kamran sharief Summer has almost come and gone, but, likely, you’ll still see groups of classic cars at the local coffee shop or grocery store parking lot on any given Saturday or Sunday around the world. That’s because people love their classic cars and especially love entering their rides into the local car shows to show them off.
Whenever I see a classic car, it reminds me of when I was in charge of car show registration for a local, non-profit organization just a few years ago. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot about the needs of various types of car-related events. You need more information than just the registrant’s personal information, like name and email address. You also want to know the make and model of each vehicle in the car show and the category and type of vehicle.
Back in the days before the internet, many car shows were organized through word of mouth or by putting up flyers and posters throughout the town. Back then, registrations for the major car shows were captured using printed, paper registration forms and cash payments.
Fast-forward to today, and there are many different types of online event registration software available. However, it seems that many car show organizers are still stuck in the past and are still using old-fashioned methods to advertise their car shows and capture registration information. Often I still see car show organizers using printed PDF forms for their car show entry systems.
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Showcase car show events right on your WordPress website
It’s time for classic car show organizers to stop living in the past and start accepting traditional car show entries using modern technology. Enter WordPress; the long-time blogging software turned website platform. Using WordPress, car show organizers can create an online presence in the form of a website, where they can announce upcoming events on a calendar, accept car shows, sell tickets, and collect payments using a WordPress event manager plugin.
Gone are the days of plastering signs up all over the town and passing out paper registration forms to car show attendees. With today’s technology, car show organizers can easily showcase upcoming events using calendars, event lists, tables, and Pinterest-style grid views, all from their WordPress website.
Accept car show registrations and sell spectator tickets
Automating the car show registration process and collecting payments is just one of the many ways a WordPress event manager plugin can help car show organizers. Using the built-in features of WordPress and the event manager plugin, you can save carloads of time processing registrations and manage your events.
That’s because the platform offers many valuable features that car show organizers love, such as custom online registration forms, multiple ticket types, and pricing options. Not to mention integration with many different payment systems, such as PayPal and Stripe, for collecting payments.
One of the little-known features is that tickets used for vehicle entry can double as window tags, so judges can identify/verify they are judging the correct vehicle. Other great features include print-at-home tickets, attendance tracking, and ticket scanning software, along with the ability to design your personalized car show tickets. Best of all, by hosting car show events right from your website, you don’t have to worry about per-ticket fees – a hot button issue for many car show and event management companies.
Take online donations and payments right from your WP website
As mentioned above, you can take online payments right from your website by using a wide range of payment options that are available to you. That’s right; you can accept payments using PayPal or a plethora of other credit cards payment options, such as Stripe, Authorize.NET, Braintree, and Vanco.
The ability to accept online payments is a breath of fresh air for many organizers, as they don’t have to track down payments from customers, like the old days when people paid with checks. With today’s ticketing systems, you can easily track payments and transactions linked to your registration data via the WordPress dashboard.
Automate after-event follow-up and re-marketing to attendees
In today’s world, mailing lists are a great way to follow up with car show attendees and entrants. No event management software would be complete without after-event follow-up and re-marketing features. Using mailing list software, such as Mailchimp, whenever one of your car enthusiasts registers for an event on your site, their contact information is automatically added into a specified mailing list in Mailchimp. That way, when you are ready to post your next event, you can email all of the people who’ve registered in the past about any upcoming car shows.
Besides allowing you to send a certain amount of emails for free each month, one of the great features of Mailchimp is that it can easily support a mailing list of just a few emails up to hundreds of thousands of email addresses. In addition to email reputation management and security, Mailchimp has many built-in email templates and open-tracking systems to help you grow your mailing list and track performance.
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Wrapping Up
Just because summer is almost over doesn’t mean you have to stop shopping around for your car show registration needs. All you have to do is set up a WordPress website, install an event manager plugin, and start promoting your car show events online, all from the comfort of your home or office.
Are you an event organizer that wants to save time setting up WordPress and installing the correct plugins? Then, you may want to check out some of the other software-as-a-service alternatives to WordPress, such as Event Smart, where you can create a car show registration and ticketing site in a matter of minutes.
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