An automatic waitlist offer lets Rhythm fill an open place from a waitlist without staff action. A waitlist can belong to a whole event, one session, or one ticketed function, and the offer process works the same way for each one. When a place opens and the waitlist process is set to make offers automatically, Rhythm emails the next person in line and gives them a limited time to register before the place moves to someone else.
Why It Exists
Capacity limits and waitlists only help when an open place reaches someone who can use it. Without automatic offers, staff would need to watch each waitlist and email people by hand whenever a spot opened. Automatic offers do that work for you.
When someone cancels, staff remove a registration, or capacity increases, Rhythm checks the waitlist and starts the offer process. Rhythm does not send an offer email just because someone was added to the waitlist. The email goes out only when a place actually opens for that person. Turning the waitlist setting off and back on does not open a place, and manually changing a waitlisted contact's own status does not trigger the email.
How a Person Is Chosen
Rhythm works through the waitlist for that event, session, or function in queue order. It offers the next open place to the next person in line.
On a very long waitlist, this check only reaches the earlier part of the list. That means someone far down the list may not receive an offer even when a place opens. Contact Support if a waitlist offer seems to skip people near the end of a long list.
What the Offer Email Says
When Rhythm offers someone a place, it emails them and changes their waitlist status to Eligible To Register. This is the same status staff see on the waitlist panel.
The email uses the waiting person's contact details, organization, membership, and event, so it reads like a message written for them instead of a generic notice. If the offer does not include the event's registration deadline, the email cannot show that deadline unless the person who wrote the email template typed it in manually. Check the waitlist process's email template if you expect a deadline to appear and it does not.
The email does not let the recipient add only the newly available session, function ticket, or event place directly from the notification. To accept the offer, they need to go back into their existing registration and modify it, the same way they would for any other change.
Tip
An offer email confirms that Rhythm sent the offer, but it does not guarantee the place if two people are processed at the same time. It also is not a hold that lasts regardless of other activity. If staff increase capacity and then manually register other attendees from the Console during the same window, those manual registrations can use the newly opened spots before the offered person completes their registration.
Treat the stated window as the recipient's target, not as a guaranteed reservation. If you are troubleshooting an offer a registrant says they never received, check their contact record for an email address and review the waitlist process's template before assuming the offer never went out.
The Registration Window and the Reminder
Every offer includes a registration window, which is the time the person has to complete registration before the offer lapses. If reminders are switched on for the waitlist process, Rhythm sends a final reminder partway through that window to warn the person that their chance is running out.
With reminders on, the offer lasts for the reminder time plus the registration window, not just the window by itself. With reminders off, Rhythm sends no reminder, and the offer runs to the end of its window.
What Happens When an Offer Lapses
If the person does not complete registration before the window ends, Rhythm marks the offer missed and passes the place to the next person waiting. The person who missed the window is not offered a place from that waitlist again automatically. Staff must add them back to the waitlist by hand if the organization still wants to offer them a place.
That is why a registrant who waits, receives an offer, and lets it lapse does not simply get another automatic chance later. The place has already moved to someone else.
If you add someone back to the waitlist and they should be eligible to register right away instead of waiting for the automatic process to reach them again, you can set that waitlist entry's status directly to Eligible To Register from the waitlist panel.
What Frees a Place in the First Place
A waitlist offer can start when a registrant's session place, function ticket, or event registration is cancelled and capacity opens. If the item that opened was not already sold out, Rhythm offers the place to the next person on that waitlist as soon as it is freed.
Sold-out sessions work differently for the person trying to leave one. Once a session is sold out, a registrant cannot remove that session from their own registration in the Portal. Staff can still remove it for them from the Console, and that removal frees the place and starts the next automatic offer.
This also explains why someone can receive an offer when the event, session, or function was not full when they joined. If a contact was placed on the waitlist by hand before capacity was reached, that entry stays on the waitlist. Once a later registration fills the remaining places and capacity opens again, the waitlist entry can still receive the automatic offer.
Where Staff Watch a Waitlist
Staff see and manage a waitlist from the Waitlist panel. For an event-level waitlist, open the event's Waitlist menu item. For a waitlist tied to a session or function, open the Waitlist tab on that session's or function's 360 page.
The panel lists each waiting person with their priority, the date they joined the waitlist, and their status: Waiting, Processing, Eligible To Register, or Missed Registration Window. This helps staff quickly see who has an open offer and who has already missed one.
Example
A session has ten registered places and no room left. A registrant cancels their session place, and the session was not already flagged sold out, so Rhythm immediately emails the next person on that session's waitlist. The email offers the open place and gives them 24 hours to register.
Reminders are switched on for this waitlist process, so twelve hours in, Rhythm sends a reminder that the offer is about to expire. The person does not register, so at the 24-hour mark Rhythm marks their entry Missed Registration Window and offers the place to the next person in line. The same window and reminder cycle then starts for that person.