How To: Set Up Free Events Access – Bonterra

In Salsa Engage you can create and personalize all types of events, including free events. For free events, your supporters can sign up to attend a virtual or live event at no cost when they complete their event registration. Setting up a free event follows the same general steps as creating any other type event. A complete walk-through of how to set up events can be found in our Create an Engage Event article.

Getting Started

Just like with paid events, the first step in building free events in Salsa Engage is to create an activity template and set up event details. To start creating a free event in Salsa Engage, follow these steps:

Click Activities in the left navigation menu.
Select the Events tab.
Click + Create an Event.
Select an existing template or choose a new layout for your event form and give it a name.
Click Next.
Complete the Setup tab with your event details.

Making events free

After completing your initial event set up, you are ready to create tickets for your event. The Tickets tab is where you will set the price. To provide a free event, you will want to set your event price to $0.

When you create a ticket for your event, enter 0 into the price field. Alternatively, if you leave the price field blank, the price will automatically default to zero.

Once your ticket price has been set to $0, supporters will not be prompted to pay for a ticket at checkout. Depending on the type of free event you are hosting, however, you may or may not want to provide the option to ask supporters for a donation. Salsa Engage gives you the option to fully personalize the payment feature so you can also remove donation options if you choose.

Accepting donations for free events

To give supporters the option to donate when they sign up for a free event, locate the Payment element in the Visual Editor for your event.

In the Payment element, check the box beside I would like to make a donation. With this option selected, supporters will see an option to donate when they register for your event.

Please note: when this is selected, making a donation is not mandatory for any registrant. They will see an option to include a donation at the checkout page and if they choose to make a donation, they will see fields to include their payment information before they submit their registration.

Removing the option to accept donations

To remove the option for supporters to donate when they register for an event, you have two options:

Uncheck the I would like to make a donation field in the Payment element.
Delete the Payment element from the editor by clicking the trash can icon

When you remove the option to make a donation from your checkout form, supporters will not see any option to enter payment information when they complete their event registration.

Troubleshooting events set up

Additional information about using the Visual Editor to create event emails can be found in Visual Editor for Activities and Messages.