This article walks you through creating a new event and setting up your new event’s details in Bloomerang Fundraising. This is one step in the larger process of creating a new event. For more information about creating a new event, read Create Events.
Tip: You can also create a new event by cloning an existing event. For more information about cloning an event, read Clone Events.
To view a quick-start tutorial on setting up an event, watch this video:
Note: If you need to track specific items that attendees bid on and purchase as part of your event, use an auction instead. Auctions and events provide very similar ticketing and check-in processes, but have some important differences. For more information about auctions, read the Auction Overview Guide and the Auction Success Toolkit.
Create New Events
Events in Bloomerang Fundraising are a type of donation form, and each event must be created from an existing form. To create an event:
In Bloomerang Fundraising, click Forms.
Click a form in the forms list. For information about creating a new form, read Creating New Forms.
In the form’s control panel, click Events.
Click Add New Event.
In the Name box, enter a name for the event.
(Optional) Configure the other settings on the Event Settings page.
Click Save Event.
Configure Optional Event Settings
When creating a new event, only certain event settings are required. When you create a new event, most of these settings have default values, and do not need to be changed. If you change these required settings, you cannot leave them blank. These required settings are:
The event name. This is the only setting that you need to set manually.
The custom price text for free packages.
The receipt title.
The receipt sender name.
The receipt reply-to address.
The receipt body.
Warning: If you change your event’s alias, the event’s URL changes. This breaks the links to the event in any communications that you’ve sent out, like newsletters, QR codes, and emails.
To configure the optional settings on the Event Settings page:
In the Event Description section, enter a description for the event.
To view or modify the description’s HTML, click Source
. You can then make changes to the HTML and click Source again to view how the description appears to attendees.To add images to the description, do one of the following:
Click and drag a file from your device into the description box.
To upload an image from your device, click Insert Media, then select a file to upload.
To link to an image on the internet, click Image
. In the URL box, enter the URL of the image. Customize any other details of the image, then click OK.
To add a logo for the event, click Upload a Logo. The logo appears on the event’s landing page and at the top of each step of the registration process. Logo images are always cropped to 150x150 pixels. For more information about resizing images, read Sizing Images for Use as Peer-to-Peer Avatars.
To open the event’s registration, enable Event is active. To keep the event’s registration closed, leave this option disabled. You can open and close the event’s registration later by changing the start and end dates of its packages. For more information about creating and configuring event packages, read Event Packages.
In the Event Location section, enter the event’s location information.
If you enter a valid address, city, state, or zip code, enable Display Map to display a map of the event location on the registration form.
In the Display Options section, select Kiosk to make the event visible on your kiosk. For more information about the event kiosk, read Kiosk Basic Operation and Settings.
In the Display Options section, select Private to hide the event on the online form. Registrants can only access a private event with a private URL, which you can share.
Use the Event Settings section to control donations, dates, and attendee details during event registration.
Turn on Enable One-Time Donations to allow one-time donations during event registration. If you enable this option, the Donation Cutoff Date option displays.
Enable Event Has Start/End Dates to set event start and end dates and times. If you include start and end dates, an “Add to My Calendar” option appears in event ticket emails.
Enable Event Has Registration Cutoff Date to end event registration at a specific date and time before the event starts. This date and time must be before the event’s end date and time. This setting overrides any end dates that you set for the event’s ticket packages.
If the event is associated with a kiosk, an additional set of options for the kiosk registration cutoff date appears.
If your event has free registration options, enable Do not collect mailing address with $0.00 registrations to prevent mailing addresses from being collected for these registrants.
Enable Request attendee details per ticket to prompt ticket purchasers to enter contact information for each ticket at the time of purchase.
When this setting is enabled, the Additional Details step includes optional fields for first name, last name, phone number, and email address. You can customize field labels in Attendee Fields. For more information about attendee fields, read Events: Attendee Fields.
When you enable Request attendee details per ticket, the Request attendee details per ticket toggle is also enabled in Package settings. You can disable the setting for specific packages in each package’s settings. For more information about package settings, read Event Packages.
If you have the Giving Essentials or Giving+ package, you can enable additional settings in Enhanced Event Settings:
Turn on Enable Ticket Management to allow ticket purchasers to send tickets to guests and edit attendee details after purchase.
