Invitations
Pro & Expert
When it matters who is asked — collectors, VIPs, press, artists — you send an invitation: a personal invite to a named guest, with its own link and its own tracked response. For a route anyone can use, share a booking link instead; both can run on the same event, and inviting your priority guests personally before the public link opens gives the people who matter most first choice of places. Guests who confirm count against your monthly free-guest allowance, then credits — see Billing and credits.
Sending invitations
- Open the event’s Guestlist and choose Invite Guests.
- Add recipients: type them in (a Name is required; Email is optional), import a CSV, or pick from your contacts and contact lists. Contact lists are managed on Settings → Contacts (use Filter or Manage lists there) — they do not show on the Guestlist until you invite from them. When you import a CSV, include a phone column and map it if you send invitation texts; a number needs a country code, for example +44 7700 900123, and a number without one is skipped and does not fail the import.
- Choose how to deliver:
- Send your invites — compose the invite email (subject, body, personalisation variables, banner), click Send me a test, then send. Sending has a short hold so you can cancel a slip.
- Copy your invite link or Download your invite links — take each guest’s personal invite link and send it through your own channels: a personal email, WhatsApp.
- Save & send later — the invites sit at Pending until you send them.
Send me a test delivers the invitation as you’ve written it to the email address on your account. Your guests are not contacted. The test’s invite link cannot be used to RSVP, and the test does not count towards any invitation’s 5 sends through ARTSVP. The subject starts with [Test] so you can tell it from the real send. The same button is on the composer when you choose Send invite from a guest’s panel, or Send invites from the guest list. The test also shows the unsubscribe footer guests receive.
Invitation emails include a footer link, Unsubscribe from Gallery A invitations, named for your organisation. A guest who uses it stops receiving further invitation emails from you.
One thing to be aware of: confirmation and reminder emails still go out as usual. For a portal invitation, the link names the partner the guest sees (their connected organisation, or the portal itself), not the event’s organiser.
Each invitation carries a unique link where the guest confirms or declines, and replies update the guest list immediately: Invited becomes Confirmed or Declined. The link is personal and single-use — once it has been used to book, reopening it shows your invite-used message rather than a fresh booking form. If they already have a booking, the page also says You already have a booking for this event. and offers Email me my booking link. The link is emailed to the address on the booking, not shown on the page.
If an invited guest arrives without booking, confirm them at the door with Confirm & check in (Check-in Mode, or their invitation on the guest list). Every role can do this, including Check-in only. Declining on their behalf needs an Admin, Event Manager, or Booking Manager.
If your organisation has an invitation-text automation, sending the email (or logging a contact) also texts the invite over WhatsApp, with SMS as a fallback. That needs a mobile number on the invitation. The wording is ARTSVP’s invitation template, not the email you composed, and each invitation is texted once. The text counts as one of the invitation’s 5 sends through ARTSVP, so an invitation that has already been sent 5 times is not texted. See Automations.
Golden invites
Some guests you cannot say no to. A director arrives with a collector in tow, a lender asks for two more places on the morning of the opening, an artist wants their gallerist beside them. A Golden invitation books past a full event: capacity no longer applies to it, so the guest is admitted even when the event is fully booked.
Open a guest’s invitation from the event’s guest list and set Golden to “Yes”. It applies to that one invitation, not to the event, so a full house stays full for everyone else.
Golden also books the guest in the ordinary way on an event that would normally hold them back: on a register-interest or waitlist event, a golden invitation confirms a place rather than joining the queue.
One thing to be aware of: an invitation’s settings lock once it has been used to book, so mark it Golden before you send it, not after the guest has tried.
Golden and Skip payment are separate
The two settings sit next to each other and answer different questions.
| Setting | What it changes | Leaves alone |
|---|---|---|
| Golden | Capacity. The guest books into a full event. | Payment: they still pay for a paid ticket. |
| Skip payment | Price. The guest sees no prices and no payment step. | Capacity: a full event still turns them away. |
Use either, both, or neither. A complimentary place at a sold-out opening needs both: Golden to get them in, Skip payment so they are not charged.
Tip: Keep a couple of Golden invitations in reserve rather than raising capacity for one guest. Capacity is a promise to everyone; a Golden invitation is an exception to it.
Chasing replies
Resend an invitation from the guest’s panel, or bulk-send to everyone still Pending from the guest list. Each invitation can be sent through ARTSVP up to 5 times in total. The invite email template lives in the event’s Settings → Emails tab and can be customised again before each send — see Event emails.
Guests without email addresses
A guest invited with no email still exists on the list at Pending. Use their invite link to reach them another way, or add the email later and send.
Keep reading: Guest List · Booking links · Event emails · Automations