When organizing events where audiences actively participate, such as amateur sports or business conferences, the registration process is crucial for ticket sales and enhancing the attendee experience. Unlike simple transactions, these events require a nuanced information exchange.
1. Explaining the process
The journey starts by clearly explaining registration requirements, including necessary data, IDs, and documents. From our experience, it’s not sufficient to just list information in a newsletter or webpage. The trick is to not overwhelm your attendees with data at once, but show meaningful explanations and examples while they’re preparing for the ticket purchase.
If you have the system set up properly, you’ll notice where the most common issues are. For example – The user needs to provide a certain ID but can’t find it. Have a pop-up available that will show the user where it’s located and how to get it. Need to choose a t-shirt size for the goodie bag but don’t know what the measures are? Have an information bubble available right next to the dropdown showing the size grid for different countries and how to take your own measures to ensure the best fit. Explain the steps as they come.
A well-structured outline, supplemented with examples, can demystify the whole process and set the right expectations from your audience.
2. User Registration
The user registration phase is central to this journey and it can be broken down into the following steps:
- Start by collecting basic details, offering returning users with profiles the convenience of auto-filled forms
- Gather event-specific data tailored to the event type, such as attendance reasons and language preferences for a scientific conference
- If necessary, ensure legal and safety measures are in place by having participants sign waivers, submit necessary certificates, and recognize any liabilities
- Always address extra aspects like insurance and refund policies before payment, as these can impact the final cost. You don’t want to surprise your users with a price increase at the very end
- Conclude the registration process by presenting various payment options for the participants to choose from
Contrary to conventional UX design favoring minimal steps, a more detailed registration process can be beneficial, particularly when the registration process is complicated and requires more data gathering. In such cases, it’s actually beneficial to add extra steps and require more clicks to finish the flow IF it makes the process clearer and less convoluted for the user. Even though the overall time to finish the registration might be longer, it will reduce the need for follow-up support and user inquiries later on.
The user registration phase of our journey offers two strategic approaches:
- For events where most information is optional, streamline registration but allow adding details later on through an online form in the user profile. Keep in mind that this way only a small percentage of participants will provide additional data. Giving an incentive, such as a discount for a future purchase or registration upgrade can be beneficial
- In cases where detailed information is mandatory, you can add countdown timers that will push the customers to finish the registration process in one sitting, making most of the data mandatory to finish the payment. However, you need to give the participants the ability to change the data later on up to a certain date
3. Informing the user
Post-registration, it’s essential to keep attendees updated about the event timeline, registration points, and on-site procedures. Provide insights into peak registration times, and consider offering a livestream of waiting lines and online updates on average wait times. For on-site activities like document signing or gear collection, add an online check-in option akin to flight registrations.
Go beyond standard thank-you emails by regularly updating attendees about the schedule and preparations through engaging content like videos, blog posts, and newsletters, showing them what to expect at the venue.
All in all, a multistep registration process is more than just a ticket-selling mechanism – it not only streamlines the registration process but also creates trust and satisfaction among attendees, ensuring successful and memorable events.
