Organize awesome events.Our all-in-one event management software keeps organizers sane & attendees happy.

It's Friday and I thought I'd share a fun story to keep you entertained while you're waiting for happy hour to start...

A few weeks ago, an opportunity arose to participate in one of the very popular racing series where teams compete in "cheap" cars in long endurance races on proper road courses. 

Here at MotorsportReg we pride ourselves on having one of the best customer service and support experiences in the business.  Not only do we support our end-customers, the event organizers, but we also support their end customer, participants.  In fact many participants who email or call us, don't realize that  we're not the ones putting on the events.  That's why we promote that using MSR is like adding another member to your team!  Last week alone we received nearly 1,200 emails and 180 phone calls.

We thought it might be educational (and interesting) to share some of the gripes we get from attendees about registration forms.  Below are a few of the most common ones (in no particular order).

If you've participated in track events for any length of time, you may have thought to yourself, "I bet I could do this!" But unless you've volunteered with an organization you may not know how to get started.

This is the second part of a blog series we started in December covering the 3 guiding principles for AWESOME registration forms:

1. Entice
2. Inform
3. Guide

Today's blog post will focus on Enticing and Informing your attendees.

Don't leave your attendees out to dry

Whether you use your online registration forms as a stand-alone event information and registration portal, or simply a means of collecting your attendees' data, you don't want to leave them wondering what to do next after they click the Register button.

Make the first thing your participants see welcoming and exciting. Let them know how excited you are that they are considering your event. And confirm that they are in the right place by repeating the event's name and date.

Why is a great registration page so important?

As motorsport event organizers, we have the privilege of hosting events that let us share our sport with others, bring friends together, and experience shared community among petrol heads. A lot of effort goes into making sure all our bases are covered at the track, and the online registration process is an integral part of setting the tone for your entire event.

Attendees don't want to "work" to get registered for an event. With lots of competition out there, having a registration process that works for the attendee, instead of against, means the difference between someone attending YOUR event, or the other guy's. Based on our experience hosting registrations for over 13,000 events, we've compiled a few guiding principles to make your registration form really stand out from the crowd.

Daylight savings time... it's not just for smoke alarm batteries anymore!

MotorsportReg.com captures a lot of information when you register for an event. For attendees, it allows you to only have to enter that information once and then register for as many events as you like. For organizers, it helps you run a smooth event with all of your attendee data stored in one place.

As you set your clocks back and check those smoke alarm batteries, take a minute to review and update your MotorsportReg information.

End of an era

As most of you probably know, this weekend's Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta marks the final race of the American Le Mans Series. Merging with Grand-Am for next year, the combined series will be known as United SportsCar. It will be interesting to see how well the two series play together. 

I attended the Oak Tree Grand Prix on October 5th and I'm glad I did. Our friends at Virginia International Raceway put on a GREAT show!  Thankfully the new series will be back next year (maybe it will be cooler in August?).

To be able to cap specific groups... you must first have specific groups to cap

Many events have limitations on how many cars can be in any one run group (HPDE, PDX, etc). Instead of keeping a constant watch on who's registering for what, organizers can set up the registration form to enforce limits automatically.

Q: My event doesn't really have a traditional venue. How can MotorsportReg.com accommodate that?

A: By using the custom venue function creatively!

While most events on MotorsportReg.com take place at a specific location (at a track, in the parking lot of a particular business, even an abandoned airport), there are more and more events that don't have a specific location. 

1. Attendees make the best testers

... No matter how much you test and plan, your attendees WILL find oversights in your registration process