Hosting your event

Nothing goes live until you tap Publish. Until then your event is a draft.

Save draft keeps your work without publishing it. A draft doesn't need a date, a title, or — if you've chosen Paid tickets — a price yet, and it waits under Drafts on your dashboard. Only you and your co-hosts can open it. Anyone else who has the link sees a page saying there's nothing here.

Preview saves your draft and opens your event page exactly as guests will see it, with a banner across the top saying it isn't live yet. The RSVP button is switched off, so nobody can sign up by accident. Tap ← Keep editing to go back, or Publish when you're happy. You or any of your co-hosts can publish.

When you tap Publish, we check a few things first. If one isn't right, nothing is published, your draft stays saved, and we tell you what to fix:

• There's no title yet: “Give your event a title.”
• There's no date yet: “Pick a date before you publish.”
• The date has already gone by: “That date has already passed. Pick a date in the future to publish.”
• Tickets are set to Paid but there's no price: “Set a ticket price under Tickets before you publish, or switch the event to free.” You can pick Paid and leave the price until later while it's a draft — your dashboard and the preview show “Price not set” until you fill it in — but nothing goes live at $0.
• The event charges (paid tickets or a door price) and your bank isn't connected: “Connect your bank account before publishing a paid event (You → Payouts).” You can build and save a paid draft before your bank is set up; it's only publishing that waits. It's the host's bank that counts, because that's where the ticket money goes, so if you're a co-host we'll tell you the host needs to connect theirs.
• A scheduled spot release under Limit spots is set for a time that has already passed, so it would open those spots the moment you publish. Give it a later time, or remove it.
• Online sales end (under Tickets) is set for a time that has already passed, so nobody could buy online. Give it a later time, or clear it.

Once your event is live, the buttons at the bottom of the form become Preview and Save changes. Preview then shows the page as it's saved now, with RSVPs switched off.

Open your event's dashboard and choose Edit. You or a co-host can change anything on the form. Your link stays the same, and on a live event your changes go live as soon as you save.

Changing the ticket price after people have bought, and cancelling, are covered in Refunds, payouts and disputes.

Times on the form are in your event's time zone, whoever is editing and wherever they are. Guests see them in the event's time zone too: on the event page, their ticket and their reminders. The end time is optional.

The time zone is shown under the date. When you create an event it starts as your own; if the event is somewhere else, choose Change and search for its city. The form then shows what the start time is where you are.

You can correct the time zone later on the edit page, even after tickets are sold. The times stay as shown (7:00 PM stays 7:00 PM, now in the new zone), so guests see the same time on the page and their tickets. It isn't treated as rescheduling: nobody is emailed or texted, and nobody becomes eligible for a refund. Reminders, online sales end and spot releases follow the corrected time. Saving other changes never changes the time zone.

City comes from your address — you don't type it. Save your event and we look the address up, so a Williamsburg address files under New York. If we can't find the address on the map we'll say so and ask you to check it for a typo, or to type the city in yourself.

Category is under Add to your event, and it's optional. Turn it on and pick one so people browsing Explore for something to do can find you. Turn it off and save, and your event has no category: it still has its own page and link, and still shows on Explore, it just won't come up when someone narrows to a category.

Vibe sets your event page's colors, and the cover shows on your event page and in listings.

Before they RSVP or buy, guests see “Location revealed after you RSVP” and your city, not the place name or the address. Link previews in group chats show only the city, and so does the Add to calendar link. Your city still shows on Explore. It comes from your address, so it's the city the address is in — never the venue name or the street.

After they RSVP or buy, the place name and address are on their ticket and in their confirmation email. If they're signed in to Gatherly with the same email address, the event page shows the address too. You and your co-hosts always see it.

Off: anyone who opens your event page sees the place name and address, with a map link.

Under Who can see it? choose one:

• Public: on Explore. Anyone can find it and RSVP.
• Unlisted: not on Explore, and search engines are asked not to list it. Anyone with the link can open it and RSVP.
• Invite-only: not on Explore. Only people on your invite list can open it, and only when they're signed in.

Invite-only guests need a Gatherly account. The form tells you so when you choose it. Once the event is saved, tap Invite list under the choice and add people by email or phone number. Someone gets in when they're signed in to an account whose email is on your list, or whose verified phone number is. The list shows whether each person is Going, On Gatherly or has No account yet, so you can tell who still needs to sign up.

