Add Guest Names? Must have Feature…

[kjoboyle]

So, I will be honest, Events Calendar Pro coupled with WooCommerce Tickets has pretty much taken care of all of our event worries on our website, except for this seemingly integral missing feature.

In the business realm, at least in the circles we work in, it is very common for a business gathering/event to have tickets to purchase to get into an event. In the legal, commercial real estate, building/construction, property titling, and banking worlds, usually an admin/office manager/assistant will purchase the tickets for the actual attendee(s). A lot of times, a law firm is a perfect example, the assistant or office manager will buy the whole office tickets with the company’s credit card. This could be anywhere from 3-15, or even more, ticket purchases/guests. The event organizer then gets all the names of the attendees from the single person that bought all the tickets, to create name badges, seating placards, attendee list, etc. The way the current plugin is setup, there is no way to mandatory collect the names of all these guests that will be coming to the event. So right now, our organization has to contact the people at these offices making mass ticket purchases for their team/company to get the names of the exact people attending, so we can properly create name tags for them, seating name cards, and a check-in list of attendees. Or, we can hope and pray that they are kind / aware enough to put the names of the guests into the comments section of their purchase.

It would be the bee’s knees if whenever a guest is added to the WooCommerce Tickets purchase, that a field for at the very least the guest’s name, like Guest 1 Name, Guest 2 Name, etc., would be required to fill in at some point during the ticket purchase process. Ideally Name, Email, Job Title fields would be amazing, but the guests’ name is really all that is really needed.

I saw that this topic of discussion has come up in the past (Spring 2013 is the most recent I found on here), so overall this post is too see if there has been any progress or “Best-in-class” work arounds to get this functionality into either of the two premium add-ons we purchased (Events Calendar Pro and Woo Tickets).

Here is the link to that other forum post I referenced: Adding Extra Names When Multiple Tickets Purchased

[Geoff]

Hey there, Kyle! Welcome back to the forums and thanks for getting in touch. 🙂

First off, thanks for the kind words! It’s awesome that the plugins have been working so well for you so far. I took a quick look at your site and love how you’ve integrated things so far. Great work!

I totally hear you. Guest lists would be definitely be a great feature–the bee’s knees for sure! In fact, it’s something we have planned for a future release, though I don’t have a specific timeframe to give you. We’re working on it though, so stay tuned!

Unfortunately, there are no easy workarounds I can think of to make this work. Anything would require a hefty amount of customization that would quickly get very complicated. Although it may not be the slickest solution, you could ask customers to complete a separate form to list guest names on confirmation.

Does this help answer your question? Please let me know.

Cheers!
Geoff

[Geoff]

Hey there, just checking in to see if there’s been any further update or if you still need assistance on this one–let me know. 🙂

Cheers!
Geoff

[kjoboyle]

Well, the issue is still not “resolved” because there is no way to add guest names during the registration process. In fact, the CARW organization (carw.com) wants me to find another Event plugin out there that will incorporate guest name additions as well as all the other features your plugin has, coupled with WooCommerce Tickets. That is going to be a tough find, and I told them that.

So I guess for now I will have to hold off until a plugin is released to add guest name support to Events Calendar Pro or the plugin itself is updated to do it, because I don’t know if it is worth it to bail on the plugin over just this feature…while the top brass think maybe we should.

[Geoff]

Thanks, Kyle! I appreciate the follow-up.

I totally understand that this is a feature you’re really looking for and need. I’m sorry it’s not quite here yet.

I’m going to close this thread, but have noted it in our internal tracker. We’ll do our best to follow-up with you here when we have more progress to share.

Cheers!
Geoff

[kjoboyle]

Geoff, I actually sort of solved the problem…

We are going to go with the EventBrite plugin addon that you guys are offering to solve this. EventBrite actually has this feature. When you pick multiple tickets and then proceed to enter payment info / checkout, it gives you a field for each additional ticket you ordered to put in their name, address, etc.

So in the end we are not able to use the Woo Tickets plugin we purchased from you and now will purchase the EventBrite plugin and just run the ticketing process through EventBrite. So I guess for now (and maybe forever) that will be the way we handle this.

[Geoff]

Awesome, thanks for following up and sharing how you handled it! That does sound like a solid way to get around the guest names issue not offered in WooTickets.

Cheers!
Geoff

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