Understanding Registration Limits, Open/Close Times, and Capacity Rules

When enabling registrations for an event, the plugin allows you to control how many people can register and when they are allowed to register.

Defaults

You can set the default values for these options on the plugin main settings page, found at Events > Settings > Registration. These settings will then automatically be applied to all new events you create, unless changed in the event settings for a specific event.

Event Capacity Limit

The “Event Capacity” setting is used to limit how many people are able to register for an event. To change the capacity, update this field to any number.

If you don’t want to set a limit, then you can use the “Unlimited Capacity” setting to enable an unlimited number of people to register for your event.

How these Affect Event Registration

When you limit the capacity of an event to a certain number of attendees, a note is shown above the Register button for your event which states how many spots are left. So, for example, if your event capacity is set to 30 and 20 people have registered, then it will let users know that there are only 10 spots left.

If the capacity limit is set to be unlimited, then no note will be displayed above the button.

Once the event capacity has been reached, the Register button will be hidden and a note will be displayed to let users know that registration has been filled for this event.

Registration Open and Close Times

By default, registration for an event will be open immediately as soon as an event is created and will allow users to continue to register for an event right up until the event starts. You can change this using the “Registration Opens” and “Registration Closes” options.

You can choose to either create an open or close date relative to the start time of the event, or pick an actual fixed date and time to open and close it.

Relative to Start Time

If you select this option, then this will reveal a setting to set the registration opening time relative to the day and time that the event starts. You can choose to set it to be as many days before the start date as you like. For example, if the event starts at 6pm on May 10th, then if you set the registration opening to be 7 days before this, then it will open at 6pm on May 3rd.

The same goes for the registration closing. If the event starts at 6pm and you set the registration to close 4 hours before, then it will close at 2pm that day.

If you change the date or time of an event, then the registration open and close times will be automatically changed to be relative to the new event start date and time.

Custom Date

The “Custom Date” option allows you to select a fixed date that registration opens and closes. Just select this option and a date picker will be displayed. This date and time won’t automatically change if you change the time or date of your event.

How these Affect Event Registration

If a user visits the event page before registration has opened, then a message will be displayed in place of the Register button which lets them know when registration will open.

Note: The format of the date displayed in this message can be changed used the setting in the following location: Events > Settings > General > Date Format > Registration Timeline.

If the registration opening date/time has passed, or if there was no opening date/time set, then the Register button will be displayed which allows the user to register for that event.

If the event registration has closed, then the Register button will no longer be visible and is replaced by a message stating that registration is now closed.