Paid event with multiple timeslots

In order to create your event, click the "Events" button in the menu bar above.

If you've never set up an event with guestoo before, the event overview will be empty. In order to change that, click on the "+Create event" button in the top left corner.

You will now be redirected to a new page.

Event or template

Select whether you want to create an event or an event template.

• Event:
  An event can be used productively and guests will be able to sign up for it. We recommend using this option for all events that you want to actively use, even if the registration isn't open yet.
• Template:
  Templates are mainly used to create event prototypes with the most important default data and settings. With the help of an event template, you'll be able to create multiple similar events. We recommend to only use templates for this purpose, because guests can not sign up for an event template.

We choose the option "Event" for our example, because we want to create an event that guests can actively sign up for.

What

Enter the basic data for your event:

• Name
  
  The name of the event is public and will be shown to the guests and used in your internal event overview. Choose a name that will make sense for both you and your guests.
  
  Examples: Exhibition, Guided tour ...
• Subtitle
  
  Here you can add a subtitle to further explain your event.
  
  Example: "In this exhibition you'll see the works of the artist XY."
  
  
• External event-ID
  
  Here you can add an external event ID, that you use for your event outside of guestoo, if applicable. The external event ID is not visible for guests, it's only used in the back-end for your internal administration.
  
  
• Event image
  Upload an image to make your event look more appealing. This could be your company's logo, a picture or a graphic that has been specifically created to promote the event.

You can find further information on this and the additional data you can define in the "Info" tab of your event on this page.

This is where you decide if you want to create an event that is free of charge or if there will be paid tickets.

Free of charge event

• Your guests can sign up for the event free of charge
• You can still send your guests an admission ticket which can be used to check them in at the venue
• There is only one category of guests

Paid tickets

• Your guests have to choose at least one ticket when signing up
• A ticket can have the price of 0€
• There can be multiple ticket categories with different prices

Further information regarding the event type can be found here.

For our tutorial, we'll choose the "Paid tickets" option because we want to sell tickets for our exhibition through guestoo.

Now it's time to let our guests know when and where the event is supposed to take place.

When

In the "When" section you can choose the date and start time of your event. If you want to, you can also choose the date and time of the event's end or choose the option "Open End".

Warning: Your event needs to have at least a start date and time (unless you choose the option "Event has no date" - otherwise there will be an error once you click on the "+ Create" button!

For our example, we specify that the event - in this case our exhibition - runs over several days, e. g. May 1st until May 2nd 2024.

Further information regarding the "When" section can be found here.

Type of event

The default setting in the "Type of event" section is usually "On location event". We'll keep this setting for our tutorial, but feel free to choose " Online event" or "Hybrid event" if it suits your purposes.

Further information regarding the "Type of event" section can be found here.

Where

The "Where" section is used to enter the address of the venue, where the event will take place. You can use the "Additional information" field to give your guests further information regarding the parking situation or other advice regarding the venue.

Further information regarding the "Where" section can be found here.

As soon as you have entered this basic information, you can click on the "+ Create" button on the top right corner in order to save your settings!

As soon as we've created our new event, a few more sections will appear in the "Infos" tab. In order to edit these, click on the "Edit" button in the top right corner.

We advise you to fill at least the following sections with the relevant information: 

Contact details for visitors

Enter the contact information of the person who your guests can contact in case they have any further questions regarding the event. 

Please enter the following information:

• Name of contact person
  e. g. Max Mustermann
• Phone number
  e. g. 0123 / 456 789 01
• Email
  e. g. max@mustermann.de
• Additional contact information
  e. g. "Available daily from 9am to 5pm"

Editorial texts

The texts you enter here will be displayed to your guests on the event microsite.

