Set tickets, capacity and questions

Open Events (opens in a new tab), choose your event, then choose Edit event to change its ticket setup. The Config tab gives you a summary of the current settings — ticket types, capacity pools and how full each is, the places you hold off sale, and the event options — and links back to the editor. To change a pool’s capacity quickly, choose its number of places on the Config tab.

Choose ticket types and capacity

A ticket type is an option a guest can choose, such as General admission or Volunteer. Give each option a clear name, and add a description from its ⋮ menu if guests need more to choose by. With Tickets on, turn on Advanced and then Multiple ticket types to add more; until then the event has one ticket type, set with Ticket price and Capacity. Split into pools, in the ticket editor, opens the pools.

Until you turn on Split into pools, every ticket type shares one Capacity. A capacity pool is a supply of places. For example, linking General admission and Volunteer to one pool of 50 means they share 50 places in total. Separate pools give each option its own allowance. Leave a pool’s capacity blank for unlimited places.

Set Max tickets per customer if you want to limit how many seats one account can book for this event. The limit applies across its bookings for the event.

A single free ticket type gets a one-click Register (or RSVP) button that books one place. Turn on Ticket quantity picker (Quantity picker on an RSVP event) under Advanced to let a guest choose how many places to take in one go — a plus-one, a family. Events with several ticket types or a price show the picker anyway.

A new event starts with Tickets off, which suits a birthday, a dinner or any gathering where tickets feel like too much. Guests RSVP instead: they still take a place and still appear on the Guests tab, and capacity, approval, the waiting list and registration questions work as before, but nobody receives a QR code, a PDF or a Wallet pass, and there is no check-in. Paid events need tickets on: switch Tickets on in the event options for a price, a QR code at the door or several ticket types. You can turn tickets on at any time, even after people have RSVP’d, but not off once anyone has registered.

Multiple ticket types editor with the General admission and Volunteer ticket types above two capacity pools, Places of 50 and Extra places of 10. — Each ticket type lists the pools it draws from. With Split into pools on, the pools sit below the ticket types: Places holds 50 and Extra places 10. Example event and guest details.

Link ticket types to capacity pools

Turn on Split into pools in the ticket editor to give ticket types their own or overlapping allowances. Every ticket type draws its places from the pools linked to it: under each ticket type, choose Pool to add every pool it may use. The ticket capacity shown beneath is the total across those pools.

When a ticket type has more than one pool, a booking takes its places from the first pool in the list with enough room for the whole booking. A booking is never split across pools, so put the pools in the order you want them used: tap a pool to move it earlier or later, or to remove it.

Every ticket type needs at least one pool, and the event will not save without one. A ticket type whose pools are all full appears as Sold out on the event page. Guests can still see it, but cannot choose it until a linked pool has room again.

Turning Split into pools off makes every ticket type share the first pool and its capacity, and removes the others. A pool that already has bookings or held places cannot be removed, so the save refuses it.

General admission listing Places then Extra places as its capacity pools, and Volunteer listing Places only. — General admission draws from Places first, then Extra places once Places is full. Volunteer uses Places only, so both ticket types share those 50 places. Example event and guest details.

Hold places

A hold keeps places off public sale, such as 20 for the door or 10 for the artist. Holds live on the event’s Config tab: choose Hold places, enter how many, and add a label such as Door to remember what they are for. An event can have several holds, and on an event with several pools you choose which pool each one comes from. A pool with unlimited places has nothing to hold, so set a capacity first.

Guests never see held places. Once only held places are left, the ticket type and event show as sold out, exactly as if they were full, and a waiting list collects people as it would for a full event. To put places back on sale, open the hold’s ⋯ menu and choose Change to hold fewer, or Release to let them all go. If anyone is waiting, they are offered the released places first.

You can only hold places that are still free: with 150 of 180 places taken, at most 30 can be held. Capacity cannot go below the places already taken plus those held, and a pool with holds can’t be made unlimited or removed until you release them. Holds are copied to dates you add to a series later. The Capacity pools section shows how many places are held in each pool and how many are left to sell.

Choose how guests get a place

Require approval lets your team review free registration requests before confirming them. Turn it on for the whole event under Advanced, or choose Require approval in a ticket type’s ⋮ menu in the ticket editor, which marks it Needs approval — a free Press or Speaker ticket that needs approval can sit beside paid tickets anyone can buy. If someone picks a ticket type that needs approval, their whole order waits for your decision.
A waiting list lets people queue when places are unavailable. Switch it on under Advanced in the event’s options. A waiting-list entry is separate from a ticket, and while anyone is waiting for a ticket type, new bookings of that ticket type join the queue rather than skipping it.
The queue is under Guests, in its own Waiting list view next to the guest list, while the waiting list is on. Its settings are there too: with automatic allocation on, newly available places are offered in order; pause it and your team offers places by hand instead. The tab also shows how many places are free for each queued ticket type and how many the next group wants.
A group request must fit in full. By default the next group in the queue waits until all of its places are free; you can instead let the first group that fits take them.
Maybe / Can’t go responses, under Advanced, let guests who are unsure or cannot come say so on the event page. A response holds no place and is not a ticket. Answers appear with each guest’s name on the event’s Maybe / Can’t go tab, which stays while the option is on or anyone has answered.

Add registration questions

Create a reusable form in Forms (opens in a new tab) and add your questions.
Choose Once per event for one set of answers from the buyer, or Once per ticket when each seat needs different information.
To ask some guests extra questions, choose Add dynamic section and give it a rule: show the section when the ticket type name contains a word, or when an earlier answer matches. For example, a VIP ticket type capped at 50 places plus a section shown when the ticket type contains “VIP” asks only those 50 guests what breakfast they would like.
Open Edit event, turn on Advanced, and choose Registration form to link your form. Choose whether it should be completed before checkout or after registration.
Review the questions from the guest’s point of view before sharing the event.
To have the door see an answer, such as a dietary need or a shirt size, open the question’s More (⋯) menu and choose Show at check-in. Its answer then appears on the scanner’s result for that guest, with nothing extra to tap. Every question starts with it off, and image answers can’t be shown at check-in.
Answers are never lost. If you edit the form, link a different one or remove it, the event’s Form responses tab keeps every answer already given, grouped by form and version and shown beside the questions as they were asked.
Guests who registered before you linked a form are not asked it automatically. After you link or swap a form, or change it in a way that leaves guests with a new question or an answer that no longer fits, RealEvents offers to ask them (you can also choose Ask guests to answer on the event’s Form responses tab at any time): show a reminder on the event page and My Events, email them a request, or both. Rewording, reordering or removing questions never asks anyone again.
Asking again never affects a guest’s ticket, and a guest answering the same form again starts from the answers they gave before. Each guest is emailed at most once per request, and their newest answers replace the earlier ones on the Form responses tab, which keeps the earlier ones one click away.

A registration form asking about painting experience and access needs before the booking is completed. — Preview the questions as a guest. Required questions must be answered before completing this registration. Example event and guest details.

Check the result

Save your changes, then review the Config tab and public event page. Check the ticket names, capacity, per-customer limit and approval settings together.

Paid tickets depend on your payment setup — see Get paid (opens in a new tab).

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