Skip to content

How Attendance Works

Attendance in Eventene is a state per person, per Activity (and per overall Event). Every participant carries one of four states, and you control how that state is determined.

The four Attendance states

State Meaning
Attending The person has confirmed they will attend
Waitlisted The Activity is at capacity; the person is waiting for a spot
Not Attending The person has declined
Undecided The person has not yet responded (default initial state)

This four-state model applies to both the overall Event and each Activity inside it.

Three ways attendance is determined

When you build a Program, you choose how attendance is determined at two levels.

For the overall Event

  • Ask if Attending (default) — each participant is asked whether they will attend
  • All Attending — everyone is assumed Attending; participants are not asked

For each Activity

  • Ask if Attending — participants are asked separately whether they will attend this Activity
  • Link — this Activity follows the overall Event's attendance state. If the participant is Attending the Event, they are Attending this Activity.

Link is the default for new Activities. This is why most Activities do not appear as separate questions during registration — they inherit the Event-level answer.

Use Ask when an Activity is optional or has limited capacity (for example, a workshop where the participant chooses among several).

How this shapes what participants see

The combination of settings shapes the registration experience:

Event setting Activity setting What the participant sees
Ask Link One attendance question for the whole Event
Ask Ask One Event question + one question per Ask Activity
All Link No attendance questions (everyone is auto-Attending)
All Ask Only the Ask Activity questions appear

Use this table when designing a registration experience that feels appropriately short.

Attendance Limits and Waitlists

Activities that use Ask can have an Attendance Limit — a maximum number of Attending participants. When the limit is reached, additional sign-ups are placed on the Waitlist.

Waitlist behavior options:

  • Automatic (default) — when an Attending person changes to Not Attending, the next person on the Waitlist moves up automatically
  • Manual — Waitlisted people stay on the Waitlist until an organizer changes their status

Once anyone is on a Waitlist, no new participant can jump to Attending — even if a spot opens later — until the Waitlist is cleared. This keeps the line fair.

A note on "Linked"

You may see the word linked used in three related-but-distinct attendance contexts. They all flow from the same idea (an Activity follows the overall Event) but apply to different parts of the system:

  1. Attendance Link — the Activity's attendance state follows the Event's
  2. Response Timing Link — the Activity's "when can people respond" window follows the Event's window
  3. Linked Activities hidden from Step 1 — Activities with Attendance = Link do not appear as separate questions during the first step of registration

If you change an Activity's attendance to Ask, all three of these behaviors change for that Activity.

See Also