Please enter the following texts:

• Introtext
  Will be displayed as an introductory text on the event microsite.
• Description
  Will be displayed on the event microsite. Use the description text to give your ideas a better idea of what they can expect from the event.
• Intro text registration form
  This text will be displayed above the registration form and can be used to give your guests further information on how to fill in the registration form. You can also use personalised text blocks to directly address your guests.
• Tip: In order to personalise the editorial texts, you can use the text blocks that are displayed above the fields where you can enter the texts. In order to use a text block, click on it to save the code to your clipboard and then enter it at the desired position within your text.

Important: Don't forget to click the "Save" button in the top right corner as soon as you have entered all necessary information.

Since we decided to create an event with paid tickets, you will have been greeted with the following alerts after creating your event:

• You must have set up at least one payment option under Agency » Payment info
• You must have created at least one ticket for this event under Example exhibition > Tickets
• You must have at least one payment method enabled for this event under Example exhibition > Tickets

Enable payment options

This is how you enable one or more payment types for your event:

• Go to the "Tickets" tab of your event
• Choose which payment types you want to activate: Click on the toggle next to the payment type (green toggle = active, red toggle = inactive)
• Attention: Make sure that you have entered the necessary payment information under "Agency > Payment info" for the corresponding payment option.
  An explanation on how to set up your agency and enter the necessary payment information can be found here.

Create tickets

Now we need to create a ticket that our guests can buy in the registration form.

Here's how it's done:

• Go to the "Tickets" tab of your event and scroll down to the "Tickets" section
• Click on the "+ Add ticket" button
• In the dialogue window, set a name for your ticket, such as "Category 1", "VIP Ticket", "General admission" etc. 
  For our example, we'll call the ticket "Museum admission"
• If desired, you can also add a description for the ticket. The description will only be visible when the guests select their tickets and it will not be shown on the ticket itself or the confirmation email.
• As the ticket type, we choose "Main ticket" because our guests/visitors will have to buy at least a main ticket for this paid event.
• Unter Wer darf das Ticket buchen? wählst Du aus, ob das Ticket nur vom Hauptgast oder auch von Begleitpersonen gebucht werden darf. 
  In this example we make the ticket available for both the main guest and accompanying person, because our guests are supposed to have the option to register an accompanying person as well.
• Available quantity: The default value of this field is "-1" - this means that an unlimited amount of tickets is available.
  For our example exhibition we'll keep the value "-1", because we're going to specify the amount of available spots with our timeslots later in this tutorial.
  However, feel free to set the available amount of tickets here if it better suits your purposes. 
• If you offer various tickets or ticket categories, it's advisable to choose a color for your ticket, so that you can differentiate them both in the booking process and during the check-in process. 
  For our example we're choosing a bright red.
• Now it's time to set the price of the ticket and the VAT. You can choose whether you want to enter the net price or the gross price. 
  For our example, we choose a net price of €10 and set the VAT to 19%.
• As soon as you've entered all necessary information, click on the "+Create new" button
• The new ticket will appear in the list in the color that you've chosen.
• In order to change the settings of the ticket you've just created, simply click on the pen symbol next to the ticket.

More ticket types & additional tickets

To make things easier, we'll be working with just one ticket type in this tutorial. However, you can choose to create different main tickets that your guests can choose from. It's also possible to create additional tickets, which can be chosen on top of the main admission ticket, e. g. to enable your guests to buy a brochure about the exhibition.

guestoo offers a lot of different possibilities to individualise your event- feel free to try them out and use them in a way that best suits you and your guests. :)

In order to send our guests an invoice for their ticket purchase, we'll enable the automatic sending of invoces in the next step.

Here's how to do it:

• Go to the "Settings" tab of your event 
• Scroll to the "Automatic invoices" section
• Click on the "Edit" button in the top right corner 
• Activate the option "Enable automatic invoices" 
• If you want to send out invoices for orders with a value of 0€, activate this option as well.
  For our example we won't activate this option because it isn't necessary. 
• Activate the option "Invoice as PDF" 
  Attention: If you don't activate this option, the invoice will be displayed in the email in pure text form.
• Max. gross limit
  Enter the maximal sum of money for which automatic invoices should be generated. 
  Attention: For all orders exceeding this gross limit, there won't be an automatic invoice sent out to the guest. You'll have to create and send the invoice for this order outside of guestoo.
• Billing information 
  Here you should enter all relevant information for the invoice, such as: Full name of the company providing the service, full address of the invoicing party, note on VAT exemption if applicable...
• As soon as you have entered all the necessary information, click on the "Save" button in the top right corner

Now we should adjust the amount of guests that will be able to sign up to our event.

