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# Accepting athlete registrations for your event

While you can import or add entries to your event manually, the easiest way to start is to use Liveheats’ integrated registration features.
**Best of all, event creation, setup and registration are FREE.** You only use an event credit when you are ready to unlock additional competition tools like heat draws and live scoring.
The benefits of using Liveheats for registration:
* **Reduces your workload** - Entries appear directly in their division, ready to convert to a draw. There is no need to import data from another platform, and if you use our rankings feature, entries will be automatically seeded
* **Powerful and feature-rich** - we have invested heavily in a best-in-class registration solution and partnered with Stripe to allow you to collect payments in hundreds of currencies
* **Better athlete experience** - Athletes get access to their own dashboard to easily view and manage their events, results, and profiles
This article describes how to set up and collect event registrations.
---

# How to collect event registrations from your athletes

1. Once you've created your event, click **Event settings**
2. \[Optional] To collect entry fees, click  **Payments, then the Go to payments**  settings button to connect your Stripe account and set your prices. You can take paid entries without using an event credit upfront. View more articles on payment settings [here](https://help.liveheats.com/en/category/accepting-payments-from-athletes-ktnk7f/).
3. Click the **Registrations** tab to configure the registration settings to fit your needs. Ensure you click the **Save** button at the bottom of the tab
* Optional [entry open/close scheduling](https://help.liveheats.com/en/article/scheduling-event-entry-open-andor-close-dates-and-times-1fxhmj6/)
* Change the **Default entry status**. This is where you can set up [waitlisting](https://help.liveheats.com/en/article/using-waitlisted-event-registration-rhf38x/). By default, this will be set to **Confirm entries immediately**. (If your organisation's sport type is Surf Life Saving, the default will be **Register entries.** [Read more about why here](https://help.liveheats.com/en/article/how-to-manage-athlete-marshalling-using-the-registered-entry-status-1hesn04/)**.)**
* **Set up the registration form, check which fields you want to display and create** [custom fields](https://help.liveheats.com/en/article/creating-custom-fields-10xsble/) to capture the required information from athletes during registration
1. Click the **Entry restrictions tab**  to set event and/or division-level [entry restrictions](https://help.liveheats.com/en/article/setting-division-restrictions-for-your-event-registration-1s7k6ip/) (e.g Age brackets,  gender requirements, etc.)
2. When you are happy, if you are using the change, entire [open/close scheduling](https://help.liveheats.com/en/article/scheduling-event-entry-open-andor-close-dates-and-times-1fxhmj6/)[,](https://support.liveheats.com/hc/en-us/articles/32019274544276) you don't need to do anything; your event will automatically open for entries on the date/time you've set. If you are not using the scheduling feature, you can manually set the **Event status** to **Entry open.**
![](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/-/4/8/7/1/48714ddcbf925400/screenshot-2024-11-15-at-25826_1v1m5rz.png)

5. When event entry is open, athletes can register via your public links. You can find your **Public event link** (e.g. [https://liveheats.com/events/13319](https://liveheats.com/events/13319)) on the event dashboard to share with your community.
![](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/-/4/8/7/1/48714ddcbf925400/screenshot-2024-11-15-at-30257_1gdm14.png)
Alternatively, you can direct them to:
* The Liveheats homepage, where they can search for the event or organization name: [https://liveheats.com/](https://liveheats.com/) 
* Or your public organizer page (e.g. [https://liveheats.com/bondi](https://liveheats.com/bondi))

### Paying for entries on behalf of an athlete

Registrants can save a partly completed registration and invite someone else to pay for their entries. The payer doesn’t need a Liveheats account. They just follow the link in the invitation email to pay securely via Stripe. Nothing changes for you as an event director: you’ll only see an entry once it has been paid for, a spot isn’t reserved until payment is complete, and any entries still unpaid when registration closes won’t be counted. This applies to waitlisted events too. For more detail, see [Nominate a third party to pay your entries](https://help.liveheats.com/en/article/nominate-a-third-party-to-pay-your-entries-grm1mh/).