Using Google Forms For Event Registration

There are many different tools for event registration, but one completely free tool you can start with easily is Google Forms. It is a great tool for having guests register for your event and collecting any relevant information you need in advance such as name, email, and anything else you might require such as dietary preferences, their occupation and organization.

This article will cover how to quickly get started with Google Forms, including how to create and share your first event. It will also cover Google Forms' limitations and how they can be overcome.

Step 1: Creating your event registration form

Log into your Google Account and navigate to Google Forms, which can be directly accessed here. Create your form by starting with the “Blank form” button or by clicking “Template gallery” and accessing various pre-made designs, including an “Event Registration” template.

Step 2: Adding title and description

You can customize your form and bring it to life by filling out the following important sections:

The first two critical sections, which start out as “Untitled Form” and “Form description” in a blank form, are where you can give your form a Title and a Description of your event for your guests. Simply click on each section, delete existing text, and replace it with whatever best describes your event. This is where you will want to include key details such as date, time, location, and a brief overview of the event​.

Step 3: Adding questions

Key to any registration form is the ability to collect information from those registering. In this step, we'll add questions to your Google Form to gather all the information you need from your guests. You’ll notice that one question is already included by default in a blank form, which you can edit as well as change its settings. Notice that it is a multiple-choice question, but you can also explore the other question types. You can change the question type by clicking the “Multiple choice” dropdown to open a menu where you will see other types of questions.

There are different options to explore, but here are some of the most relevant ones for event registration:

• Short answer: this is perfect for collecting information such as full name, dietary restrictions, and other preferences.

• Multiple choice: use this type of question to allow guests to choose among several available options such as food, seating, parking, etc…

• Time: the time question is perfect for asking guests what time they plan to arrive and get a sense of traffic for large events.

Examples of how the questions look are in the image below, in the order they were mentioned:

To add another question, you can click the plus sign icon to the right of an existing question.

At a minimum, we recommend you have a short answer type question that asks for the guest’s full name. We also recommend you then collect the guest's email address. While you could use another short answer question to collect their email address, there is actually a better way to do this automatically, which we’ll discuss in Step 5.

Step 4: Customizing the event registration form’s look 

To customize the look of your form, click on the palette icon at the top right corner. You’ll open up a menu on the right which you can use to customize your Google Form. You can change the color of the Google Form’s sections and the overall background. It is also possible to modify the color, font, and font size for your Title and all your questions.

Finally, the Header image is one of the best features for creating a personalized look. You can add an image above your title once you click the “Choose image” button. You can choose from the premade images that Google offers, or upload a custom image. These all result in a more memorable and unique experience for the attendees and make your Google Forms more customized for your event. Here is what your form might look like with a header image added onto it:

Step 5: Additional settings and preview mode

Now that you’ve completed the foundation of your form, some additional changes can be made to ensure you are ready to share your event registration form with your guests. The first step is configuring form settings using the “Settings'' tab, where you’ll see various features to enhance your form:

• Automatic Email Collection: turn this on to ensure all guests provide their email addresses. This will allow you to uniquely identify them, as well as contact them before and after your event.
  Note: If your form already includes a short answer question that collects a guest’s email address, consider removing it in favor of automatic email collection.

• Response Editing: this feature is helpful to let guests make last minute changes and update their responses.

• Confirmation Message: you can create a custom confirmation message that all guests receive once they fill out your form.

• User Restriction: turn this on to limit users to your organization, and only guests that share your organization’s email will be admitted. This can be useful for school or work events, though should be turned off if you want your form to be accessible to individuals outside of your organization.

The last step is to preview your form to review what people will see when you send it to them. This can be achieved by clicking the eye icon in the top right corner, next to the palette icon. You can even fill out the form yourself, to be sure you’re happy with the experience. If you want to make any changes, just close the preview and go back to editing your form again.

Step 6: Sharing your event registration form and managing responses

Once you’ve configured your form and are ready to invite your guests, click the "Send" button. You can share your form via email, or via a direct link which you can copy and send through text or email, or by embedding it within your website, or share it through social media platforms​. 

As your guests register for the event, you can monitor their registrations with the “Responses” tab. You can also export the response data to a spreadsheet for easier in-depth analysis and management. Simply click the “Link to Sheets” link, and a new Google Spreadsheet will be created. This is particularly useful for tracking attendee details and planning your event logistics​.

Step 7: Day of your event

On the day of your event you can continue to use form responses as a tool by actively updating your linked spreadsheet. Create a column called “Attendance” where you can easily insert and check a “Checkbox” when a guest arrives. This makes it really easy to track who has made it and who hasn’t, and at the end of the event see who wasn’t able to attend at all. This information can also be filtered to see only the people that have made it, and send a thank you email and a survey out to specifically those people.

Step 8: Further personalization and event registration management

With these steps you have everything you need to use Google Forms for basic event registration. However, even with all these great features, Google Forms is still quite limited in its event registration management capabilities. Although it can efficiently gather registration information, it lacks a number of key capabilities that are generally important for successful event registration, such as a professional-looking event website, the ability to limit event capacity and support waitlisting, calendaring, notifications, and reminders. 

EventForm is an easy-to-use, free Google Forms add-on that addresses Google Forms limitations seamlessly. It also simplifies the task of managing guests, especially for events with many attendees.

The EventForm add-on can enhance your event in multiple ways:

• Stand Out with an Event Webpage: EventForm automatically creates a webpage for your event, hosted on eventform.com. This gives your event a more professional look, and links back to your Google Form for registration. The webpage can be customized with a title, description, custom banner, and even an embedded video. It is easy and intuitive to update and doesn’t require any coding knowledge. EventForm does everything for you! 

• Smart Registration: With EventForm you can enforce a set registration window, a maximum attendee count, and a waitlist of set size.

• Guest Management: EventForm also takes guest management to the next level and goes further than what Google Forms can achieve. EventForm’s “Overview” dashboard lets you easily see the time until your event starts, how many guests registered, how many guests you’ve checked in, and how many guests are on the waitlist. You can easily search attendees by name or email and filter by registration status. 

• Custom Messaging: You can add custom messages to be sent out with automatic event reminders to your guests, and enable an automated post-event email. The latter can be extremely useful for data collection and feedback through surveys automatically sent to your guests after your event.

The add-on can be installed for free and your event webpage deployed within minutes. To install EventForm, click here and follow the instructions for a quick set up.  If you have any questions, please contact us at eventform-support@gleeda.net. Happy Event Management!