Combine paid tickets and free registrations in one event

Would you like to allow both paid ticket purchases and free registrations for specific groups within a single event? Here's how to set this up.

Activate private event

Since only a specific group should receive free access to your event - while all others need to use the ticket shop - you must mark the event as "private" in this setup. This ensures no additional or unknown contacts can register for free.

To do this, activate the “Activate private event" toggle in the registration form settings under the "Forms" menu item, as explained in this article.

Create a second event website

Since you'll be managing two audience types (ticket buyers and free registrants), you need two separate event websites:

• One for your ticket buyers, where you integrate the “Tickets” widget into the website structure to activate your ticket shop.
• One for your free registrations, bypassing the ticket shop and linking directly to the registration form. Here, add the “Registration” widget instead.

If you haven't yet created an event website, proceed as described in this article. 

You can also save your first website as a template and then create the second one based on that website template.

If you want to display different content on each website, you can edit the second site accordingly - or build a completely new website.

Set up group token

Since your event is set to “private” you must use a group token for anyone not receiving a personalized invitation via personalized token.

To set up a group token follow the detailed description in this article. 
Be sure to link the token to your defined fallback group (e.g., “Ticket buyer”).

Your unknown participants can then open the ticket shop, fill out the registration form and are added to the fallback group.

You can either share the event website link along with the group token, which participants manually enter in the token field or embed the group token directly into the link, as explained in this section of the group token article. 

Set up messages 

Since registrations are happening through two different event websites, you must include the correct links in each group’s messages.

For ticket buyers

All ticket buyers automatically receive the message “Purchase Confirmation” that you have set up, to the e-mail address they entered during their purchase.

If your ticket shop is on the “Default” website, you can use the placeholders [[event.register]] or [[event.personalSite]] in these messages to link back to the registration form. 

Alternatively, you can create a personalized link with a token placeholder, as described here.

If you want to refer to the personal registration page again in follow-up messages, be sure to use the same correct link or placeholder.

For free registrations

If you're inviting free participants personally via evenito messages, or want to give them access to their registration form in a confirmation message, do not use the same placeholder link you used for ticket buyers.

Instead, insert the full link to your second website (without ticket shop), including the personal token placeholder, as explained here.

This way, free participants bypass the ticket shop while still having personal access to their registration form.

Simple example of message overview

If you're publicly sharing the ticket shop via a link (including the group token), you don’t need to send invitations to ticket buyers via evenito.

Your free participants, on the other hand, will be invited personally via evenito in this example.

In the example below the group “Standard” is your fallback group, i.e., ticket buyers (linked to the group token). The groups “Partner” and “Sponsors” represent free participants, bypassing the ticket shop and accessing the second website.

They receive different content in their invitations but register through the same website (with possible group-specific forms) and receive the same registration confirmation.

All messages not requiring different content or linking back to the registration form (e.g., “Check-In Data | QR Code” or “Thank You for Coming”) can be sent to all groups.