Anyone else who opens the link sees a page saying the event is private, with its title and your name. The date, address and guest list stay hidden. If they're signed out, they're asked to sign in, or create an account, with the email you have for them. (Once they're signed in, a verified phone number on their profile that matches your list lets them in too.) If they're signed in to an account that isn't on your list, they're told to ask you to add them, or to switch accounts. Shared in a group chat, the link just says “Private event”.

Nothing is sent while the event is a draft. When you publish, everyone on your list gets an invite by email, and by text too if you added their number. After that, tap Send invites on the invite list to invite anyone you've added since. Nobody is invited twice.

Changing who can see a live event only changes who can find and open it from now on. People already going keep their spot.

Turn on Limit spots under Add to your event and fill in How many spots? That's the most people who can come, counting tickets you give away. It works with or without tickets. Leave it off for no limit.

When every spot is taken, the RSVP button reads Full. There's no waitlist. While someone is at checkout, their spots are held for them, so the page never offers a spot that's about to go. Once people are going, you can raise the limit but not set it below the number already going.

Release more spots later opens extra spots on a schedule. Choose how many and when, in your event's time zone. Releases are saved when you save the event, and the spots are added within about 5 minutes of the time you picked. You can remove a release until it has happened.

The Tickets switch under Add to your event decides whether guests get a ticket: a QR code that's scanned at the door.

• Off: guests just RSVP and go on your guest list. There's no ticket or code to show at the door. New events start this way.
• Free: no charge, but every guest gets a ticket with a QR code by email. Good when space is limited.
• Paid: guests pay at checkout and get a ticket with a QR code. You'll need your bank connected before you can publish (You → Payouts). The Price box can wait: pick Paid, save the draft, and fill in the amount when you've decided. Publish stays locked, with Set a ticket price to publish a paid event under the button, until you do.

Adding free tickets later. If people have already RSVP'd and you switch on free tickets, each of them is sent a ticket to show at the door when you save: by email, and by text too if they gave a phone number. On a long guest list the last few can take a few minutes. The form tells you how many people will get one before you save.

Turning free tickets off again. Everyone stays on your guest list as an RSVP. Nobody is messaged, and their QR codes just won't be needed at the door.

Once anyone has RSVP'd, you can't switch to Paid. To charge, duplicate the event and sell tickets on the copy.

Once paid tickets have sold (or while someone is checking out), tickets stay on and can't be made free. You can still change the price: a new price only applies to new buyers, and lowering it doesn't refund anyone automatically (see price changes). To stop selling, set Online sales end to now. To call it off, cancel the event and everyone is refunded.

These are under Tickets when you choose Paid. Online sales end starts as “When the event starts”; tap it to pick an earlier time. Until then, tickets sell at your ticket price. After it:

With an At the door price: online checkout switches to the door price automatically, and your event page shows both, for example “$20 pre-sale · $25 at the door”. The door price is still paid online, through Gatherly.

Without one: online sales close, and the event page says so.

Every card payment has a processing fee, charged by our payment processor, Stripe. This switch, under Tickets when you choose Paid, decides who pays it.

Off: you pay it. Buyers pay the ticket price and nothing more, and the fee comes out of your payout.

On: the buyer pays it on top, worked out so that you keep the full ticket price. Your event page shows it under the price (on a $25 ticket, “+ $1.06 card fee”), and at checkout it's a separate line called Card processing fee. It's worked out on the whole order, so on several tickets it comes to a little less than that figure times the number of tickets. It applies to the door price too.

Changing this only affects new buyers: anyone who already bought paid what they were charged at the time. Refunds never include the card fee, whichever way this is set. See how much is refunded.

There's no separate +1 setting. On a paid event, one guest can buy up to 10 tickets in one order (fewer if fewer spots are left). Each ticket has its own QR code, and the buyer's email links to each one so they can send them on to friends. Every ticket counts towards your spot limit.

On a free event, each person RSVPs with their own email address, so a friend RSVPs for themselves.

Turn on RSVP questions under Add to your event to ask guests something when they RSVP or buy: dietary needs, a plus-one's name, anything. Name, email and phone are always asked, so there's no need to add those. You can ask up to 5 questions, and each one can be:

• Short answer
• Paragraph, a bigger box for a longer answer
• One choice, where guests pick one of your options
• Several choices, where guests pick as many as apply
• Yes / no

Each choice question can have up to 10 options. Switch on Required for a question guests have to answer. Leave it off and they can skip it.

