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Issue Registration Codes

Goal: Give a sponsor, board member, or honoree a code their guests can use to register for free (or at a reduced price), so those people go through the normal registration form — names, meal choices, confirmation emails and all — without paying a second time for seats you already sold.

The problem this solves​

A company buys your $10,000 Gold sponsorship. One of the benefits is a table of eight at the gala. The sponsorship is paid, but the eight people who will actually sit at that table still need to register: you need their names, emails, and meal choices, and they need confirmation emails and a check-in record like every other attendee.

Without a registration code, your only options are to ask the sponsor to email you eight sets of details so you can enter them by hand, or to let those guests buy tickets and refund them afterwards.

With a code, you hand the sponsor one code. Their guests register themselves, and pay nothing.

How it fits together​

There are two pieces, and it is worth setting them up in this order.

1. A hidden ticket type for the seats​

On Manage Event → Registration, create a registration level for the sponsor seats — "Sponsor Seat", for example — and turn on Code only.

A code-only tier does not appear on your public registration page. Nobody browsing the event can see it or book it. It becomes visible only to someone who enters a valid code.

Keep it Active. Active and Code only are different switches: deactivating a tier stops code holders from claiming it too.

Set its price to the same face value as an equivalent public ticket. That is what the code discounts, and it is what shows on the sponsor's record as the value of the seats.

:::tip Why not just discount the normal ticket? A code that discounts your public ticket works, but it makes sponsor seats indistinguishable from discounted public sales in every report, and if the code gets forwarded around it becomes a free general-admission ticket. A hidden tier keeps the sponsor's seats countable and limits what a shared code can ever be spent on. :::

2. A code for those seats​

Go to the event's details page — the ticket type is a setting, but issuing seats is day-to-day work, so it sits with the attendee list rather than in Manage Event. Below Registrations, find Registration codes and choose Issue seats:

FieldWhat to enter
Who is this for?The sponsor or group — "Acme Corp — Gold table". This is what the guest sees when the code is applied.
Ticket typeThe code-only tier you created
SeatsHow many people the code admits (8 for a table of eight)
DiscountFree for comped seats, or a percentage / amount off
Send the code toOptional. An email address to send the code and link to as soon as it is issued. Leave blank to share it yourself
NotesInternal only — never shown to the guest

Omnivo generates one shared code, like X4KP-9WTM-3B, plus a link that applies it automatically.

Nothing is sent unless you say so. Issuing a code creates it; sharing it is your call. Two ways to share:

  • Have Omnivo email it. Fill in Send the code to on the issue form, and the recipient gets the code and link the moment you click Issue. You can also email any active code later — choose Email on its row, enter an address, and send. It re-sends the same code, so use it freely when an email gets lost or the contact changes; a new code would double the seats.
  • Share it yourself. Copy the code or the link and send it however you normally talk to them.

:::tip Make the email sound like you The wording of that email — and of the guest invitations and the unclaimed-seat reminders — is yours to edit under Communications → System Emails. Your message appears above the parts Omnivo always renders: the code, the seat count, and the Register button. Those stay, so a rewrite can never leave someone holding an email they cannot act on. See System Emails. :::

:::caution The share link is shown once The link is displayed only right after you issue the code. Copy it then. You can always share the code itself instead — the code stays visible in the list. :::

What the guest sees​

Someone who receives the link lands on the registration page with the code already applied and the sponsor tier already available. They pick their seat, fill in their details, and finish. No payment step appears when the total is zero.

Someone who receives the code goes to your normal registration page and clicks Have a code?, then types it in. Codes are designed to survive being read aloud or copied off a printed sheet — capitalization does not matter, hyphens are optional, and the letters that get confused with digits are handled for you.

Either way they appear in your attendee list exactly like everyone else, with a $0 amount.

Watching the seats​

The codes list shows claimed / total for each code, so two weeks before the gala you can see that Acme has claimed 5 of 8 and give them a nudge.

If a guest cancels, their seat goes back to the code automatically and somebody else can use it.

