Many events let you add optional sessions while you register, then pay for them with your registration fee. This article explains how to choose sessions, check each session’s price, and join a waitlist when a session is full.
Before You Begin
Prerequisites
- You must be on the event registration form, at the step where you choose sessions. This step usually comes after you choose your registration package, because your package controls which sessions you can select. You must choose a registration package; you cannot use the normal registration flow to join only a session waitlist without selecting a package.
- The session-selection step appears only when the event registration form includes the session-selection component. If sessions do not appear even though they exist and your package allows them, the association may need to add that component to the form.
- If a session has required questions, you must answer them before you can continue. Those questions appear only when the same session-selection component is on the form, so check that first if you expected a session question and do not see it.
Choose Your Sessions
- On the session step of the registration form, review the sessions available to you. The form groups sessions under their time slot, and each session title appears under that shared heading. The option itself may not repeat the start time or track, and this step does not show end times. If you lose track of the time or track while scrolling through a long list, scroll back up to the slot’s heading.
- Select each session you want to attend.
- If a session has questions, answer them. You must answer required questions before you can move on.
Result
Your selected sessions stay with your registration. If you go back to an earlier step and then return to the session step, your choices are still there. When you return to a saved draft registration, Rhythm restores the sessions you had already chosen instead of selecting every session for you.
Tip
A session’s description or speaker names can be long. When that happens, the form hides the extra text behind a More link instead of showing everything at once. Select More to read the rest.
The association cannot currently require you to choose a session, and it cannot sort the session list the way it can on the schedule of events page.
Why You Might Not See a Session You Expected
Tip
You only see the sessions your registration package allows. A package can offer every optional session, only sessions in certain tracks, or only sessions on certain days. The package setup can allow or block sessions by track, but not by choosing individual sessions one by one, so the association’s options work at the track level. The same rule applies whether you are registering for the first time or modifying an existing registration. If a session you expected is not listed, check that you selected the right package. The association can review or change the package assigned to you if it is not what you expected.
Sessions do not appear here when the association has hidden them from the Portal or closed them to registration. A session also needs its start date and time and end date and time scheduled before it can appear on this step, so a session still being set up will not show yet.
If your package eligibility changes after you have already registered, such as when your registration type or package changes, Rhythm may not fully preserve or reconcile the sessions you chose under the old package. Check your session selections again after any change like that.
Adding a session to an existing registration after checkout can also be complicated if you originally registered with a coupon code. If the session you are adding has a fee, the coupon can limit your options, so check with the association if adding a paid session to a coupon-based registration does not go through as expected.
What a Session Costs
Each session on the form shows the fee for your registration package. Different packages can have different fees for the same session, and a package can include some sessions at no extra charge. If your package includes a session at no charge, that session is added to your registration even when it is otherwise full, because capacity and waitlist limits do not apply to sessions your package includes automatically.
Warning
If you are registering as part of a group, each person is priced according to their own package, not by who appears first or last in the group. If one attendee’s package includes a session for free, that benefit applies only to that attendee. Everyone else in the group pays the fee for their own package, and changing the order of attendees does not change any amounts.
Joining a Waitlist for a Full Session
If a session is full and the association has turned on a waitlist, the form lets you join the waitlist instead of choosing the session. See Join or Leave a Waitlist from the Portal for what happens after you join. Rhythm saves your place on a session waitlist as soon as you join, so you stay on the waitlist even if you cancel out of the rest of your event registration afterward.
Tip
Session availability can change while you register. A session might be available when you load the form and sell out before you finish, or a full session might become available before you complete registration.
Joining a waitlist does not charge you a session fee by itself. If the session’s fee is set on the registration package rather than on the session, you can still be charged at registration even though the session you want is full and you have only joined its waitlist. The session-specific fee only applies once a place is confirmed.
Once a place opens, claiming a session from the waitlist yourself works by modifying your existing registration. That option is available only if the event’s registration flow allows changes after you have submitted. If it does not, ask the association to add you from the waitlist instead.
See the Sessions You Already Hold
After you register, you can see the sessions where you hold a place on your registration page in the Portal. A restricted session appears here only when you are actually registered for it, so a waitlist spot or a list entry without a confirmed place will not show as a session you hold. Your sessions appear with your other registration details on the View or Modify Your Registration page. You can also see a session’s documents once you have purchased it; document access is not available before that.
If the association cancels a session after you have registered for it, do not expect an automatic credit or refund. Any refund or credit for that session’s fee is issued by hand on your registration order, so follow up with the association if you paid for a session that no longer runs.
Related
- Register for an Event in the Portal
- Join or Leave a Waitlist from the Portal
- View or Modify Your Registration in the Portal
- Sessions Explained