Here's how:

• Go to the "Settings" tab of your event
• Scroll to the "Registration process" section
• Click on the "Edit" button in the top right corner
• Enter the maximum number of guests that can sign up for the event in the "Max. guests" field
• As explained in the previous step, we want to regulate the amount of guests that can sign up with the help of timeslots that our guests can choose from. In order to make sure that there are always enough spots available, we'll enter a very high number (e. g. "9999") here.
• Click on the "Save" button in the top right corner

In addition, we want to define that we as the event organizers don't have to confirm every single guest's registration. 

Here's how:

• Go to the "Settings" tab of your event
• Scroll to the "Registration process" section
• Click on the "Edit" button in the top right corner
• Under "Guest confirmation", choose the option "Automatic confirmation after registraion" from the dropdown menu
• Click on the "Save" button in the top right corner

Further information about all the settings that can be found in the "Registration process" section can be found here.

In order to make your event a bit more pleasing to the eye, you can change the colorsn that are used for the event microsite, the registration form and the emails you send out to your guests.

This is how it works:

• Go to the "Design" tab of your event
• Click on the "Edit" button in the top right corner
• Enter the color codes (e. g. #000000) or choose the colors with the color picker
• Upload a background image, if desired
• Click on the "Save" button in the top right corner

Further information regarding the design settings of your event can be found here.

Tip: If you don't enter any colors here, guestoo will use the colors that have been saved under Agency > Design as a fallback.

In order to collect all necessary information of your guests during their registration, you can customise the registration form to your liking.

Here's how it works:

• Go to the "Form" tab of your event
• In the "Master data" section, decide which fields you want to be shown in the registration form and whether the fields should be voluntary or mandatory:
• Crossed out, red eye symbol: Won't be visible in the registration form for the guest
• Green eye symbol: Will be visible in the registration form for the guest, voluntary
• Green star symbol: Will be visible in the registration form for the guest, mandatory
• Further information regarding the master data can be found here.

Example

For our example exhibiion, we'll choose the following master data:

• Email *
• First name *
• Last name *
• Address * (necessary for the invoice)
• Accompanying person:
  First name and last name *

* = Mandatory fields

However, feel free to choose whichever master data is relevant for you. :)

The master data already covers most of the data that event organizers usually need to collect from their guests.

In order to manage how many guests can visit the exhibition at what time, we want our guests to choose a timeslot when signing up for the event.

Create timeslot field

• Go to the "Form" tab of your event
• Click on the "+ Add field" button under the headline "Event-specific fields"
• Choose the field type "Timeslots / Smart selection list"
• Description
  Enter the name for your timeslot field
  For our example we're gonna choose the name "When would you like to visit the exhibition?"
• Options
  There are different options available for this field type. For our example we're going to activate (Switch on green) the following options:
  
  • Accompanying person must choose a timeslot as well
    To make sure that every accompanying person is counted as a visitor of the chosen timeslot as well
  • Allow multiple selection, value: 1
    In order to enable the guest to choose a ticket for each accompanying person as well.
  • Selection as quantity
    We activate this option to make sure a guest can choose the same timeslot for themself and their accompanying person
  • Hide no longer available options
    Makes the timeslot selection easier because the timeslots that are already fully booked will not be displayed
  • Attach calendar entry for timeslot to confirmation email
    Makes it easy for the guest to save the date of their exhibition visit to their calendar
  • Use timeslot date in email
    Ensures that the timeslot date will be used in the confirmation email instead of the start date of the event - especially helpful for events that run over multiple days, like the one in our example
  • Marks the event as full as soon as no more timeslots are available
    Makes sure that no more guests can sign up as soon as all timeslot spots are assigned
  • Attention: All other options have been deactivated for our example (Switches on red).
    To find out what the other options mean and what they can be used for, check out this page.
• Scroll down to click on the "+Create new" button 
• As soon as you have created the field, you have the option to decide whether the field will be displayed in the registration form and whether it is voluntary or mandatory:
  
