I’m hosting an event: should I use a ticket or a form?
We touched a little last week on the question of forms or tickets for events. We’re sorry, this is our fault: we’ve provided you with two super excellent tools, and we understand if you’re having trouble picking and choosing between them. While both of these options are viable possibilities, there are definitely circumstances where one is better than another.
Tickets
This should be your go-to option for most situations. Are you hosting a recurring event like a weekly meal or a seminar series? Do you want to control the number of event attendees? Is your event relatively simple? Sounds like the perfect place to offer tickets!
Our ticket system provides for a lot of customization. Like any product you might offer in an online store, you can provide different ticket options. For instance, if you’re providing a meal, you can offer different tickets for different dietary options. Or maybe you have a selection of seating options, or want to offer a ticket with a special bonus? You can create as many different options as you like, and restrict the number of tickets available for each type.
Forms
Use our form builder when you need to gather a bulk of detail for a one-off event. We’ve created a super powerful and versatile tool, but in most cases it will be more than you need. Forms also come with a distinct disadvantage when you’re using them for event hosting: all the data you collect is stored in the same database. This means that if you use the same form for multiple events, you won’t know which respondents are going to which event. To work around this you would have to create and entirely new form for each event, but if you do this too often you will soon find your form page cluttered and hard to navigate.
To recap:
Use tickets when:
- You’re hosting a recurring event
- You want to limit the number of ticket sales
- Your event is relatively simple.
Use forms when:
- Your event is a once-and-done affair
- You want to gather a large quantity of data
- Never use the same form for a recurring event
So, now that you’ve got an idea what these tools are built for, go crazy! Sell some tickets! Gather some data! And if you still have some questions, give us a shout! We’d love to help you, and it might give us another great topic to blog about!