We are very excited to release a new feature in our Event Management Software Service: two-steps registration process. This is an optional feature that is born from the aspiration of many Tango Marathon and Encuentro Milonguero organisers to control who can join their events.
It is common for this kind of tango events to limit the number of participants and normally they receive more registration requests than they can accommodate. In addition, Tango Marathons and Encuentros Milongueros offer a role balanced event (similar number of leaders and followers) and some of them even like to oversee the dancing level and/or personality of their participants in order to prepare a particular experience.
The result of all this is that the registration process tends to have a first step (pre-registration) where the people interested in taking part in the event submit their details for consideration. There is no payment required at this point since no formal registration has happened yet. Once the organiser makes a decision, the participant needs to be informed whether he has been accepted or not. If the answer is affirmative then the participant is asked to pay, which is what it is considered the second step of the registration process.
Tangopolix Event Management Software is now perfectly capable of supporting this registration flow and makes it much more efficient, faster, clearer and safer for both participants and organisers. It works like this:
- The participant selects the tickets he wants to buy (maybe there is only one ticket for the whole event), fill in his details in the registration form and clicks the "Register" button. At that point, an order is created automatically with status "CREATED" where all his details are captured.
- He is not asked to pay in that moment, instead, he is shown a message explaining that his registration request is under consideration. The order is moved automatically to the "PENDING" status and NO tickets are generated.
- The organiser logs into his tangopolix account and can change the status of the order to either "READY FOR PAYMENT" (participant accepted) or "CANCELLED" (participant rejected). This action can be performed with a couple of clicks and, in both cases, the participant is notified automatically.
- If the order is in "READY FOR PAYMENT" status, the notification that the participant receives has a button saying "Pay now order XYZ" (he can also pay by logging in to his tangopolix profile and going to his orders' section). When he clicks the button he is presented with the form to enter his credit/debit card details. If the card is accepted then the order status is automatically changed to "CONFIRMED" and tickets are generated and sent to the customer on the confirmation email.
Main Benefits
The way Marathon and Encuentro organisers work today demands an enormous amount of time maintaining pre-registration and registration lists, asking for and chasing for payments, communicating with participants at every stage of the process (in the majority of cases in different languages), preparing the guest lists for the event, etc. And it is not only laborious, since it requires so much human intervention this manual process is error-prone and lasts a long time from the moment a participant submits his information until the organiser receives payment.
In order to accommodate this lengthy process, organisers keep opening the registration earlier and earlier, which creates a bad feeling within participants since it is difficult for them to know if they can commit to something happening in 7 or 8 months time.
Tangopolix Event Management Software allows running this process in a much shorter amount of time, automatically communicating with participants at every stage of the process in their language of choice. The Event Organiser can approve or decline registrations very easily with a single click and all the registration information, guest lists and tickets get created automatically as participants complete the process.
Participants not only receive notification emails at every stage of the process but also can log into their tangopolix account at any time to see the status of their registration, which cuts down on the amount of back and forth emailing with the organiser. And more importantly, participants feel much safer when paying by credit/debit card since their payment is protected by Visa and/or Mastercard.
This creates a win-win scenario where both participants and organisers greatly benefit from a much simpler, faster, transparent and secure registration process.
Talk to us about your Tango Marathon or Encuentro Milonguero and start managing registrations like a real pro.