[Events 2.0] Ability to Activate Event Without a Ticket, Ticketless Free Events

[BeckyC95]

PLEASE take out the requirement of showing a ticket.  We use CC for meeting registration and the meetings are free.  If all of our events look like they are "FREE" and they have to have a ticket, it will look very bad on our company.  If this doesn't change in the VERY near future, we will be leaving constant contact...and we have been with you for years.  This is NOT a good change.  Tickets should not be a requirement. 

[BeckyC95]

Thanks all for your feedback. We have heard your pain points and are actively working to address the feedback many of you have mentioned in this thread. We will take a multi-step approach to resolving these concerns, with the goal being to alleviate some of this pressure ASAP: 

1. Add "customizable" labels to Tickets, Add-ons, & Contact information headers in the registration flow so that they can be tailored to your event use case. (IN PROGRESS - releasing in May) 
   • Examples: Registration fees, Volunteer shifts, Meal choices, Class add-ons, etc. (IN PROGRESS - releasing in May) 
2. Revamp our registration flow and reporting pages for events with no associated cost. 
   • When an event has only free tickets & add-ons, we will tailor the Reporting pages, Registration flow, and Confirmation pages/emails so that they do not have any pricing-related language. (Order summary --> Registration summary)

What we are working to address longer-term (second half of 2024) is to rework the event platform so that we can offer a registration-based model that does not use tickets as its primary artifact. This work will be significantly larger than the first two changes I mentioned, so we're starting with those to provide a more immediate solution. 

Thanks for sharing your feedback so we can continue to improve the Events product! I hope you all can see how the work we've prioritized this year has been almost entirely guided by customer feedback. We can't wait until this is a product that you all "love!" 

[Bbeach]

It would be really helpful if there were an option in Events 2.0 for non-ticketed events. All of our events are client appreciation events - they are free to attend and no ticket or purchase of any kind is required. When registrants enter their email address at registration there's language under the email address field that says "this will be used for your receipt" and there's no way to remove that text. They're receiving registration confirmation - it's not a receipt if they didn't purchase anything, and it's confusing to our clients when they see that, as it gives the impression we're going to be charging them for something. It's also a time-waster to have to set up a ticket for every event when we don't use them at all. My principals really want me to be able to use Events 2.0 because the invitations look so much more up to date than the legacy invites we've had for the past few years, but it's really hard for me to justify using a tool that is ultimately making my job more difficult.

[TimG]

For free events the need to select a number of tickets when registering is very frustrating. This would otherwise be a perfect way for me to handle registration for free webinars. If it was at least possible to set the default number of tickets to 1, that would help so registrants could simply click the button to continue. But now they need to click the plus button to increase the ticket count from zero to 1. Then click the button to continue. Then fill in name and email and click the button to finalize registration.

I just need to capture their name and email address for the event, so that they're on the list and can get confirmation and reminder emails. But I fear that the way you have events structured now would cause many folks to either be confused or just give up on the registration process.

I would love it if it were possible to have an event that you can register for simply by filling in your name and email address. Or at least make the default number of tickets 1, because why would you ever want zero tickets? It has to be at least one, so please at least set the default to 1.

[Jesus_F]

Thanks all for your feedback. We have heard your pain points and are actively working to address the feedback many of you have mentioned in this thread. We will take a multi-step approach to resolving these concerns, with the goal being to alleviate some of this pressure ASAP: 

1. Add "customizable" labels to Tickets, Add-ons, & Contact information headers in the registration flow so that they can be tailored to your event use case. (IN PROGRESS - releasing in May) 
   • Examples: Registration fees, Volunteer shifts, Meal choices, Class add-ons, etc. (IN PROGRESS - releasing in May) 
2. Revamp our registration flow and reporting pages for events with no associated cost. 
   • When an event has only free tickets & add-ons, we will tailor the Reporting pages, Registration flow, and Confirmation pages/emails so that they do not have any pricing-related language. (Order summary --> Registration summary)

What we are working to address longer-term (second half of 2024) is to rework the event platform so that we can offer a registration-based model that does not use tickets as its primary artifact. This work will be significantly larger than the first two changes I mentioned, so we're starting with those to provide a more immediate solution. 

Thanks for sharing your feedback so we can continue to improve the Events product! I hope you all can see how the work we've prioritized this year has been almost entirely guided by customer feedback. We can't wait until this is a product that you all "love!" 

[BeckyC95]

It was like this before? Why does it take so long to go back to what it was? This ticket thing messed up a really good program. We have already switched to CVENT and it’s so much more difficult that constant contact but I can’t use constant contact any more bc of the ticket issue. 

[Jesus_F]

@BeckyC95 The new event platform was built with "Tickets" as its primary supporting artifact, whereas the legacy platform was built on top of "fees." This unlocked a new level of flexibility that Legacy didn't offer, which many of our customers have appreciated and have been asking us for. 

We understand that this is not the case for all of our customers and are working to make the new platform flexible enough to deal with/without tickets, as I described above. 

[Jesus_F]

Hi everyone. As a step towards resolving some of the feedback that has been shared in this thread, we've introduced the ability to rebrand the "Tickets" + "Add-ons" artifacts to your contacts and registrants so that they can be more specific to your various event use cases. 

Below is a video walkthrough of how to use this new feature. You can also find written directions in this Knowledge base article. 

I hope this alleviates some challenges with the new Tickets model while we continue to work towards larger improvements to resolve the pain points you've all mentioned in this thread. 

Thank you to everyone for your feedback! 

Cheers, 
Jesus F. 

[evelynrupert]

I appreciate that Constant Contact is working on this, and just want to echo what others have said! For a nonprofit organization, the current setup is at odds with the types of free events we're hosting, and there are concerns that we're deterring community members from registering. Hope to see a more permanent fix implemented soon! Thank you!