Tips for taking an event live

Taking time to prepare before going live with your Race Roster event page helps minimize errors and reduces last-minute changes after launch. It ensures that the event delivers a smooth, professional experience for both event organizers and participants. Below we outline best practices and expert tips relevant to a variety of settings and tools, so that—ahead of going public with online registration—you can feel confident that your page is ready for action.

1. Verify payment processing configuration

Confirm that your payment profile is accurately filled out, associated to the event, and approved. Ensure that any required identity verification and compliance steps are finished within Stripe Connect. This way, payments can be accepted without errors once registrations open. 

Your payment profile details should read: Approved & Enabled. Learn more about setting up Stripe Connect payment profiles.

2. Review event details for accuracy

Carefully inspect all core event settings before making your page public. Confirm the event name, date, location, time zone, contact information and event summary. Accurate details reduce participant confusion and support enquiries after launch. Does the Race Roster page reflect what is publicly available on your home website?

Expert tip: When duplicating a past event page for a new year, complete a date audit across your new event details page and any custom content pages or blocks. Check that all year-specific references have been updated accordingly. While custom content can be duplicated, it does not automatically adjust dates or locations to the new year. Therefore, this should be reviewed manually.

3. Review sub-events, start groups and limits

Confirm that all sub-events, start groups (also known as waves or corrals), and participant limits are set up correctly. Ensure that any capacity or restriction settings reflect your event’s needs. 

Remember: Limits and start groups can always be amended after going live, but it's best to set them up in advance to avoid accidental overselling.

4. Review waivers, terms and policies

Verify the language used in your custom participant waiver, volunteer waiver, terms and conditions, and refund and transfer policies. Clear and accurate legal and informational text helps set expectations for the public, protecting your event and its organizers.

Tip: Look for last year’s dates in this year's waiver, and make edits accordingly. Learn more about custom waivers.

Tip: If you do not have a refund policy (as a waiver, or checkbox registration question), consider enabling the Race Roster Refund Protection Program. Learn more about the Refund Protection Program.

5. Complete the registration process from a participant’s perspective

Go through the registration flow using the button on the event details page. As if you were a participant, select a sub-event, answer questions, add products, join teams, create fundraising pages and proceed to the checkout page. Then, rinse and repeat for all other sub-events. This exercise reveals potential issues in how options read and display for a registrant.

Expert tip: Create and use a promo code providing a 100% discount in order to finalize a test registration. This allows you to review the Thank You page, participant dashboard, confirmation email, etc. The test registration can later be made inactive from the participant list, restoring counts and product inventory before going live with the event page. 

Expert tip: Create and use a promo code providing a flat fee of $1 in order to finalize a test registration that lets you experience the payment gateway almost for free. The test registration can later be made inactive.

Expert tip: Change the event status to "Demo" in order to allow other stakeholders to go through registration from the event details page. This allows for additional feedback to come your way, as a fresh set of eyes may pick up on nuances that you may have missed.

6. Check pricing, fees and taxes

Review all pricing elements. Confirm base registration fees and any scheduled price increases. Make sure that any tax settings and additional charges (if applicable) are accurate to your event, organization and the region where you operate. Ensure the total cost shown to registrants matches what you intend to charge.

The Race Roster fee schedule is visible during the go live process, and will be sent to you in the "Your event is now active" email confirmation. If the fee schedule differs from what you expect, or you have questions, reach out immediately to director@raceroster.com (director@raceroster.com.au) before payments are collected.

7. Check products (merchandise and add-on options)

If you offer add-on products or services—whether free or paid—take the time to verify each item. Make sure that the names, descriptions, images and size/colour/variation options all appear correctly in registration. Double-check on pricing, inventory limits and display settings, for error-free merchandise orders.

Expert tip: Don’t forget to enable the Store on any paid items to increase the uptake. The post-registration store allows for already-registered participants to order additional items to add to their registrations. Learn more about configuring the Store.

8. Check registration questions

Registration questions let you to gather registrant information beyond personal identifiers. This is where you can ask for emergency contact details, gain new CRM email campaign and SMS subscriptions, conduct some demographic and marketing research, and otherwise acquire data relevant to your event logistics. Check that each sub-event registration is asking the questions it should, and in the correct way.

Expert tip: Where possible, provide dropdown menus or radio buttons (closed answer) rather than single-line textboxes (open answer). For example, "This emergency contact is the registrant's > Spouse/Parent/Grandparent/Adult Child/Adult Grandchild/Sibling/Friend" or "How did you hear about this event? > Social Media Post/Friend or Family Referral/Physical Poster or Flyer/Email Invitation"—gathering data in this way allows for easier metrics based on standardized responses.

9. Test discounts and promo codes

If you are using promo codes, validation lists, or group, age or team discounts, test how each of these are operating. Confirm that they are applying correctly to the intended categories, respecting eligibility rules and working within the specified date ranges.

10. Test email notifications and confirmations

Check that confirmation emails and automated email campaigns are working and display the correct information.

Tip: Send test emails to your own email address to review how messages appear to registrants, using desktop, mobile, web browser and email app views. Perfect wording and formatting before sending these off en masse!

11. Check deadlines

Ensure your registration open and close dates, pricing tiers, and any other deadlines are correct. Clear timing helps manage expectations and reduces confusion about when participants can sign up and perform other actions.

Tip: Ensure your transfer deadline aligns with postage timeframes and bib allocation.

Expert tip: Where possible, set deadlines to the very end of the day (11:59 p.m.), making them easier to remember and abide by.

12. Final review before going live

Before taking your event page live, review your event page as a whole to make sure all buttons and hyperlinks function and that content displays as expected. Once live, monitor early registrations to catch any unexpected issues quickly.

Tip: Add an FAQ page as a custom link to your event page sidebar. Learn how to make custom links, pages and buttons.

Once you've actioned on these tips and best practices, you'll be ready for the detailed steps on taking your event page live .

Bonus Tips

1. Head to last year’s event page and locate the Configuration setting: settings.redirect_to_event. Then, enter this year’s EID into the field.  This will ensure any traffic accidentally navigating to last year’s event page is redirected to this year's.
2. Using your Race Roster CRM organization, create a contact report featuring all previous year participants. Then, set up an email campaign to contact them, let them know the new event page is live and accepting registrations. Use a tracking link to determine conversions and the success of your campaign.
3. Remember, changes can be made to your event page after going live. The aim is to refine the process ahead of time to ensure sign-up is as seamless as possible!