Publishing an event

Getting your event page in front of guests takes three separate steps, so you’re always in control of what they see and when:

Step	Where	What it does
Save	The event page designer	Keeps your changes. Guests don’t see them yet.
Publish	The designer, and the event’s Website tab	Pushes your saved changes to the page guests see: the test page while the event is a draft, the live site once it’s live.
Website live	The top of the event’s Registration tab	Takes the event live, or switches its website off.

So you can work on changes over several sessions, save them as you go, and publish them when they’re ready, whether the event is still being tested or already live. Publish never takes a draft event live on its own.

To save and publish the page design, you need a role that can edit event pages. To switch Website live or Registration open, you need a role that can edit event details and settings. By default both are Admin, Group Manager and Event Organiser.

Save and publish your changes

Make your changes in the designer

Open the event’s Website tab, select Design and work on your page.
Save

Select Save at the top of the designer. You see Design saved. Publish when you’re ready for guests to see it., and Saved, not published appears next to the button. You can close the designer and come back later: your saved changes are kept, and the page guests see doesn’t change.
Publish

When you’re ready, select Publish, in the designer or on the event’s Website tab. If you have unsaved changes in the designer, they’re saved first.
- While the event is a draft, the changes go to the test page straight away, and you see Changes published to the test page.
- Once the event is live, Mint first asks Publish to the live site?. Select Publish, and you see Changes published to the live site.

While you have saved changes that aren’t published yet, the event’s header shows Unpublished changes, and the Website tab shows Saved, not published. Publish is greyed out when there’s nothing new to publish.

Publish covers the page design: its blocks, theme and custom CSS. The theme also styles your event’s emails, the registration form, tickets and the virtual venue, so they change when you publish too. Event details on the Settings tab, such as the name, dates, venue and cover image, apply as soon as you save them, because emails, tickets and check-in use them as well.

Test your event before it goes live

A new event starts as a Draft. While it’s a draft, the event is in test mode: the page is hidden from the public, and you and anyone you share its preview link with can try it out, registration included, without any of it counting.

Open the preview

Select Preview on the event’s Website tab. Your test page opens in a new tab with a Test mode bar across the top. It shows what you last published, so publish your saved changes first to see them there.

To let a colleague try it, select the copy button next to Preview to copy the preview link, or copy it from the Website tab or the Share card on the event’s Overview tab. Anyone with the preview link can open the page and register, even without a Mint account. The event’s normal link shows Event not found until the event goes live.

What counts as test data

Everything that happens on the event while it’s a draft is test data:

registrations made through the preview page, plus-ones included,
guests you add yourself, import, or add from Contacts,
orders, tickets, check-ins and online attendance,
emails sent to any of these guests.

Test data:

isn’t added to Contacts. No contact is created, and if a test registration uses the email of an existing contact, that contact isn’t changed and the test registration doesn’t appear on their record,
isn’t sent to HubSpot or your other integrations (Slack, webhooks and Zapier),
isn’t counted in Reports,
keeps unsubscribes to the test event. If a test guest unsubscribes, they stop getting this event’s test emails, but their address isn’t added to your suppression list, so their emails about your other events carry on. Their unsubscribe page says so.

You can see test data on the event’s own Overview, Guests and Orders tabs while you test. Emails sent to test guests work as usual, and their links open the preview page. Each test guest can receive the same email as often as you need, for example so a client can receive the invitation and go through registration more than once. See Sending in test mode.

Publishing changes to the test page doesn’t touch test data: test guests and registrations stay until the event goes live.

Go live

Publish your latest changes

The live site starts with what you last published to the test page. If the header shows Unpublished changes, select Publish on the Website tab first.
Open the Registration tab

Go to Events, open your event and select the Registration tab. The Website & registration card is at the top.
Switch on Website live

Mint asks Go live? and reminds you that test data will be deleted. Select Go live. You see Event is live, and the status in the header changes to Live.
Check the page

Select View page on the Website tab. Your event page opens in a new tab, exactly as guests see it.

You can also get to the Registration tab from the Website live link in the Test mode box under the header or on the Website tab, or from Go live in the Overview’s setup checklist.

What happens to test data

Going live ends test mode, and the event starts from a clean slate:

every guest is deleted, with their registrations, orders, tickets, check-ins and emails,
page views, tickets and extras taken and tracking link figures go back to zero,
emails you sent while testing go back to drafts, so you can send them for real.

This can’t be undone. The event’s Recent activity shows how many test guests were deleted.

Your page design, registration form, tickets, sessions, emails and settings all stay as they are.

Website live and Registration open

The two switches sit side by side in the Website & registration card, and each one takes effect as soon as you flip it: there’s nothing to save. Guests can see your page and register only when both are on. The card’s description sums up where you are:

Website live	Registration open	What guests get
On	On	Live and open: guests can see the page and register.
On	Off	Live, registration closed: guests can see the page but can’t register. New sign-ups join the waitlist if it’s on.
Off (draft)	Either	Test mode: only people with the preview link can see the page.
Off (after going live)	Either	Not available to guests: the page shows This website is no longer available.

Registration open works the same in test mode, so you can try out a closed registration before going live. Registration also closes by itself at the Registration closes deadline. See Closing registration early.

Switch the website off

Once an event has been live, switching Website live off doesn’t put it back into test mode. Instead, its page is replaced by a This website is no longer available page, in your event’s own theme. Use it when an event is cancelled or over, or while you rework the page.

Switch off Website live

On the Registration tab, switch off Website live. Mint asks Switch off the website?. Select Switch off. You see Website switched off, and the status in the header changes to Offline.
Switch it back on when you’re ready

Switch Website live back on. You see Website is live again, and the page is back exactly as it was. Nothing is deleted: guests, registrations and results are kept while the website is off.

While the website is off:

the event page shows This website is no longer available and The website for your event has been switched off by the organiser. If you’re registered, your ticket link still works.,
nobody can register, and nobody can sign in to Manage my registration,
the event doesn’t appear on hubs or calendars,
guests who are already registered can still open their ticket and the virtual venue, and unsubscribe links in emails still work,
you can keep saving and publishing changes. They’re ready for when you switch the website back on.

Once the event is live, its page’s address is shown on the event’s Overview tab, in the Share card. Select Copy event link and paste it wherever you need it.

To see which channels bring people in, share tracking links instead.
To change the end of the address, edit the Vanity URL under Settings. Links already shared with the old address stop working. See Event settings.

Live events that haven’t ended also appear on any hubs and calendars that include them. See Calendars and hubs.

What guests see when the event isn’t live

The event is…	Guests who open its normal link see…
a draft (without the preview link)	Event not found, with the message This event may not be live yet, or the link is incorrect.
live, with the website switched off	This website is no longer available, in your event’s theme.
archived	Event not found.

In all three cases nobody can register or sign in to Manage my registration, and the event doesn’t appear on hubs or calendars. Guests who have already registered keep their ticket: their confirmation email and its QR codes still work at the entrance.

Private events

Going live makes the page reachable, but you decide who can see it and who can register. On the event’s Registration tab, under Who can see the event page, choose:

Option	What guests see
Anyone with the link	The full event page. This is the default.
Password protected	The event name and dates, and This event is private. Enter the password from your invitation. They enter the password and select Continue to see the page. Guests who open their personal invitation link don’t need the password.
Invite only (personal links)	The event page, but only guests already on your guest list can register. Anyone else sees Registration is limited to invited guests. Use the email address your invitation was sent to.

For the details, see Registration settings.