  • Crossed out, red eye symbol: Won't be visible in the registration form for the guest
  • Green eye symbol: Will be visible in the registration form for the guest, voluntary
  • Green star symbol: Will be visible in the registration form for the guest, mandatory
  For our example, we select the green star symbol, because we want it to be mandatory for our guests to choose a timeslot in order to be able to visit the exhibition.

Timeslots: Create groups and options

Now that we've created the timeslot field itself, it's time to create the options that the guests will be able to choose from. 

Timeslots can be created like this:

• Click on the field "When would you like to visit the exhibition?" that you have previously created
• Scroll down to the "Groups for the options" section and click on the "+New group" button
• We'll call the first group "01.05.2024" - this group will stand for the first day of our exhibition
• Scroll down to the "Options for the guest" section and click on the "+New option" button
• This is gonna be out first timeslot of the day. Enter the following data for this timeslot:
  
  • Label + description:
    Will be left empty for our example, but you can use these fields to further describe the timeslots.
  • Additional text for calendar entry
    Here you can enter an additional text that will be shown in the calendar entry that the guest receives in their confirmation email.
  • Meeting URL
    Empty for our example, because this isn't a digital event.
  • Availability
    Number of available spots for this timeslot.
    We'll choose an availability of "20" for this example timeslot.
  • Date + Time Timeslot Start
    We'll use May 1st 2024 at 10:00 am for our example
  • Date + Time Timeslot Start
    We'll use May 1st 2024 at 12:00 pm for our example
  • Group
    Here we'll choose the group "01.05.2024" that we have previously created
• We have just created a timeslot for a timespan of two hours, which can be booked by up to 20 people, before it will be marked as full and won't be shown in the registration form anymore.
• Since the other timeslots for this day will be really similar to this one, only differing in the start and end time, we're gonna click on the duplicate symbol next to our timeslot. In the dialogue window you'll be able to create multiple timeslots in one quick and simple step:
  
  • Activate the option "Move timeslot" (Switch on green)
  • Move by x days
    Enter by how many days the new timeslots should be moved
    We'll set this to "0" for our example because we're gonna create timeslots for this one day of our exhibition in this first step.
    
  • Move by x hours
    Enter by how many hours the new timeslots should be moved
    We'll set this to "2" for our example because we want every timeslot to be 2 hours long before the next one starts.
  • Repeat timeslot x times
    Enter the amount of times the timeslot should be repeated - in short: how many additional timeslots do you want to create? 
    Our example exhibition is open daily from 10 am to 8 pm. Since our first timeslot begins at 10 am, we'll enter the value "4" to have the entire opening time covered by timeslots. 
  • Click on the "Duplicate" button below
  • Four additional timeslots have been created: 12pm-2pm, 2pm-4pm, 4pm-6pm and 6pm-8pm
    These timeslots automatically have the same availability and other settings as the first timeslot that you've created and will be assigned to the group "01.05.2024".
• After we're done creating the timeslots for our first exhibition day, scroll down to the "Groups for options" section 
• Click on the duplicate symbol next to the group we've previously created - "01.05.2024"
• Choose the following settings in the dialogue window:
  • Activate the option "Move timeslot" (Switch on green)
  • Move by x days
    Enter by how many days the new timeslots should be moved
    We'll set this to "1" for our example because we want to create a new group of timeslots for the next day - May 2nd 2024 in our example.
  • Move by x hours
    Enter by how many hours the new timeslots should be moved
    We'll set this to "0" for our example because we don't want the timeframe of our timeslots to change.
  • Repeat timeslot x times
    Enter the amount of times the timeslot should be repeated - in short: how many additional groups do you want to create? 
    We enter the value "1" here to create one additional group.
  • Click on the "Duplicate" button below
  • A new group has been created, containing the same timeslot options as the previous one, but for a different date.
  • This group currently still has the same name as the previously created group. We'll change the name of this group to "02.05.2024" because it's supposed to represent the second day of our exhibition.
• Using these functionalities, you can create as many groups and timeslot options as you need for your event. 
• As soon as you have created all timeslot options and groups, click on the "Save" button below. We recommend to save a few times inbetween, especially if you plan to create a big amount of groups and timeslot options so that the loss won't be too big if you accidentally forget to save the changes you've made at some point. ;)

