Free Zoom events: registration for community groups and info sessions

The short answer

Even a free Zoom event benefits from registration. It tells you how many people to expect, gets the join link to them without posting it publicly, sends reminders so they actually come, and gives you a list to invite to the next one.

On One Ticket, a free ticket costs nobody anything, and you don’t need Stripe connected to run a free event. Create an online event, add a free ticket, paste your Zoom link (or have it created), and share the page.

Who this suits

• Community groups: residents' associations, clubs, support groups and committees meeting online.
• Info sessions: open evenings for a course, a school or a program, and enrolment briefings.
• Not-for-profits: volunteer inductions, supporter updates and annual general meetings.
• Businesses: product demos, free taster classes and client briefings.
• Councils and libraries: talks, author events and community consultations.

Why not just post the Zoom link?

Posting a link on Facebook or a website is quick, but:

• Anyone can join, including people who want to disrupt the meeting.
• You can’t plan. Ten people or two hundred? Without registration you find out on the night.
• Nobody is reminded. People who saw the post a week ago forget.
• You can’t follow up. When it’s over, you have no idea who came or how to invite them back.

Registration fixes all four without charging anyone.

Setting up a free Zoom event

1. Create the event with a clear title, the date, start and end times, and a description that says who it’s for and what they’ll get.
2. Choose the place: open Add a place, choose Online, and paste your Zoom meeting link. Schedule it in Zoom for this event rather than using your personal meeting room.
3. Add a free ticket. Call it “Free registration” or “RSVP”. Add a second free ticket type if you want to separate members from guests.
4. Ask what you need to know. A question at checkout, such as “Which suburb are you in?” or “What would you like us to cover?”, helps you plan. See questions at checkout.
5. Set a capacity if your Zoom plan has a participant limit, and leave room for the host and speakers.
6. Choose when people see the link, under Ticket holders see the link. For a free community event, As soon as they book is usually best: the calendar entry then carries the link.
7. Publish and share the event page, not the Zoom link.

People register with their name and email, without making an account.

Having the Zoom meeting created for you

With your own Zoom account connected in Settings › Zoom, choose Meeting under Generate with Zoom and save: One Ticket creates the Zoom meeting for you when you save the event, with the waiting room on and people muted as they arrive. It’s handy for a group that meets every month, where each meeting gets its own link. Creating Zoom meetings for you is on Pro and Team, though free events themselves run on every plan. Pro and Team are open now: upgrade any time in Settings › Plan. Limited-time offer: A$1 for your first year (first 100 organisers), then A$29/month for Pro or A$79/month for Team. Cancel anytime. See how to create a Zoom link automatically.

What people get when they register

• a ticket page with a Join meeting button
• a confirmation email with Add to Google Calendar, Outlook and a calendar file
• reminders the day before and on the morning
• a “Starting in 15 minutes” email with the join link

Free registrations get exactly the same emails as paid tickets. For more on why these matter, see reducing no-shows at Zoom events.

Free events and no-shows

Free events often lose more people than paid ones, because nothing is at stake. Some ideas that help without charging:

• Cap the places and say so: “40 places”. A limited event feels worth turning up to.
• Use a waitlist when it fills, so a place freed by a cancellation goes to someone keen. See waitlists.
• Make the start worth catching, such as a short welcome from someone people want to hear.
• Ask people to tell you if they can’t come, so you can free their place for someone else.

Big free events: check your daily limits

Each plan can sell a number of tickets and send a number of emails a day; the Free plan’s is 500 tickets and 500 emails a day. Every registration sends a ticket email, and each person then gets reminders and the starting-soon email, which count too. At the email limit, reminders wait for the next day, and a free booking that can’t be emailed is refused. For a very large free event, check daily limits before you promote it, and see our post on whether free events are really free on ticketing sites.

Keeping it private

For a members-only meeting, set the event to Unlisted, so only people with the link can book it, or Private with a password. Either way, the Zoom link itself goes only to people who register. See keeping your Zoom link private.

On the night

Start the meeting a few minutes early, admit people from the waiting room, and keep your registration list open in another tab. Attendees shows who opened the join link from their ticket. Afterwards, export the list of who registered for your records.

Inviting them back

People can follow your organiser page and are emailed when you post a new event. Mention it at the end of the session: “Follow us on One Ticket to hear about the next one.”

If your group meets regularly, make the event repeat, so each meeting has its own page and registrations. See running a community group with regular events.

The complete guide to selling tickets to a Zoom event links the rest of this series, the webinars page shows the tickets and emails, and the pricing page shows what a free ticket costs (nothing).