Waitlists
When a ticket sells out on Hi.Events, a waitlist lets interested attendees sign up to be offered tickets if they become available again.
Enabling the Waitlist
The waitlist is enabled per ticket:
- Go to Tickets & Products and edit the ticket
- Open the Waitlist row in the product form
- Turn on Enable Waitlist
The Waitlist row doesn’t appear for reserved seating tickets, which can’t have a waitlist.
Event-wide waitlist behavior is configured separately:
- Go to Event Settings
- Select Waitlist in the settings menu
- Configure Auto-Process Waitlist and Offer Timeout (see below)
How It Works
When a waitlist-enabled ticket is sold out, attendees see a Join Waitlist button on that ticket. People can only join while the event is live, and an email address can’t join the list for the same ticket again while it’s still waiting or holding an offer. The signup form asks for:
- First Name (required)
- Last Name (optional)
- Email (required)
- I agree to receive email notifications related to this event (required)
There is no phone number field, and registration questions are not asked at this stage.
When capacity becomes available (from order cancellations, attendee cancellations, expired or revoked waitlist offers, or edits to ticket quantities or capacity assignments), tickets are offered to waitlisted attendees in the order they signed up, but only automatically if Auto-Process is on. Turning Auto-Process on also offers any tickets that are already free. Each offer is for one ticket.
Entry Statuses
Each person on the waitlist has one of five statuses, which you can filter by on the Waitlist page:
- Waiting — in the queue, no offer made yet
- Offered — an offer has been sent and is still open
- Purchased — they bought their ticket
- Expired — the offer window passed without a purchase
- Cancelled — the entry was removed or the offer was revoked
Only Waiting and Expired entries can be offered a spot.
Auto-Process
New events start with Auto-Process on, so freed-up tickets are offered automatically to the next person in line whenever capacity becomes available. Turn Auto-Process Waitlist off in Event Settings → Waitlist if you would rather offer spots yourself from the Waitlist page.
Offer Expiry
Waitlist offers always expire. Set Offer Timeout (in minutes, from 1 minute up to 10,080 minutes, which is 7 days) in Event Settings → Waitlist to control how long each person has to complete their purchase before the ticket is released to the next in line. New events start at 120 minutes (2 hours). If the field is empty, offers last 12 hours. The hint under the field says to leave it empty for no timeout, but there’s no way to turn expiry off, and clearing a saved value keeps the old one. To change the window, enter a new number.
Emails
Hi.Events sends three emails automatically:
- Confirmation — when someone joins the waitlist
- Offer — when they are offered a spot, containing the link to complete their purchase
- Offer expired — when the offer window passes without a purchase
Managing the Waitlist
To view and manage waitlisted attendees, click Waitlist in the left sidebar (under Guest Management).
The page opens with summary stats (Total Entries, Waiting, Offered, Purchased), a search box (by name or email) and a status filter, followed by the full list of entries.
Offering a spot does not put the ticket back on public sale. Hi.Events creates a reserved order held for the length of the offer timeout and emails that person a link to complete the purchase, so nobody else can take it in the meantime.
Offer Tickets (the green button in the toolbar) offers spots in bulk to people with Waiting status, in queue order. The dialog lists each product with the number Waiting, the number Available, and a Qty box so you can choose how many spots to release per product.
Per-row actions are:
- Offer Spot — offer a spot to a waiting person
- Re-offer Spot — offer again to someone whose offer expired
- Revoke Offer — withdraw an open offer
- Remove — take a waiting person off the list
- View Order — open the order of someone who has purchased
Recurring Events
For recurring events, waitlist entries are tied to a specific date:
- The Join Waitlist button only appears once the attendee has selected an occurrence, and the signup form confirms which date they are joining for
- Offers are made per date
- The Waitlist page gains a date filter so you can work through one occurrence at a time
Tips
- For a hands-off waitlist, leave Auto-Process Waitlist on and shorten the Offer Timeout so stalled offers move down the queue faster
- A waitlist creates urgency and gives you a built-in audience for future events
- Even if you cannot accommodate everyone, you will know the demand level for next time
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