One of the most important aspects of organising events is knowing how many people have registered for the event. This creates the basis for deciding, for example, how much food should be ordered or how many other materials should be purchased. Gathering accurate data on the amount of participants joining the event and knowing as much as possible about their dietary restrictions can really help to minimise food waste, particularly for on-site events.

It is, however, quite common that not all registered participants actually show up on the day of the event. In Lyyti, participants who have registered for the event but do not show up for some reason are called no-shows. This article gives you more insight on how to track no-shows and how you can try to prevent them in your events.

This article contains the following sections:

• What is a no-show in Lyyti?
• Preventing no-shows in your events
• Tracking the number of no-shows in your events

What is a no-show in Lyyti?

In Lyyti, there are five different statuses a participant can have:

• Registered
• Attending
• Not reacted
• Declined
• No-show

At first, a participant has the not reacted status if they have been imported into Lyyti to send invitations from the messaging section. After they have received the invitation and reacted to it, the participant will be placed either in the registered or declined category, depending on whether they will participate in the event or not. If no invitations are sent and open registration is used instead, participants will not have the not reacted status; they will move directly to the registered or declined category.

On the day of the event, participants who have registered and attend the event will get the status attending. The attending status is added automatically to the participant if they join an online event through a personal online link, or if their ticket is scanned at the door when entering a physical event location.

After the event is over, it will be possible to see how many of the registered participants showed up on the participants page:

1. Go to the participants page and look at the number of registered and attending participants.
2. The total number of registrants before the event is the number of registered + attending participants.
3. The remaining "registered" participants after the event are the people who registered but didn't show up.
4. Edit these remaining registered participants' status to no-show

Preventing no-shows in your events

There are multiple ways to prevent no-shows in your events. In this section, we have a list of tips that can be considered depending on your needs. It is, however, also good to remember that no-shows cannot always be prevented, so it is normal to have some participants with a no-show status.

How to prevent no-shows:

• Send reminders and instructions before the event date: Send emails, SMS messages, or notifications through the Lyyti Event App.
• Cancellations: If cancellation is possible, remember to share the personal cancellation link with the participants so that they can cancel and possibly give their place to the next person in line. If you have a strict deadline for cancellations, remember to communicate this deadline clearly.
• Set expectations early: Communicate to the participants on the registration page that registration is binding and that a no-show without a valid reason might result in a fee.
   

Tracking the number of no-shows in your events

Following the number of no-shows in your events requires participant statuses to be used correctly. This means that the participant is checked in to the event and their status changes from registered to attending on the day of the event. It also requires that the remaining participants are changed to no-show after the event is over.

In order to track the no-show rates in your events, we recommend contacting your admin user to generate reports. Participant statuses can be tracked on a monthly or yearly basis depending on your needs. Statuses can also be tracked at the event level and exported outside of Lyyti if needed.

• Status reporting on the event level: Create a summary report of your event to get the overall numbers: Summary report.
• Status reporting on a larger scale: Go to Organisation settings (only visible to the admin user) 

• Events and users
• Company's events
• Event overview (add-on feature)

Tip: To create even broader reporting, export the numbers to Excel or a similar system where you can combine reports, compare numbers, and calculate your exact no-show rate.