The Conference Playbook
Run a conference or workshop end to end - tiered registration, custom forms, speaker categories, reminders, check-in, and the post-event funnel.
The Conference Playbook
A conference is a hundred moving parts pretending to be one event: tiers, sponsors, speakers, dietary requirements, a check-in queue at 8 a.m., and a follow-up everyone means to send and nobody does. This playbook runs the whole arc on Trankets - including the part where this year's attendees become next year's presale.
Who this is for: conference organizers, summit hosts, workshop and training facilitators.
Before Tickets Go On Sale
1. Gauge demand with a waitlist
Months out, before dates are locked, open a waitlist - "Be first to hear when registration opens." Add one Dropdown question ("Which track interests you most?") and you are doing program research while you collect the launch list. Signups land in a contact group automatically.
2. Build the event properly
Create the event with a full description, then work through the Manage tab:
- Tickets: Super Early Bird → Early Bird → Standard → VIP, each with stock and sales windows. Price in NGN and USD if your audience is international - buyers meet the currency you priced. Set Total capacity to the venue's number.
- Registration form (Invitation Page → Registration Form): dietary needs, organization, role - asked at registration, stored per attendee, exported later.
- FAQs: venue, parking, refunds, dress code - up to 20, answered once instead of two hundred times.
- Email Template: your confirmation email in conference branding. The QR ticket rides along automatically.
- Categories & Tags (managing attendees): create "Speakers", "Sponsors", "Volunteers", "VIP" up front - they power targeted communication later.
- Hybrid? Virtual event hosting (Pro and up) gives remote attendees a private join page that always carries your current stream link.
3. Launch to the waitlist first
Email the waitlist group the registration link before the public sees it - early-bird urgency plus a warm list is how the first tier sells out in a day. Recruit partner organizations and speakers as affiliates with tracked links and promo codes so every registration credits the right partner.
The Run-Up
Reminders with event-relative offsets do the drumbeat: "1 week before" (logistics), "1 day before" (what to bring), "2 hours before" (room and stream links). If the schedule slips, relative reminders move with it. Target by category - the speaker briefing goes to Speakers only.
Check Email Analytics the week before: the Unreached attendees list is who your emails never reached - fix those addresses before someone arrives holding nothing.
Conference Day
The Check-in Portal scales to a conference queue:
- Several registration desks, one portal - every phone scans against the same list.
- Speakers and VIPs are visible by category at a glance; issue day passes on the spot with Give a ticket.
- "My colleague registered, I'm attending instead" - Correct ticket holder moves the ticket in one step.
- Multi-day? Same QR all days; your dashboard counts people through the door, not raw scans.
The Week After
The conference funnel, in order:
- Import from Event into "Attended [Conference] 2026".
- Thank-you email within 48 hours - slides, photos, recordings.
- Sell the recordings as a product to everyone who could not make it, linked to its own contact group.
- Open next year's waitlist while the goodwill is warm - the loop closes, and next year starts with this year's room. That is the flywheel.
When to Upgrade
Conference math is capacity math: each plan tier raises the attendees-per-event ceiling. Add the per-ticket fee shrinking each tier, virtual hosting on higher plans, and the email volume a large event actually consumes - for a real conference, the plan is a line item, not a decision. Check your venue size against the current limits on the pricing page.