Slots are for when not everybody can come in at once: a museum admitting groups, a presentation repeated three times, an appointment-based press day, a dinner in two sittings.
If your event has a single entry time, skip them: they add a step to the guest's answer and give nothing back.
How they work
You enable slots on the event, create one per band, and from then on the answer page asks the guest to pick one along with confirming. The choice comes back onto the guest and is visible in the list and at the door.
Creating slots
- On the event's Slots tab, enable slots.
- Add one slot per band.
- For each, give a name, a description, a time and, if you like, an image.
The name is what the guest reads: "First sitting — 7pm" says more than "Slot A". The description is the room for the differences between one band and another: "with guided tour", "by invitation only".
Multiple registration
There is an option that lets a guest sign up for several slots. It is for cases where the bands are different activities rather than alternative sittings — a programme with several sessions one person can attend in sequence.
If your slots are entry sittings, leave it off: it is the option that causes the most confusion when it gets switched on by mistake.
What the guest sees
On the answer page slots appear as a choice, with name, description and time. Confirming their attendance, the guest picks one, and the chosen slot goes into the confirmation email along with the rest of the practical information.
Working the door
In the guest list the slot is a column and a filter: you can look only at who is expected in the current sitting, which is exactly what the person at the desk needs.
The check-in screen works the same way. There is also a check in all guests action for a slot, handy when a group comes in together and there is no point scanning them one by one.
Editing or deleting a slot
Slots can be edited until the event is concluded. One thing to watch: delete a slot people had signed up for and those people stay invited but without a band, and have to be reassigned by hand.
If you have to change a time after the invitations have gone out, remember your guests are holding an email with the old one: change the slot and send a campaign saying so, or they will turn up at the time they read.
Assigning a slot by hand
You can set or change a guest's slot by editing them from the list. It is for the two usual cases: somebody rang and asked to move, or you are filling a list from a file where the bands were a column in the spreadsheet.