Capacity: the "held" number​

Once you issue codes, the capacity summary gains a line:

200 capacity · 145 registered · 40 held for code holders · 15 available to the public

Held seats are ones you have promised but nobody has claimed yet. Omnivo keeps them out of public sales so that a sponsor's guests can still register in April even if the public sold briskly in February.

:::danger Do not "fix" a low available number by raising capacity If you see only 15 available and raise the event capacity to make room, you undo the protection: the public can then take seats that a sponsor has already paid for, and you will be cancelling paid registrations to honor the sponsorship. The held seats are not lost — they are spoken for. :::

When a guest claims a held seat, the number simply moves from held to registered. Public availability does not change.

Revoking a code​

Revoke stops a code working immediately. Use it when a sponsorship falls through, or when a code has been shared more widely than you intended.

Revoking does not cancel registrations people have already made. Those guests were invited in good faith and may have made travel plans; their registrations stand. Only the unclaimed seats are released back to the event. Omnivo tells you the split before you confirm.

Codes and tax receipts​

A fully comped seat does not generate a tax receipt, and it does not add to the event's fundraising total.

This is deliberate. The money was already recognized when the sponsorship was paid, and the fair market value of those meals is disclosed on the sponsorship's acknowledgment letter. Receipting the seats again would count the same benefit twice against the same dollars.

A partially discounted registration — someone who paid something — receipts normally.

:::tip Price the benefit on the sponsorship Because the seats' value belongs to the sponsorship rather than the registration, make sure the sponsorship package's benefit carries a fair market value. That is what reduces the sponsor's deductible amount on their acknowledgment letter. :::

Other ways to use codes​

Registration codes are not only for sponsorships. The same mechanism covers:

  • Board members and honorees who attend as guests of the organization
  • Press and photographers
  • In-kind donors receiving seats as recognition
  • An early-bird or member rate you only advertise to a mailing list (use a percentage discount on a public tier instead of a hidden one)

Do I need a hidden ticket type?​

No. A code can comp an ordinary, publicly-listed ticket type — point it at General Admission and holders pay $0 for the same ticket everyone else buys. Nothing about the feature requires a Code only tier.

The two settings do different jobs, and it's worth knowing which you're getting:

Code covers a public tierCode covers a Code only tier
Who can see the tierEveryoneOnly someone with a code
What the code doesDiscounts it to $0 for the holderReveals it and discounts it
If the code leaksThe leaker gets a free version of a ticket people are paying forThey can only claim seats at a tier that was never on sale

Use a public tier when a sponsor seat is simply a normal ticket someone else paid for — it's one less thing to set up.

Use a Code only tier when the sponsor's seat is genuinely a different product (a table of eight, a VIP reception), or when you'd rather a leaked code be bounded to something that isn't otherwise for sale.

An event whose only tiers are code-only works too — invite-only dinners run this way. The public registration page then shows no tickets, just a prompt to enter a registration code; nobody can register without one.

Either way, held seats work identically: unclaimed sponsor seats are withheld from public availability so the room can't be sold out from under a table you already promised.

Chasing unclaimed seats​

Two weeks out, the question is which sponsors still haven't filled their tables. Three things help.

The seat counts on the codes panel show claimed against total for each code, with named guests listed underneath.

Reminder emails. On Manage Event → Registration, set Remind sponsors about unclaimed seats to a number of days. A sponsor with seats still unclaimed inside that window gets one email with their code and link.

Leave it blank and nothing is sent — that's the default for every event, including ones created before this existed. When you do set it, each code is emailed at most once, ever. It is not a daily nudge, and it won't re-send if you edit the event.

:::tip Pick the number backwards from your own deadline If you need a final headcount for the caterer 10 days out, set the reminder to 14. That leaves you four days to follow up by phone with whoever doesn't reply to the email. :::

Export. The Export button on the codes panel downloads a CSV of every code and every seat claimed against it — including codes nobody has used, and seats that were claimed and later cancelled. That last part matters when you're reconciling a headcount that went down and need to see when and why.

Codes that have expired​

Codes past their expiry date stop working immediately, whether or not anything has marked them. Omnivo also tidies the status daily, so an expired code reads as Expired in the list rather than sitting there looking active. Revoking a whole code marks it and its guests at the same time.