Today’s Byte is for anyone who ever plans conferences. (For those who don’t, here’s a quick link to kids’ worksheets. It kept my kids going for hours during spring break.) Back to the conference planners…

Last month I worked with an online registration service that was new to me – Regonline. As the name implies, it facilitates online registration for events. It’s not free. The cost is a few dollars per registrant add 5% transaction fee IF you use them as a merchant account to accept credit cards. We were really happy with it – so happy that even though it wasn’t free I’m writing about it here.

Of the 100+ registrants, only one had trouble using Regonline – and she eventually figured it out. Attendees received an automated email confirmation of registration and were able to modify their registration at any point with an assigned password. Attendees could register and/or pay on site.

All of the conference planners had access to the registration and attendees through the web site. I could run reports and post them on a password-protected web site for the less technical or less involved planners. It was easy to set up name tags, tickets, and a voucher system. There were a lot of lodging options that we didn’t use.

So, there you go – – an unsolicited (and unrewarded) plug for Regonline for conference planners. (They appear to do member management too – but I can’t speak to that service.)