Of course you can add further eventspecific fields for your event. You'll find further explanations about the different types of eventspecific fields here.

As soon as you have customised the event according to your wishes, the first guests can register for your event.

You'll have different options for this:

1. Event microsite

• Send the public URL to the event microsite to your guests, so that they can sign up for the event there by clicking on the "Register now" button. The URL can be sent via email, SMS, etc.
• In order to get the URL, go to the menu on the right-hand side and click on the menu item "Event microsite"
• The link to the event microsite will be displayed there. You can visit this URL to check your event settings and also forward it to your guests so they can look at it and sign up for the event.

2. Registration form

• You also have the option to only use the registration form, without the rest of the event microsite.
• In order to do this, go to the menu on the right-hand side and click on the menu item "Registration form"
• Here you can choose from two options:
  
  • Send the URL that is displayed in the new window to your guests, e. g. via email, SMS, etc.
  • Copy the code below the URL and paste it to the HTML code of your own website in order to embed it there. Your guests will be able to sign up directly through the form on your website.

3. QR code

• Use a QR code to guide your guests to the event microsite or registration form. You can print this QR code on flyers, posters, printed invitations, etc.
• In order to do this, go to the menu on the right-hand side and click on the menu item "QR code"
• Save one of the two QR codes and use it for your flyer or invitation design or just print it out. You can choose from two different QR codes:
  
  • QR code to the event microsite
  • QR code to the registration form

Sometimes it can be necessary to send updates or further information regarding the event to your guests.

With guestoo you can send mailings of all kinds easily and at any time - here is how it's done:

• Go to the "E-Mails" tab of your event
• Click on the "Open mailing dialogue" button at the top of the page
• Choose the type of mailing
  The mailing type "Standard" can be used for all kinds of mailings
• Choose the recipients of the mailing
  You can choose one or multiple statuses. Only the guests who have one of the chosen statuses will receive the mailing.
• Personalise the mailing
  Use the placeholders and dynamic text blocks to individualise the mailing and address your guests personally. Simply click on the placeholder/text block of your choice to copy it to your clipboard and paste (Right click > Paste or CTRL + V) it to the desired spot in your mailing.
• Send your mailing (or save it for later)
  Once you're done, click on the "Send" button in the bottom right corner. If you don't want to send it yet, you can also choose to only save the mailing for now to send it out at a later point.
• Done :)

Tip: If you want to personalise your invitation emails, you can also send them through the mailing dialogue as described above, by choosing the mailing type "Invitation".

Once your guests have signed up for the event or you added them manually, you have different options to manage them and check them in and out of the event. 

Check out our other tutorial to find out how.

guestoo has loads of other features and settings that we haven't covered in this tutorial to keep it as short and easy as possible.

We'd like to encourage you to click your way through our tool and play around with the different options and settings to find new ways of making the organisation of your event as easy and fun as possible for you. Almost all settings are reversible, so that you can't really do anything wrong. :)

In our Documentation for Organizers you'll find further inspiration and explanations for all of our features. And if you still find yourself in need of help at some point, feel free to send us an email to support@guestoo.de at any time, so we can help you out.

But for now, we hope you'll have fun exploring and planning your events with guestoo! :)