.
​

Each tab carries a count.
​

Click + Add New to create an event, or select an existing one to open it.
​

An event is configured across five tabs. You can move between them freely and come back later, since the event stays a draft until you publish it.

The Configuration tab holds everything about the event itself: what it is called, when and where it happens, and how it looks.

The date fields are labeled UTC while the Time Zone field is set separately. Set the time zone first, then check the registration page preview to make sure it shows the time you expect before publishing.
​

Capacity is what makes the waitlist work, so set it if the venue has a real limit.
​

Tick Show map on registration page to display a map, then enter the Latitude and Longitude, and optionally a Place ID.
​

Set a Brand Color and upload an Image. The image appears on the registration page, so use something that represents the event rather than a generic logo.
​

Start from a previous event: beside the Name field, copy the setup from an event you have already run.
​

Use it for anything annual. A gala or luncheon that repeats each year keeps its ticket types, emails, and branding; you just change the dates.

The Ticketing tab controls what people can buy, where the money is attributed, and any discounts you offer.
​

Click + Add ticket type for each kind of ticket. Existing types are listed with:

Edit and Remove sit to the right of each row.
​

Two things worth thinking about. Guests per unit makes table sales work, which is why a registration count and a guest count can differ. And setting a capacity per type lets you hold back a block, for example, capping student seats so they do not consume the whole room.
​

Set the Primary Campaign and Primary Fund that event revenue is attributed to, then Save.
​

Do this before you publish. Attribution set afterward will not reach registrations that have already come in, and correcting those means editing gifts one at a time.
​

Both dropdowns are populated from your site, so the campaign must exist under Fundraising > Campaigns before you can select it here.
​

Click + Create promo code to add a discount.
​

Codes appear in two groups:

Disable rather than delete a code after it has been used. Disabling stops further redemptions while keeping the history of who used it.

The Communications tab holds the four emails an event can send and the schedule for when they send.
​

Edit Email Template
​

Each card shows whether it has been written. Click Compose to write your message.

Below the templates, Automation Rules lists the schedules currently active across the event's emails, for example a reminder one week before, a reminder one day before, and the thank-you the morning after.
​

Edit beside any rule changes its timing. The reminder's schedule is set inside its Compose window rather than here, and this list is the summary view.
​

Two reminders is a sensible default: one far enough out that people can still arrange their week, and one the day before. Add more only if the event genuinely warrants it.

The Guests tab is your invitation list and your waitlist.
​

Search under Search constituents to add people. Each invitee is listed with their name, email, RSVP status, and whether the invite has been sent. Remove takes someone off the list.
​

Two rules govern how invites go out:

The first rule is the one that catches people out. Build your invitee list before publishing, or the first batch of invites goes out to a half-finished list.
​

Once the event reaches capacity, further registrations go to the Waitlist rather than being turned away. The count is shown on the right.
​

Check it before the event. A waitlist is a reason to release held-back tickets or find extra seats.

The Dashboard tab shows how the event is doing and, on the day of the event, serves as your check-in list.
​

Registered, Attended, No-show rate, Total revenue, and Add-on donations across the top. Attended and no-show rates populate as people check in.
​

Each ticket type shows how many were sold, its capacity, the revenue it produced, and its share of the total, plus a total row and add-on donations.
​

This view shows which price point worked, which is worth knowing before you set next year's.
​

Your ten highest lifetime givers who are attending, with their ticket type and check-in status.
​

This is the most useful thing on the page. Before the event, it tells you who to greet by name and who to seat carefully. During it, the check-in column tells you whether they have arrived yet.
​

The full attendee list, with counts for registrations, guests, and check-ins at the top right.

Registrations and guests are different numbers. Eighty-eight registrations covering one hundred and twenty-six guests means catering for one hundred and twenty-six.

An event moves through three states, and the buttons at the top right change with it.
​

Every new event starts here. The badge reads DRAFT, and only two actions are available: Preview and Publish event.

Nothing is public, no invites have gone out, and nobody can register. Build the event over as many sittings as you need.
​

Preview opens the registration page as a visitor will see it, without publishing anything. It works in both draft and published states.
​

Preview before every publish. It is the only way to catch a wrong date, a missing image, or a time that landed in the wrong time zone before anyone else sees it.
​

Publishing makes the event live. The registration page goes public, people can register, and the invite email sends to everyone currently on the invitee list.
​

Because publishing triggers the invites, have these in place first: dates and venue correct, ticket types set up, campaign and fund attribution saved, invite email written or deliberately left as the default, and your invitee list complete.
​

The badge turns PUBLISHED, and three more actions appear: View public page, Close event, and Unpublish.
​

View public page opens the live page you share.
​

Close event stops new registrations while keeping the event and everything in it. Use it after the event has happened, or once registration should end.
​

Closing is the normal end state. Everything on the Dashboard stays available for reporting, and the event stays on the record of everyone who attended.
​

Unpublish takes the event back out of public view and returns it to draft.

Use it when something is wrong, and you need the page down while you fix it. Be careful once invites have gone out, since people with the link will find a page that no longer works.
​

Close event and Unpublish are not the same. Close is the graceful ending of an event that ran. Unpublish pulls back something that shouldn't be live yet.

Steps 2 and 3 are worth doing before you publish. Attribution set after the fact means the early registrations land on the wrong campaign.
​

On the Configuration tab, Start from previous event copies the setup from an event you have already run. Useful for annual events where the gala or luncheon repeats with the same ticket types and emails.

Published events have a public registration page showing your header, description, date, venue, and ticket types, with a three-step flow: Tickets, Contact, then Payment.

Use View public page to open it, or Preview to check it before publishing.