Sometimes an exhibitor prefers to call, mail in a form, or ask staff to fix a purchase that did not go through online. When that happens, you can register the exhibitor from the Console on the organization’s behalf, in the organization’s name, just as if one of its contacts had bought the space in the portal.
Before You Begin
Prerequisites
- You need permission to process exhibitor registrations.
- You need the organization buying the space and one of its contacts to credit for the purchase.
- The event must have at least one exhibitor registration process available for staff to use. If none is eligible, there is nothing to buy.
Tip
If the organization or contact is not eligible through the event’s standard exhibitor registration process, you can still provide a complimentary space. Process a storefront order instead, then choose the complimentary exhibitor registration type and package there.
Warning
If someone reports an error while trying to register as an exhibitor, ask them to report it again while they are still seeing it, before you finish the registration for them here. After you complete the purchase on their behalf, the original error is often too late to investigate because the transaction has moved past the point where it happened.
Start and Complete the Registration
- Open the event, go to its Exhibitors page, and select Process Exhibitor Registration.
- Choose the organization you are registering as an exhibitor.
- Choose a contact to credit with the purchase.
- Select Start Exhibitor Registration.
- If more than one registration process is available, choose the one you want to use.
- Complete the form for the process, including the booths or booth types and quantities, any add-ons, and the booth staff. If the form includes an exhibitor contacts component, Rhythm saves the booth staff you add there as you go, so you do not need to wait until the exhibitor record exists to add them.
- Complete checkout as you would for any other order by choosing payment and confirming the purchase.
Result
Rhythm creates the order and, once payment is confirmed, creates the exhibitor record and opens its 360 page.
Tip
Rhythm does not check whether the contact you choose belongs to the organization you are registering. Choose carefully if that matters for your records.
If the invoice for this purchase should be tracked and paid at the organization level instead of the individual level, choose Bill to My Organization at checkout instead of the general invoice or pay-later option.
Warning
When you select a parent organization to bill, checkout can sometimes offer only the contact’s or a child organization’s address, without showing the parent organization’s address. A pay-later checkout has shown both addresses in the same situation. If the address you need is not offered, try the pay-later path or enter the address directly on the order afterward.
If the exhibitor needs to pay part of the booth fee now and be invoiced for the rest later, remember that pay-later applies to the whole exhibitor line item, not only to a remaining balance. To split a charge so part can be paid now and the rest later, or so two different cards can be used, add the charge as two separate items on the order instead of relying on pay-later for a partial amount.
Save a Registration and Finish It Later
You do not have to complete the purchase in one sitting. You can save the registration partway through and return before checkout with the selected booths or booth types, add-ons, booth staff, logo, and description still in place.
If the New Exhibitor Isn't Ready Yet
Warning
After you complete checkout, Rhythm finishes setting up the new exhibitor record in the background before it can open that record. If setup is not finished yet, you see Just a moment... because Rhythm is still writing the registration information. Close the notice and try completing the purchase again after a few seconds; you do not need to redo checkout itself.
If you keep seeing this notice for longer than a few seconds, check the event’s exhibitors list directly. The exhibitor and its order may already exist, even if this page has not caught up yet. If the exhibitor still does not appear there, you can also look for the underlying registration by running a query against Exhibitors › Exhibitor Registrations. A completed order can appear there even when the event’s Exhibitors list and related views have not caught up.
Warning
Occasionally, a paid exhibitor order does not finish creating the exhibitor record at all. When that happens, you cannot retrieve the field values submitted on that registration afterward, so the exhibitor needs to submit a new registration instead of recovering the first one. Report a case like this to Support while it is still happening. If too much time passes, or if it resolves on its own, there may no longer be a current example to investigate.
You may also see a paid exhibitor order create the exhibitor record without moving the booth from On Hold to Reserved, while the order stays open even though payment went through. If that does not clear on its own, cancelling the exhibitor registration order and processing the registration again has resolved it for other customers.
If an order was never linked to an Exhibitor 360 record in the first place, you cannot link it by hand afterward. To resend the exhibitor’s confirmation email in that situation, reprocess the order instead of trying to attach it manually.
Tip
If a registrant says they received the exhibitor confirmation email more than once, check the audit log on the exhibitor registration record. Automated updates to the record timed to match each send can help you tell repeated backend processing apart from a one-off mistake.
Changing an Exhibitor Registration After Submission
When you edit an exhibitor registration after submission, the edit option does not bring back every question from the original form. Only certain fields are available to update, so you cannot use the edit option to change the same information the exhibitor entered on the original registration form. Fully editing a submitted registration’s responses is not supported today. If you need that ability, submit a feature request rather than expecting a hidden setting to unlock it.
If a needed change is not available through the edit option, cancel the existing exhibitor registration and process a new one instead.
Related
Once the exhibitor exists, see Add, Edit, and Delete Exhibitors to change its details or add contacts and add-ons after the fact. To award the organization priority points for the space it holds, see Assign, Delete, and Recalculate Priority Points. To find the organization and contact before you start, see Find, View, and Pick an Organization and Search for and Pick a Contact.