Unsurprisingly, free events have more no-shows than any ticketed event type. When a ticket costs nothing, NOT turning up costs nothing either: industry analysis suggests that free events see 40–60% no-shows, compared to 10–20% for paid events.
But free events are also those that tend to matter most: exhibition openings, community and access nights, education and outreach, member previews, funder-driven engagement work. Events that seek to improve engagement, community links and support, for which a full room is most important.
RSVP, now rolling out to all Ticketsolve customers, was introduced to help with this. The feature adds in a small moment of commitment - a single click in the pre-event email - which allows you to get an idea of attendance and tells your box office exactly who is and isn't coming, in time to do something about it. Here's how it works in practice 👇
RSVP sits in the pre-event alert email that your customers already receive. Under a friendly reminder, two customisable buttons appear: 'Yes' and 'No', with the answer recorded on click.
A confirmation step that protects your data.
After the first click, the customer sees a short confirmation page before their response is logged. This stops email apps that 'preview' links from registering an RSVP.
Your box office sees every response two ways.
Each answer is added to the customer's order as an automated comment, giving you a permanent, searchable record of who responded and when. When someone declines, the box office also receives a decline notification email carrying the customer's name, email, order number and the event details, so you can act on this empty place straight away.
Image credit: Durham Cathedral
Customers have found that RSVP is especially helpful in the case of a sold-out free event with a waiting list. In this case, demand is real, so it makes sense to fill seats with customers who’ll actually attend, and avoid having empty seats whilst disappointed customers are stuck on a list.
How RSVP helps:
Live decline alerts.
The instant a customer taps 'I Can't Make It', your box office knows - no need to wait until the event to discover empty seets.
A waiting list that actually moves.
With names freeing up days ahead, you can offer places to the people who missed out, filling the room and fulfilling demand.
Better numbers to plan around.
A confirmed headcount lets you set the space up for the audience you'll actually have, rather than the one you hoped for.
Durham Cathedral recently used the feature for this exact purpose
“The new RSVP feature arrived at the perfect time for us as we had two very popular sold out events with long waiting lists. With the launch of the automated RSVP function we could offer places to our waiting list, improving customer relations, and also reconfigure the venue layout based on more accurate expected guest numbers.”
Shaun McAlister | Visitor Experience Manager | Durham Cathedral
Pro Tip: Add a line to your RSVP email letting customers know that declining frees their place for someone on the waiting list. People cancel more readily when they can see their seat will go to someone else
For community, access and grant-funded work, attendance isn't just an operational number, it's the evidence that’s key for your reporting. The trouble is that free events have always been the hardest to measure. As The Audience Agency points out, much free and unticketed cultural activity generates no box-office data at all, so attendance comes down to memory and estimate.
How RSVP helps:
Every response attached to a record.
Confirms and declines are logged against the customer's order, building a clear account of who intended to come.
Reporting you can stand behind.
'We confirmed 200 places and tracked who came' is a far stronger line to put in front of a board or funder than 'we gave away 200 tickets'.
A picture that builds over time.
Run RSVP across a season of free events and you can get an idea of actual attendance patterns - no need to rely on guesswork for the programme that's hardest to evidence.
Not every empty seat carries the same cost. At a patrons' preview, a donor reception or a high-level funder evening, who's in the room matters more than how full it is. Your development team has limited time to have the handful of conversations that really matter, and they can only plan those if they know who's actually coming.
How RSVP helps:
A confirmed guest list, ahead of the night.
Your fundraising team sees who has genuinely committed, not just who was invited, with enough notice to plan the evening around the people who'll be there.
Time spent on the right conversations.
A reliable list of who's attending lets the team prioritise the cultivation and stewardship conversations that count and brief the right people to have them.
An accurate record to follow up from.
Every confirm and decline is logged on the customer's order, so the thank-yous, invitations and any eventual asks all start from a clear account of who was there.
Pro Tip: In-person events are the sector's leading retention tool, with 75% of arts and culture organisations naming regular in-person events as their primary donor retention strategy (CCS Philanthropy Pulse, 2026). Knowing exactly who attended turns each one into a stewardship opportunity you can act on.
RSVP only runs where you want it to.
Your free events are just as important as your paid events - and your ticketing system should have the functionality to allow you to plan, fulfill and measure with the same care as for the rest of your programming. RSVP is one small way to achieve that.
The full setup runs through a dedicated pre-event alert. Take a look at how it works in the help centre: Setting Up an RSVP Pre-Event Alert for Free Events, or get in touch and we'll walk you through it.