There are three standard email communications between you and the event registrant:
The receipt is sent automatically. It is often enough, as it summarizes the ticket selections the registrant has made.
The confirmation email is optional. It is sent to the main registrant as soon as their registration is completed.
Confirmation emails are useful for communicating information that is not already on the receipt, such as:
To set up a confirmation e-mail, go to your event's communication tab, and select + new email. Choose "notification" under the email type. Other email management functions, including composing the email itself, are done using the Email module.
Note that you can set up confirmation emails for your main event, as well as for selected activities that may need them. The registrant will receive only the ones that correspond to events they have registered in.
Scheduled emails are bulk emails that are sent out to your entire event roster at specified times. These are useful for:
Scheduled emails are managed the same way as notifications, except:
Note that the mailing list for an event is constantly changing as new registrants are received. If you have an important update or pre-event reminder that goes out ahead of time, there may be late registrants who join the event after the scheduled send date. You can use the Email module's re-send function to send the update again. Re-sends only go to recipients who have not already received the e-mail. So your initial reminder can go out two weeks in advance, for example, plus a re-send 48 hours in advance to catch any late arrivals.
Anti-spam regulations lay out who you are allowed to engage in bulk communications with. Generally speaking, you have the right to communicate with people who have purchased something from you. For this reason, the registration system communicates mainly with the purchaser, who is typically also the primary registrant. The email address provided on the billing checkout screen will be the primary recipient of all email communications. This is because that is where the purchase receipt gets sent, and for the sake of consistency, all follow-up communications should go to the same place.
Secondary registrants, including spouses, partners, guests, and colleagues registered on the same invoice, will not normally receive their own separate email communications. It is the responsibility of the primary registrant to handle event communications on their behalf.
If you need to communicate directly with your secondary recipients, you can expand your mailing lists to include them, by selecting the fee configuration option Create address cards for guests. If the registration system can determine any contact information for them (most importantly an email address from their registration forms), it will set up a separate address card for them in the system Address Book, and bulk emails will then be able to address them separately.
The registration tools allow you to export an event contact list, under the reports tool.
The contact list is NOT the same as your roster. For reasons noted above, the contact list will include those whom you are legally permitted to communicate with, which is normally just the purchaser. It may include some guests, if you have selected to generate address cards for them. However, it may also exclude some users who have chosen to unsubscribe from your bulk email communications.
For these reasons, contact lists should not be treated as an accurate listing of who participated in your event. Rather, it is a listing of people whom we believe it is safe to export to an external contact management system (for example, Constant Contact or MailChimp).
If you need to see a listing of all your attendees with contact information, just use your roster. If you need to communicate with your attendees, just use your communications tools.