Currently, this feature is only available for free tickets
We're building the ability to charge for a successful waitlist place, and will update this article by April 2025
Running a waitlist on your tickets is a great way to capture demand after the ticket has sold out. If a participant signs up to the waitlist, they will also opt in or out to marketing which will enable you to keep in touch with future event updates if they don't manage to get a place.
How it works
With this first iteration, when a place becomes available the first participant on the waitlist will be automatically added to the startlist for the event. In order to join the waitlist, the participant fills in the full event booking form and clicks 'join waitlist'. If a place becomes available, they will be automatically added and sent a confirmation email as a notification. At this time, the participant does not need to accept or decline the place, they will be automatically added to the event.
Places will be automatically offered to members of the waitlist if another participant transfers, withdraws, or is cancelled by the Event Organizer. Set a deadline for transfers or withdrawals by contacting your Technical Account Manager.
You can set up a waitlist on your event at any time. Navigate to Manage Event > Tickets > Edit > and scroll down to the Waitlist section. Waitlists need to be enabled on a per-ticket basis.
FAQs
Can I set a deadline for waitlist entries being accepted?
You can set a deadline for participants who are already in the event to transfer or withdraw their entries by contacting your Technical Account Manager.
What are the circumstances where an entry might be let in from the waitlist?
If the Event Organizer refunds, cancels, defers, or transfers an entry via their dashboard
If the Event Organizer marks the Startlist Entry as 'To be transferred'
If you have transfer, defer, or withdraw options switched on for your participants, so they can manage their entries themselves View help guide for setting these up
What happens if I update the booking form for the ticket, while the waitlist is running?
If you update the booking form it will update for the waitlist as well. Participants will fill in any new questions and the new fields will appear in the startlist table.
What happens if I update Capacities while my waitlist is running?
In the Limited Capacity tab on Manage Event: if you increase the capacity of a ticket for example by 10 places, the next time someone cancels their entry and a waitlist person is entered, there will be up to 11 people entered from the waitlist. The next person cancelling triggers the capacity update.
This is being updated, so that when you increase capacity of the ticket it will automatically pull those places from the waitlist, and if there aren't enough, it will reopen public registrations on that ticket.
Can I cap the amount of people who can join a waitlist?
Not yet, the waitlist will continue to accept signups until your reistration closing date.
As an Event Organizer, can I override the waitlist order if there's someone I want to be chosen first?
This is not currently possible, the waitlist would be drawn in the order the participants signed up.