How to avoid access to the Virtual Lobby prior to the event date

By default, once the participants register to an online/ hybrid event they will receive an email containing a magic link giving them direct access to the Virtual Lobby. In case this is not the ideal situation, there are possibilities to avoid that, and this article aims to assist with that.

The article is split into two sections:

• The possibilities to mask the access to Virtual Lobby during the early stage of the Event setup;
• The Virtual Lobby can already be accessed but some actions can be done to hide its content;

Before adding the participants to the event

1. Redirecting to another page after registering

   If your event has a registration form, the attendees will be able to access the Virtual Lobby after completing the registration. Once the registration is done, the attendee will be able to click on the button Go to event! to access the Virtual Lobby. You can change:

• The Content Page at Event > Details and redirect them to the website for example;

And/ or

• The Headings at Settings > Headings and make it like there is nothing to be clicked upon completing the form.

1. Verifying the automatic emails

Firstly, it is advisable to double-check the content of the automatic emails, in particular, the Admission and the Confirmation email. It is possible to either deactivate them or simply remove the dynamic content for the magic link.

Removing the magic link

You can keep the automatic emails and simply remove the dynamic content for the magic link, you just need to follow the steps described in detail here. Make sure you also desactivate the calendar invites from the emails.To learn more about it check this article.

Disabling the automatic emails

To disable the automatic emails, you can navigate to Marketing > Communication > Automatic emails. Press Edit and set the toggle under Status to the left, a pop-up window will ask you to confirm this action, to confirm press Disable.

To send the confirmation email manually all you need to do is select Copy email, enter the Subject and select the Welcome to {{event-name}}, on Target select Attendees List, then Manual Selection as it shows below:

1. Using CSS

In case you are selling tickets at your event, once the participants finish their purchase, they will see the possibility to access the My Tickets tab and manage their tickets.

There is an Open Lobby button located on top of the page, to hide that you need to follow these step by step.

You can also use CSS to hide the field email me a link on the registration form:

.pageContent {

color: #FFFFFF;

width: 960px;

min-height: 50px;

text-align: center;

margin: 0 auto;

padding-bottom: 124px;

}

After adding participants to the event

In case the magic link has been previously sent or if there is no CSS included in your plan, here are some workarounds that could be useful.

1. Making the tabs & rooms invisible

An alternative could be setting as Invisible the following:

• The Virtual Lobby and the other tabs
• The activities and Sponsor rooms

Then upload a welcome card image or countdown video explaining the event will be taking place soon. And finally, disable also the Networking and News feed so there will be no interaction prior to the event.

The Virtual Lobby will look like this:

1. Changing the end of access date

When selecting a date in the past as the End of Access Date the participant will be unable to access the Virtual Lobby when clicking on the magic link provided by email.

They will see instead a page asking to enter the email address to request a new magic link.