Your first event, start to finish

This page walks through one event, “Acme Sales Summit”, from a blank draft to the day after. Each step names the dashboard page to use and links to the section of this help that covers it in detail. You don’t have to follow the order exactly, but it is the order that saves the most rework.

Who can do this: Org admins. Other roles can do the parts their role allows (see Roles).

Where: All events, then the event’s sidebar.

1. Create the event

1. On the Events list, click Create event.
2. Fill in Name (“Acme Sales Summit”), Time zone, Start date & time, End date & time and, if you like, Venue.
3. Click Create event.

The event opens on its Overview page as a Draft. Participants can’t use it yet. Overview’s Setup checklist lists what is still to do and ticks items off as you go.

More: Create an event and the setup checklist.

2. Choose what the event uses

Open Content → Modules and switch on the features this event needs, such as Leaderboard, Announcements or Polls. Anything you switch off disappears from the participant app, and its dashboard page is dimmed and tagged Off.

More: Feature switches (modules). To switch on a typical set in one go, see Start from a brief (AI setup).

3. Decide how people join

Open Content → Onboarding. This is where you set the event code, whether people find the event by code or from the app’s list, how returning participants sign in, whether newcomers can register, the event’s look, and any welcome, agreement or info screens. Most settings there save and go live as you change them; only the login design, the event welcome and your own screens wait until you click Publish.

More: Onboarding: how people join and Set your event’s look.

4. Fill in Home and Info

• Content → Home: what participants land on, such as the banner, sections and tiles.
• Content → Info: venue, contacts, FAQs and the schedule.

More: Home screen and Info, venue, contacts, FAQs and schedule.

5. Build the challenges

Open Content → Challenges to create, import or copy challenges and games, and to open or close them.

More: Create, edit, open and close challenges, Game types and Import and copy challenges. For points and rewards, see How points work and the rest of Scoring & motivation.

6. Add teams and participants

• People → Teams: create teams, or import them with their members.
• People → Participants: add people one at a time or import a CSV, then assign teams.

If you let people register themselves in Onboarding, you can skip importing and let them sign up.

More: Teams and sub-teams and Add, import and edit participants.

7. Go live

When everything is ready, go to Overview and click Go live, then confirm. Participants can now join with the event code and start submitting and scoring. You can also go live from the Events list.

More: Event overview and going live.

8. On the day

• Check people in from their drawer on Participants, or with the Check-in tab of the OnStage Organiser app. See Check in participants.
• Approve submissions in People → Moderation. See Moderate submissions and photo IDs.
• Send announcements from Ops → Announcements and answer tickets in Ops → Help Desk. See Send an announcement and Answer help desk tickets.
• Put the TV leaderboard from Overview on a screen. See Leaderboard.

More: the Run-of-show checklist and the rest of On the day.

9. End the event and export

1. On Overview, click End event and confirm. Its code stops working and it leaves the app’s event list. An org admin can reopen it with Reopen event.
2. Download what you need from Ops → Export.
3. When you no longer need it on your list, archive it from the Events list with Archive. Archived events can’t be reopened, so only archive once you’re sure the event is over.

More: Export your data and the rest of After the event.

Tip

Running the same kind of event again? Use Clone in an event’s ⋮ menu on the Events list. The copy starts as a draft with a new event code. See Copy or clone an event.