We get asked from time to time how to hide complimentary Wild Apricot events ticket ordering by our Wild Apricot association customers.
First of all, if you are going to offer this publicly on the web, there is really no way to hide it. What you can do is provide a discount coupon discreetly to those who you want to benefit from it, to reduce the charge to zero once applied in the registration. However, by offering it publicly on the web site, you are likely to get a lot more “free” requests.
If you are providing a limited number of complimentary tickets, there are two ways to go about it that are most useful. Both require an admin to enter the registration record.
Don’t offer any special ticket structure, but simply add the attendees as registrants and zero out their charge on the invoice. This will keep a record of the registration, keep them in the loop on communications through the site that go through the event’s registration, and will provide accurate revenue result for the registration, but if you need to keep track of multiple events’ complimentary tickets, this might provide burdensome.
What we then suggest is to create a Complimentary registration level, at zero charge, that can only be entered by the Admin. In addition, we recommend setting the availability date as THE DATE OF THE EVENT, and limit anyone from seeing that registration level until it is available. The Admin can still enter the registration. But the public and members cannot see the offering, even grayed out.
Here’s an example of how the event would look on set up in the Registration type availability area:
By using both the Registration code and the Available period options, as well as using “Hide” if the event is unavailable, the event registration option should not show on the Event listing.