Two requests kept arriving from opposite directions, and they turned out to be the same request wearing different clothes. One asked for custom fields on the ticket checkout. The other asked for them on the RSVP form.
One organizer put the reason more plainly than a feature request usually manages:
“The types of events we are offering require at minimum an option to disclose dietary requirements for refreshments.”
That is the whole problem in one sentence. You know who is coming. You still have no idea what they drink or eat.
Food is only the start. A community day hands out shirts and needs sizes. A conference runs two tracks and needs to know who picked which one. So you send a second email after everyone has signed up, then you chase the four people who never replied, and the answers end up in a spreadsheet that stops matching your attendee list the moment somebody cancels.
Say hello to Registration Forms
Sugar Calendar Events can now ask your attendees whatever you need to know, right as they buy a ticket or RSVP.
You build the questions on the event itself. The answer arrives with the registration and sits on that person’s record, next to their name and their ticket. No second email, no second list.
Ask what your event actually needs, with no extra plugin
Open any event, go to the Registration Form tab, and switch it on. You get a small form builder with five kinds of question: a text field, a longer text field, multiple choice, checkboxes, and a dropdown. Each one can be marked required, so nobody gets through the form having skipped the thing you most needed.
Dietary needs, shirt size, a company name for the badge, accessibility requirements, which of your two workshop tracks someone wants. If it fits one of those five field types, you can ask it here.
Decide whether the questions come before the sale or after it
This is the setting I would think about first, because the right answer differs by event.
Pick Before Checkout and the questions become a step in the checkout, ahead of payment. The primary button on the first screen changes to Continue, the attendee answers, and then they pay. Use this when the answer is something you cannot run the event without.
Pick After Checkout and the sale completes untouched. The attendee lands on their receipt and the questions appear there instead. Use this when you would rather not put anything between a willing buyer and the checkout button.
Get an answer from every person, not just whoever paid
One person buying tickets for their whole team is the case that used to defeat a spreadsheet. You knew what the buyer wanted for lunch and nothing at all about the other five.
Collect data for handles that. Leave it on Main Attendee Only and you ask the buyer once. Switch it to Each Attendee and everyone in the party gets their own set of questions, in their own collapsible block. On RSVP events each block carries that person’s name. On ticket checkout a block is headed by the attendee’s name and ticket type once you have them, and by a number until then.
Once your event has more than one named ticket type, a third row lets you aim the questions at the types you choose rather than all of them.
It works the same way for RSVP events. Somebody says they are going and brings a guest, and both of them answer for themselves. Anyone who responds “not going” is never asked anything.
Read the answers where you already look
The answers show up on the order you already open when a customer emails you, and on the RSVP attendee screen you already use to check your numbers.
They are editable there too. Somebody will reply to your confirmation email saying they meant to pick vegetarian, and you can fix it in the place where you are already standing.
Nobody falls into the gap between the sale and the form
If you ask after checkout, somebody will eventually pay, close the tab and never answer. We built for that.
The ticket email itself carries a link straight back into the unfinished form, under a short “Complete your registration” note. If it still sits unanswered, a reminder email goes out with the same link. Either one opens the form on the event page from the link alone, with the attendee’s name already on it and no login to get through.
You can also turn on Edit after submission, which puts an edit link in the confirmation email so an attendee can change their own answer later. Follow that one and their previous answers are already in the fields, ready to change. The option is available on after-checkout forms, which are the ones that create the link it needs.
What this looks like on a real event
Take a volunteer-run community conference. One day, a few hundred people, a catered lunch, and a shirt in the welcome bag.
Before this, the organizer sold tickets, exported the list, mailed everyone asking about food and sizes, and spent the next two weeks reconciling replies against cancellations. The caterer got a number that was a week out of date, and about a dozen shirts went to nobody.
Now the two questions are part of registering. Dietary needs as a text field, shirt size as a dropdown, both required, both asked of every attendee rather than just the person who paid. On the morning the caterer needs the count, the organizer opens each order and the answer is already there against that person’s name. Two people who bought late and skipped the form got a reminder with a link back to it, and answered without anyone having to write to them.
