When you set up an event in ClearEvent, you'll need to tell the system when your event starts, and when it ends. Sometimes, choosing your event's start & end date is not as easy as one might think. There are a number of things you'll want to consider before you settle on the event date you set in ClearEvent.
Know Your Audience
The first step to choosing the right start/end date is to know your target audience. Most events have a number of different participant types (paid guests that have bought tickets or registered to attend, vendors, exhibitors, suppliers, staff, volunteers, VIPs, etc.). If your event has many different participant types, you'll likely need to communicate different start or dates.
For example, the event start date for an Exhibitor may need to be a day earlier than your public "doors open" date.
So, if you have a similar scenario, what do you do? What start date should you set in ClearEvent?
Picking Your Event Start/End Date
Here's what we generally recommend when picking an Event Start/End date:
If you need to communicate different start/end dates to different participant types, we generally recommend that you set your event start & end date to be the public "doors open" and "doors close" date . This will avoid confusion for your general admission participants. Don't worry, this won't affect your ability to setup things like tickets, registration forms, availability periods, schedules, to-do's, and job assignments outside of your "doors open" event start date.
If you're using ClearEvent to manage similar participant types (e.g. Exhibitors and Staff), and you need them both to arrive before the public "doors open" date, set your event start date to be a day earlier than your public "doors open date".
Use the Schedules section to add specific schedules for each type of participant so that each participant type will have a customized event schedule. As an example, you could create a "Exhibitors Schedule" that is shared only with Exhibitors and that lists the first day of your event 1 day earlier than your default event "doors open" date.
Use the Messages section to remind any specific participant type of any difference to their schedule. You can event paste a link to the schedule into any message you send out to make sure your
Still struggling to choose an event date? No worries, reach out to us using chat and we'd be happy to help.
Happy Planning!