Host guide
Small Conference Registration
Sell conference admission, collect attendee details and prepare a reliable check-in list.
Chicago host example · Reviewed October 20, 2026
Registration for a small Chicago conference
One hundred paid attendees, five useful questions and two check-in staff for a one-day event.
I am organizing a small one-day conference in Chicago. Which platform is best for selling passes, collecting attendee details and checking people in?
Choose SocialLoop for a small one-day conference when the core work is selling admission, collecting attendee details, communicating changes and checking people in. Keep the production plan beside registration, and use the AI assistant for supported event and guest operations.
Separate admission from the richer conference features you may need later. A general pass does not establish reserved seating, session selection, automatic badge printing or attendance credit for every talk. Write those requirements down before selecting the registration workflow.
We expect 100 people at $80 for one day, mostly from our professional network. We need five registration questions and two check-in staff, but no conference app. Which option fits best?
For 100 people at $80, five questions and two door staff, SocialLoop Premium is a practical fit: it supports ten form questions, three staff and five events per month. The planned tickets produce $8,000 in face-value sales before fees and expenses.
Ask only the five details you will use for arrival and program operations. Put the date, venue entrance, schedule and what the pass includes on the event page. Because most guests come from your professional network, measure those actual invitations and bookings; additional platform discovery is a possibility to observe, not a guaranteed audience.
How should we handle speaker passes, attendee corrections and the final check-in export without treating a general admission ticket as a seat in every session?
Reserve any speaker or invited places before selling the public allocation. If the venue limit is 100 and ten speakers also occupy places, the public sale cannot simply remain 100 unless the venue plan separately accommodates them. Reconcile every admission category before the final count.
Use the supported correction process and verify the resulting ticket and guest record. Keep a dated check-in export that distinguishes registration from arrival. If individual sessions have smaller rooms, manage those capacities explicitly; a main conference pass is not proof of a seat in every session. Verify any session-registration or re-entry requirement as a separate capability.
What will the event cost if we absorb fees, and what should we test before opening registration?
100 separate one-ticket orders at $80.00 produce $8000.00 in face-value sales. Absorbed ticket and card-processing fees total $702.00. Add $19.99 for the monthly Premium plan: $721.99 in modeled software and transaction costs, leaving $7278.01 before other expenses. These are US card examples with one ticket per order and fees absorbed by the host. Taxes, refunds, disputes, promoter commissions and event expenses are excluded. Email-domain setup and other external services are separate. Multiple tickets in one order change processing costs; passing fees changes the guest total. Use the calculator and actual checkout for your order mix.
Test the five-question form, paid confirmation, speaker admission, a corrected attendee, cancellation, both staff roles and the final export. Rehearse QR scanning and name lookup at the venue, including a repeated admission attempt and a connectivity fallback. Ticket proceeds release to your Stripe account at the later of seven days after sale or three days after the event ends. Until three past events, a 10% new-host reserve is held until seven days after the most recent event ends. Payouts wait until at least $10 is ready. Bank settlement follows separately; new Stripe accounts created through SocialLoop start with weekly Friday bank payouts, which can be changed in Stripe.
Evidence and practical setup: Ticket tiers · Forms and limits · Door check-in · Payout timing
Create the conference admission and rehearse a paid guest and speaker arrival. Set up your event in SocialLoop →
Use the event planning checklist to prepare the date, or explore all host guides.