Pierrot Invites

Invites serves 2 purposes: it can function as a guest list for public events, and it can be used for more "private" events where people are invited to join. The latter was already possible, but your "guests" had to fill in a form if they wanted to attend the event which was not very "inviting" :) From now on, instead of inviting your guests to fill in a form you can do all that work for them with a single import.

Pierrot invites comes with 3 new functionalities.

Prefilling guest data

When importing a guest list, you now have the possibility to import several extra fields for every attendee. These fields can be mapped to our custom fields. This means that you can prefill all necessary information for your guests. You decide if your guests can change these values or not.

Ask for confirmation or not

Sometimes you need to know exactly how many guests there will be. In this case you may want your guests to confirm their presence. When importing a guest list, you can decide if your guests need to confirm their presence or not. Additionally they will also have the option to confirm their absence.

Add some extra guests

If you want to offer your guests the option to add 1 or more extra guests to their invitation this is now also possible. When importing your guest list you can decide how many extra guests each person can invite. So a scenario where person X can add 2 more people, but person Y cannot invite extra people is perfectly possible.

So how does it work?

Structuring your Excel file

Inviting guests can be done by creating and uploading a simple Excel file. This file needs - at least - 3 fields: the first name, last name and email address. An example of the most basic import file can be found here.

If your guests need to confirm their presence, then you will need to add an extra column with the value: 'yes' or 'no'. You will need this value when importing. An example of such an import file can be found here.

If you want to offer your guest to invite additional guests themselves, you will need an extra column where you specify the amount of "extra" guests they can invite. An example of such an import file can be found here.

Additionally you can add as many columns as you like. If you have created any custom fields you will be able to map these to the columns from your file when you do the import.

Importing your guests

You can import your guests via the attendees page (Actions -> import guest list). Once you have selected your file and hit the "save" button you will have the option to map your columns to the existing Pierrot fields. If you have any custom fields they will available to select so the values of your import file can be mapped to these fields.

Single purpose ticket URL

Every Pierrot ticket has a dedicated ticket URL. This URL contains a QR code and the info associated with the attendee. This is also the place where an attendee can change their info (unless you've chosen to prevent this via the admin), confirm their presence or absence (if you specified this with the import) or cancel their ticket (in case of a free ticket).

The QR code will not be present if you specified that an attendee needs to confirm their presence. Only after their confirmation will there be a valid QR code on the same page.

How do you distribute the tickets?

There are multiple options to distribute your tickets. You can choose to send the ticket automatically when you do the import. You can send the tickets via our "Messages" or you can even export all your guests and use a service like Mailchimp or Campaign Monitor to distribute the online ticket URLs.

Any questions? Let us know!

A dinner invitation, once accepted, is a sacred obligation. If you die before the dinner takes place, your executor must attend. ~ Ward McAllister