Running an event, and the day itself
Tickets, waitlists and the door; teams for anything team-based; live sessions with Q&A and polls; and the emails that go out before it. What the platform does on the day, and the one thing it does not.
What you will learn
- How to find events worth going to, and what registering gets you
- How to set one up, and which decisions are hard to change later
- What happens at the door, and the three ways to check people in
- What the platform does not do - so you plan for it rather than discover it
Finding something worth going to#
Events come from the pages you follow, the communities you have joined, and recommendations based on what you have attended before. You can also just search.
- Filter by category, format (in person, virtual, hybrid), date, location and price
- See what is trending, what is on this week, and what is live right now
- Bookmark anything you are undecided about - saved events are in your profile
- Registered events show up in one place, with your ticket
What kind of event you are creating#
The type you pick decides where the event surfaces in discovery and which filters find it, so it is worth getting right.
- Networking - informal mixers built around meeting people
- Pitch event - startups presenting to a room, competitively or not
- Demo day - a cohort showing what it built at the end of a program
- Workshop - hands-on, people leave having made or learned something
- Conference - multi-track, multi-speaker, usually ticketed
- Hackathon - time-boxed building, usually with prizes
Good to know
Bootcamp, panel, fireside chat, webinar, meetup and Other exist too. Other is fully discoverable - it is not a dead end, so use it rather than forcing a bad fit.
Tickets, and who gets in#
Ticket types carry their own capacity and price, so you can run early access, a partner tier and general admission on one event.
- Free or paid, with payment taken at registration
- A separate ticket type per audience - early, partner, student - each with its own price and capacity
- A waitlist that holds the overflow when a type fills, and promotes from it when somebody drops
- Approve registrations by hand where places are limited
- Cancellations, with refunds where money was taken
Set the capacity slightly low
A waitlist that promotes people is much easier to run than a room that is over capacity. You can always raise the number; you cannot un-sell a ticket gracefully.
Teams, for anything team-based#
Teams form in the platform rather than in a spreadsheet, which matters mostly because of what happens after they form: people drop out, teams merge, and somebody has to know who is actually coming.
- Participants create a team, invite people, or ask to join one that is short
- A join code, so a team can bring people in without you chasing individuals
- Invite somebody who is not on the platform yet, by email
- Transfer the team lead, remove a member, or leave
- You approve or reject teams before the day
- Export the whole list when somebody outside needs it
The day itself#
Three ways to check somebody in, because the right one depends on the door you have.
| Method | When to use it |
|---|---|
| QR scan | A queue and one or two people scanning. Fastest per person. |
| Bulk check-in | A list you are working through, or a room that arrived together. |
| Per session | Multi-track days where you need attendance per session, not per event. |
Important
Check-in is what feeds attendance and certificate eligibility. If nobody checks people in, the analytics afterwards show registrations and nothing about who actually came.
Running it live#
Anything virtual or hybrid runs on video in the platform, and the session can be paused and resumed rather than restarted if something goes wrong.
- Start, pause, resume and end a session; people join from the event page
- Audience questions, which you can pin - and which the audience can upvote, so you answer the one most people want answered
- Live polls during a session
- Recordings kept afterwards, alongside any other media you attach
- An agenda with sessions, speakers and tracks, and more than one organiser if you need it
Emailing the people who registered#
Campaigns go to registrants, and you can target confirmed attendees rather than everybody. Two reminders are set up by default - one a day before, one an hour before.
- Start from a template, preview it, and send a test to yourself first
- Schedule it, or cancel it before it goes
- Post updates to the event page for anything that does not need an email
Tip
Always test-send. The preview renders in the composer; the test send renders in an actual inbox, which is where broken links and missing images turn up.
What this does not do#
Worth knowing before you plan around it rather than discovering it on the day.
- There is no judging or scoring. If you are running a competition, judge it however you already do - a spreadsheet, a panel in a room - and use the platform for registration, teams, the door, and the attendance record that decides who earned a certificate
- There is no project submission portal. Collect work wherever you normally collect it
- There is no screen sharing inside the live session. Present the way you would on any other call
Afterwards#
- Collect feedback from attendees
- See who registered against who actually turned up
- Mark who is eligible for a certificate
- Duplicate the whole event to run it again, keeping the setup
Tip
Duplicate is worth knowing about before you run something recurring. Recurring dates are supported too, but a duplicate is the right tool when the next one is similar rather than identical.