Who will feel this most
- Community and nonprofit organizers running catered or capped events, who need one specific thing from each attendee and currently have to ask for it by hand.
- Class, workshop and tour operators selling seats, where the answer shapes what you prepare: sizes, skill level, equipment, which session someone chose.
- Agencies and freelancers building event sites for clients, who have been assembling this out of a form plugin plus custom fields on every single build.
Getting your first form live
Five steps, and the first four all live on the event you are already editing.
1. Switch it on where the event already lives. Open the event, click the Registration Form tab, and flip the toggle to On.
2. Write your questions. Add a field, pick its type, give it a question title, and tick Required if the answer is not optional. Add as many as your event needs.
3. Choose when and who. Set When to fill the form to Before or After Checkout, and Collect data for to Main Attendee Only or Each Attendee. If your event has more than one named ticket type, a third row lets you aim the questions at specific ones.
4. Publish, and check the front end. Buy a ticket or RSVP on your own event once. It takes a minute and it is the only way to see the form the way your attendees will.
5. Read the answers. Ticket answers appear on the order under Events » Tickets, and RSVP answers on the attendee screen under Events » RSVP.
For the full walkthrough, including what your attendees see at each step, there is a complete guide to creating a registration form in the docs.
What you need to use it
Registration Forms ship in Sugar Calendar Events 3.13.0, on every paid plan.
Which plan you need comes down to how people sign up for your events. Selling tickets is built into Sugar Calendar itself, so a ticketed event needs nothing beyond a paid plan. RSVP is a separate addon included with Plus, Pro and Elite, so collecting on an RSVP event means one of those three.
If you are on Lite and this is the thing you have been working around, the Events pricing page has the plans. Every one of them comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Why this matters more than one new tab
Collecting anything past a name and an email address has usually meant bolting a second tool onto the event. That is how organizers end up running two systems for one event: the calendar that knows who is coming, and the spreadsheet that knows what they need.
Keeping those in sync is unpaid work, and it is the kind that goes wrong quietly. A cancellation lands in one place and not the other, and you find out at the catering order.
The point is one list instead of two. Your event asks what it needs, and the answer stays with the person who gave it.
Try it on your next event
If you are already collecting this by hand, pick your next event and move those two or three questions into the form. It is a five-minute change, and the difference shows up as the second email you never have to send.
Thank you to everyone who asked for this, and especially to the organizers who explained why they needed it rather than just what they wanted. That one sentence about dietary requirements shaped how the feature works, not just whether we built it. If something is still missing for the events you run, tell us.
Gregor Capuder
Product Manager
Frequently asked questions
Every paid plan, starting with Basic. Which one you need depends on how people sign up: a ticketed event works on any paid plan, because selling tickets is built into Sugar Calendar itself. An RSVP event needs Plus, Pro or Elite, since that is where the RSVP addon is included.
Yes, both. The same form builder serves your ticket checkout and your RSVP form, and you set it up the same way on either. The only difference is the plan: ticketed events work on any paid plan, and RSVP events need Plus, Pro or Elite, because the RSVP addon is included from Plus up.
Only if you want them to. Set When to fill the form to After Checkout and the sale completes exactly as it does today, with the questions appearing on the receipt afterwards. Before Checkout is there for the answers you genuinely cannot proceed without.
Their ticket email carries a link back into the form, and a reminder email goes out with the same link if it is still unanswered. The link opens the form with their name already on it, and they do not have to log in to finish.
If you turn on Edit after submission, their confirmation email includes a link to edit what they submitted. The option applies to after-checkout forms.
Five field types: a short text field, a longer text field, multiple choice, checkboxes, and a dropdown. Each field can be required, and the choice-based types take as many options as you need.
You can ask each person the same questions individually, which is the usual need, by setting Collect data for to Each Attendee. Once the event has more than one named ticket type, a further setting lets you aim the form at the types you pick rather than all of them.
On the order, under Events » Tickets, for ticketed events, and on the attendee screen under Events » RSVP for RSVPs. In both places you can read them and edit them.
