Introduction
CT Live's Lottery feature allows you to register athletes for free and then select athletes from your complete list of registrants who will then be automatically charged the full amount of registration and Confirmed to your event. There are several aspects of an event that must be configured in order for Lottery registration to work. This guide will walk you through each setting that must be configured to get your Lottery event up and running.
WAIT! Before you open your Lottery registration, make sure your event's Payee uses Stripe as its Payment Processor.
Enable Lottery and Configure Settings
- First, create your Event and then contact your Account Manager to have the Lottery feature enabled.
- Next, make sure you've set up all races within your event. There's no need to add "Lottery" to the race name, but it's a good idea to edit your Reg Choice Names to include the word "Lottery" so it's clear to the athletes that the registration is for a Lottery.
- Now, you'll need to configure the Registration Choices for each race for which you'd like to offer Lottery Registration. To do this, click the Registration tab, then the Choices sub-tab.
- Click Edit next to one of the Registration Choices for which you'd like to enable Lottery.
- Locate the Is Lottery field and check the box. This will reveal the Lottery Selection Date and Lottery Payment Due Time fields.
- Enter a date for the Lottery Selection Date. This is the approximate date on which you will enter the lottery winners into the system. Athletes will be notified of this date when they register.
- Enter a date for the Lottery Payment Due Time. This is the date by which the winners you've selected must submit payment for the race. Athletes will be notified of this deadline when they are selected. If the payment information they enter after registration is declined at the time of selection and they do not submit manual payment before the date is reached, they will not be able to submit payment.
- Now, configure the rest of the Registration Choice as you normally would. Click Save & Close when you're done configuring the settings.
We suggest that you set the Reg Choice Close Time to be at least a day before the Lottery Selection Date so that athletes aren't continuing to register when they don't have any chance of being selected. This is not a requirement. - Repeat steps 4-8 for each additional Reg Choice.
- Now add pricing for your registration choices. Please note that you can still use Pricing Tiers for Lottery registration. No athletes will be charged until they are selected, and the amounts charged will reflect the tier in which they registered.
Your Lottery Registration is now configured. Remember that you must add a Waiver before opening registration. Once athlete registrations have been collected and the Lottery Selection Date arrives, you can Import a Winner File.
Configure the Entry Confirmation E-mail (Optional)
Just like you can customize the Confirmation E-mail for regular reg choices, you can also customize the Confirmation E-mail that gets sent to Lottery registrants. When you click on the Reg Choice for the Lottery on the Registration > E-mails tab, you'll see some new fields in addition to the Custom Text and Custom Question Display.
- Lottery E-mail Title
- Lottery E-mail Subtitle
- Show Lottery Selection Date toggle
These additional fields allow you to tailor the e-mail to your event and help the athletes to know exactly what they're seeing before they open the e-mail. In the message editor, there are a variety of text and data options available for formatting your text, including tables and images. For an explanation of how images work in the editor, click HERE.
Configure the Winner E-mail (Optional)
When you enable the Lottery feature for your event, the Lottery tab will now be displayed. This tab allows you to import a Winner File, customize the Winner E-mail, and view Lottery Reports.
If you'd like to include a custom message, you can do so from the Lottery tab in the Email sub-tab. Simply enter the text of your message in the field provided, then click Save at the bottom of the page.
What's Next?