If you enable Ticket Management, select what should happen when someone purchases multiple tickets. You can set the tickets to be sent to each attendee, or to only the purchaser.
Note that you must enable Request attendee details per ticket before you can enable Ticket Management.
Ticket management is always enabled for auctions and cannot be disabled.
Turn on Enable Scannable QR Tickets to enable QR code check-in on the Attendees tab. Event staff can check in attendees by scanning the QR codes that the attendees received when they registered.
In the Event Registrations Limits section, you can set a maximum number of tickets for the event. When this number of tickets are sold, the event is considered sold out. By default, the registration limit is unlimited.
To set a registration limit, click Unlimited and enter a number of tickets.
To make the registration limit unlimited, click Unlimited again.
To display the number of remaining tickets on your public-facing registration form, enable Display number of remaining overall tickets.
The Package Settings section allows you to configure how packages should display for the event.
For How should we display the price of a $0.00 package? select how free packages should appear to attendees. If you select Custom, enter the text that should be used as the price of free packages.
Enable Display number of tickets (i.e., attendees) included with each package to show how many tickets are included with each package.
Enable Display number of remaining packages to show how many of each package are available to purchase.
In the Admin Notifications section, enter the email address of the person who should be notified when an attendee registers for the event. The emails that you enter here are added as recipients in the main Notifications interface on the organization-level dashboard. For more information about the Notifications interface, read Org-Level Notifications.
To add a new email, click Add an Email, enter the person’s contact information, then click Add.
To add a person whose email is already in Bloomerang Fundraising, click the Choose Recipients drop-down list.
To remove a recipient from the list, click the X by their name.
To change your event’s alias, change the end of the URL in the Event Alias section.
If you’re using a widget to embed your registration link on an external page, you’ll see the Point Us to Your Event Page section as well. This option lets you choose where the event URL should link to.
Select Standard Event Page to make the URL point to the event’s page.
Select External Event Page to make the URL point to a different page. Enter the URL that you would like the URL to link to.
In the Event Registration Receipt section, set up your event registration receipts.
To set the type of receipt that this event sends to registrants, click the Choose a Receipt drop-down list and select a receipt type.
If you select the default receipt and make any changes to its settings, a new custom receipt is created when you save your event.
To create a new receipt type, select Create a new receipt.
Note that if you select an existing custom receipt that is tied to other events, any changes that you make to the receipt here will apply to the other events as well.
(Optional) Enter a title, description, From Name, reply-to address, and subject for the receipt. The title and description are visible only to admins, not receipt recipients. Note that these settings have default values, and do not need to be changed.
To add specific recipients to the receipt, enable Include Additional Recipients and enter additional emails in the Cc and Bcc boxes.
(Optional) Edit the email’s Receipt Body, using the provided text editing features.
To view or modify the description’s HTML, click Source
.
To add images to the description, do one of the following:
Click and drag a file from your device into the description box.
To upload an image from your device, click Insert Media, then select a file to upload.
To link to an image on the internet, click Image
. In the URL box, enter the URL of the image. Customize any other details of the image, then click OK.
To add dynamic information that will be tailored for each recipient or transaction, place your cursor where you would like to insert the information, and select an item from the Insert Tags or Conditional Content drop-down lists.
To attach a PDF copy of the receipt to the receipt email, enable Include PDF Receipt. When you turn on this option, you can add additional content for the PDF receipt. For more information about PDF receipts, read Global Receipts.
Click Save Event.
Next Steps and More Information
After you save the event, you can create packages in the Packages tab. For more information about event packages, read Event Packages.
For more information about customizing the look of event registration, read Events: Event Builder.
If your event can end, sell out, or close, you can customize a Registration Ended, Sold Out, or Closed Message on the Landing Page in Event Builder. For more information about the Landing Page in Event Builder, read Events: Event Builder.
To enable GiftAssist for event registration, navigate to the donation form’s General Settings and enable the toggle there. For more information about general form settings, read Donation Forms: Form Settings: General.
If you want to add a donation thermometer to your event form, go to Goals and set up an event-specific goal. For more information about goals and thermometers, read Goals and Thermometers.