Registration form template

What a registration form needs

A registration form has to do two things at once: get somebody signed up with as little friction as possible, and collect the handful of facts you genuinely cannot run the event without.

Those facts are usually smaller than organisers think. Name, contact, which session, how many people, dietary and accessibility needs, and agreement to the terms. Everything else can be asked later, by email, of the people who have already committed.

Ask about accessibility as an open question

A dropdown of accessibility options will always be incomplete, and an incomplete list tells somebody their requirement was not worth listing. An open box is better here, even though open boxes are usually worse.

Ask it of everybody rather than behind a yes/no gate. People under-report needs when they have to declare themselves as having one first.

Put the cancellation policy on the form

The moment somebody registers is the only moment you have their full attention on the terms. A cancellation policy linked from a confirmation email has not been read; one acknowledged on the form has at least been seen.

Confirmation is part of the form

A registration that ends with a blank page is a registration somebody will submit twice. Say what happens next on the form itself and again in the confirmation: when they will hear from you, what to bring, where to go, and what to do if they need to cancel.

The confirmation is also the last chance to correct a typed email address. If it does not arrive, nothing else you send will either — no reminder, no joining link, no change of venue — and the person will turn up at the wrong time or not at all, having done everything right.

Ask for the name they want used

The name on a badge, a list read aloud, or a certificate is not always the name on the booking. A separate optional line — "the name you would like on your badge" — takes one field and prevents the version of this that is genuinely upsetting to somebody.

Ask only what changes what you do

Every question on a registration form has to earn its place, and the test is simple: if the answer would not change anything you do, it does not belong there. Job title, company size, how they heard about the event — each is interesting and none of them is worth the drop-off it causes unless somebody will act on it.

The questions that always earn their place are the ones with consequences: a name, a way to reach them, anything that affects catering or access, and whatever the event genuinely cannot run without. Everything else can be asked afterwards, when they are already registered and a question costs you nothing.

One list, not four

Registrations that arrive by email, phone, a paper form at the door and a spreadsheet somebody keeps separately are four lists that will disagree with each other by the day of the event.

A single link produces a single list. If you already have a registration form as a PDF, upload it and it becomes that link with the questions intact.