Customer: Cindy Thompson, Planning Team Member, CREW (regional consortium of the 8 westernmost school districts in North Carolina)
Event: Annual one-day student workshop conference — ~1,000 attendees, 278 workshop options across 4 time slots
Using Regpack since: 2022
Previous tool: Eventbrite
Summary
CREW is a planning team representing eight school districts in western North Carolina that runs a large, single-day workshop event for around 1,000 students. Before Regpack, the team used Eventbrite and found it limited, confusing, and unworkable for an event with hundreds of session options.
After switching to Regpack, the team automated county-specific email routing, cut per-event costs using the Copy Project feature, and gave part-time admins secure, scoped access to just their own district's data, all without a dedicated event-planning budget or staff.
"Our first meeting two weeks after the event, the topic of conversation was: what are we going to use for registration, this was terrible for our event. So we started doing research." — Cindy Thompson
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The Problem: Event Registration Software That Couldn't Scale
CREW's event isn't run by full-time event planners. It’s a volunteer-style planning team made up of school staff from eight districts, funded by local business grants rather than a dedicated budget. Their previous platform, Eventbrite, wasn't built for an event of this complexity:
- No easy way to route registration inquiries to the correct district representative
- No shared login system that supported multiple simultaneous admins
- Clunky, confusing setup for an event with hundreds of workshop options
"We just knew we had to get something new." — Cindy Thompson
Why CREW Chose Regpack
The team researched several registration platforms after their Eventbrite experience. Two things set Regpack apart during evaluation:
- Transparent, predictable pricing. No hidden fees, no per-question billing when contacting support or their project manager, and the ability to pay only during the months the system was actually in use.
- A sales and demo process tailored to their event. Their sales rep proactively gathered event details ahead of the demo and prepared answers to questions the team hadn't even thought to ask yet.
"We were a little skeptical. You sounded too good to be true. Now I'm one of those people who sing your praises." — Cindy Thompson
Implementation: Guided Setup With a Dedicated Project Manager
Regpack's onboarding process paired CREW with a project manager who built out their registration system based on the team's requirements. Cindy — who describes herself as not tech-savvy — tested the system as an end user, flagged issues, and had them resolved quickly.
"It was so easy! Our project manager set everything up. I went in as a test user and made a list of things that needed tweaking. She fixed it." — Cindy Thompson
Ongoing support (live staff, videos, and help articles) was available at any hour, which Cindy credits for her confidence using the platform without a technical background.
Key Features CREW Relies On
Automated, County-Specific Email Triggers
CREW set up their 278 workshops as products with custom triggered emails, including:
- Confirmation emails sent from the correct district representative's address (based on which county the attendee registered under)
- Automatic reminders for attendees who started but didn't finish registration
- Post-deadline follow-up emails to anyone who missed the cutoff
"If you were registering from my system, you got an email with my return email address. If you were registering from another county, then you got an email from that county's planning representative." — Cindy Thompson
Session Capacity & Quota Controls
With 278 workshop options across 4 mandatory time slots, CREW uses Regpack's quota settings to cap enrollment per session, preventing situations such as 50 sign-ups for a room with 20 chairs.
Roster Filtering & Instant Reports
Planning team members can filter and export attendee data on demand by county, by session, or by custom criteria to answer questions from district reps or presenters in real time (e.g., headcounts for materials planning).
Returning-Attendee Account Reuse
This year, returning attendees could log in to their existing accounts, confirm their information, and proceed directly to registration instead of creating new profiles.
"It was phenomenal." — Cindy Thompson
Scoped, Multi-Admin Access for Part-Time Staff
Unlike their old single shared-login system, where one person's session would kick out another admin working simultaneously, Regpack gives each part-time admin their own login scoped to just their district's attendees (roughly 100–200 people instead of the full 1,000).
"One thing I remember when we used our previous system, we had one login... if I was looking at something and somebody else was too, it would knock you out. Anything you were doing, you lost." — Cindy Thompson
Copy Project Feature
This year, CREW used Regpack's Copy Project feature to duplicate their prior setup rather than rebuild it, saving money and setup time while opening up more advanced use cases for future events.
"We're already talking about how we're going to use it next year and what changes to make in the system. It's really powerful." — Cindy Thompson
Results
- Time saved: Multi-admin, county-scoped logins eliminated the single-login bottleneck that previously interrupted planning team members' work.
- Cost saved: The Copy Project feature reduced setup costs for CREW's second year on the platform.
- Attendee satisfaction: Unprompted positive feedback from attendees — unusual for event registration.
"Usually, feedback is complaints, but not with Regpack. They say it's easy, it's quick." — Cindy Thompson
- Team confidence: A non-technical planning team member was able to build custom email logic, manage 278 workshop products, and pull real-time reports without dedicated IT support.
Bottom Line
"Efficient is the perfect word to what Regpack has brought to our event registration. And affordable. We are so thrilled with the affordability!" — Cindy Thompson
About CREW: CREW is a volunteer planning team of representatives from the 8 westernmost school districts in North Carolina, coordinating a regional one-day workshop conference for approximately 1,000 students annually.
About Regpack: Regpack is an online registration platform used by schools, nonprofits, and event organizers to manage registration, payments, triggered communications, and reporting for events of any size.