Where the answers go. On your event's guest list, each guest's answers show under their name. Tap the ⋯ next to a guest to see them all. Export CSV gives you every answer, one column per question. When someone buys several tickets in one order, they answer once for the whole order.

Changing your questions later. A new question is only asked of people who join from then on. Answers already given stay as they are. If you remove a question, its answers are kept, and the CSV still has its column, marked “(removed question)”.

If a guest cancels or is refunded, they drop off the guest list on screen, but their answers are kept. They stay in the CSV, with the Status column saying Refunded, Removed by host or Can't make it.

On: your event page shows how many people are going, for example “8 going”. That's everyone with a ticket: paid tickets, free RSVPs and tickets you gave away. Under it are the first few guests' initials and names. A guest who has chosen to keep their name private shows as “Guest”. If you set a spot limit, it also shows how many spots are left.

Off: none of that is shown: no count, no names and no spots left. When you're full, the button still reads Full.

Either way, event listings such as Explore show “N sold today” on your event once 3 or more tickets or free RSVPs are taken in 24 hours. Tickets you gave away don't count. It only ever counts the last 24 hours, never how many people are going in total.

This only applies to events with tickets, free or paid. Sometimes a ticket email is turned away, usually because of a typo in the guest's email address. When that happens we try again: three tries in all, at least an hour apart, and never once the event has started.

On your guest list, that guest's row shows Ticket email retrying (amber) while another try is still to come, then Ticket email failed (red) once we've stopped. The CSV export has a Ticket email column that says Sent, Not sent yet, Failed, retrying or Failed.

Once we've stopped trying, we email the event's host the name and address of each guest whose ticket didn't get through.

Guests can also open their ticket and tap Email this to me to get it sent again, to the address on the ticket.

What you can do: check each address for a typo. If one is wrong, ask the guest to sign up again with the right one. Their place on your guest list is safe either way, so you can always let them in by name at the door. If they've paid, you can reply to our email and we'll help get their ticket to them.

To run an event again, open the ⋯ menu on it in your dashboard and choose Duplicate onto a new date.

The copy starts as a draft with no date. That's on purpose, so a copy never goes out on the old date. Under the empty date you'll see when it was last time. Pick a new date to publish.

What comes along: the title, description, cover and vibe, the address, who can see it, the category, the spot limit, tickets and prices, the card fee setting, your RSVP questions, and your other switches. You can change any of it before you save. Co-hosts who accepted come along too. Anyone you'd asked to co-host who hadn't said yes doesn't, so ask them again.

What doesn't: the date, the guest list and invite list, and any sales. The copy itself doesn't email or text anyone.

Scheduled spot releases and online sales end carry over as how long before the start, not as the old dates, for example “20 more spots, 2 days before the start”. The copy shows them under Carried over as timings, not dates. Once you pick a date they become real times, with the same run-up as last time, and you can change them on the copy's edit page. If a new date is soon enough that one would land in the past, Publish tells you which one to fix.

Inviting last time's guests. If anyone came last time, the copy has a switch: Invite everyone who came last time, or Invite everyone going on the date if that event hasn't happened yet. Turn it on and the people who came are added to the copy's invite list. Nobody is messaged until you publish.

To choose who goes on the list, tap Manage who's invited → under the switch. That saves the copy as a draft and opens its invite screen, where everyone from last time is listed once, with a note saying which group they're in:

• Bought a ticket (Got a ticket if tickets were free, or RSVP'd if there were no tickets): paid, comped, checked in, or didn't show up. They start ticked.
• Invited, didn't buy (Invited, didn't get a ticket, or Invited, didn't RSVP): on last time's invite list but never got a ticket. They start unticked.

Someone who was invited and also came is listed once, as having come. People whose ticket was cancelled or refunded aren't listed. When you publish, only the people ticked get an invite; nobody unticked is messaged.

On a public or unlisted event, they're under Past guests. Tick or untick anyone, add anyone else, and tap Save list — sent when you publish →. There's a limit on how many invites we can send for you in one day. If your list is longer than that, the rest wait, and the event's invite screen says how many haven't been sent yet. Tap Send there to send them once there's room again, within a day.

On an invite-only event, the people ticked are on the invite list; remove anyone with the ×. Everyone else from last time is under Also from last time: tick them and tap Add to put them on the list. Add others by email or phone number. After you publish, Send N new invites appears for anyone who hasn't been sent one yet.