What are Private Sessions?
Private sessions are sessions exclusive to selected attendees. Only the attendees added as registrants to the session can see it in the agenda and join it.
So even if your ticket is allowed to join the private session, but you're not pre-registered for it, you won't be able to join, whether it be a virtual, in-person or hybrid event.
How Does It Work?
The event admin will set the session as private and pre-register the attendees with eligible tickets to the session. This guarantees attendees a seat to the session and will not be able to unregister themselves from the session. Only those pre-registered to the private session can see it in the agenda and join it when the session opens.
Private Sessions has 3 functions
Allows the event admin to pre-register attendees for that session.
Makes the session exclusive for the pre-registered attendees.
Attendees who are pre-registered for private sessions cannot unregister themselves from the session.
Who can see and join a private session?
Attendees who are registered for that session
Speakers for that session, even if they don't have a ticket
Admins
Superadmins (Accelevents)
Even if the toggle to "Hide this session from attendees who cannot register for this session" is not enabled, other attendees won't see this session.
Who can be added to a private session?
Any attendee whose ticket is eligible for the session
Who can see a private and hidden session?
No attendee can see this. A hidden session is hidden for everyone.
Admins can still see hidden sessions.
Can admins override the restriction to join?
No, if they want an attendee to join, they need to pre-registered them.
Set Session as Private
Open your session details
Turn on Set session as private
Turning this on makes the session not visible to anyone who isn't pre-registered for this session.
Add Registrants to the Private Session
Go to the Registrants tab in the session settings
Type in the name of the attendee and select the attendee from the dropdown to pre-register the attendee for the session.
Or upload the attendees to the session via CSV
When attendees try to unregister for a private session, they will get an error message that they cannot unregister themselves.
Note: If you're solely doing this to pre-register attendees with no intention of making the session private, then turn off the toggle for setting the session to private after you pre-register your attendees.