There are two places you are able to add guests to your event's guest list:

1. The Guest List Tab
2. The Email Sender

Although you can add guests individually — one by one — we call the tool you'll use the Bulk Adder, and it offers a few efficient ways to upload guests.

In the Guest List tab, you can: paste contacts, import a CSV, add guests from events, add guests from your contacts manager, or add guests with tags.

The Email Sender has the same bulk-adding options as Guest List but also includes the option to access Lists (by status or custom ones) you created for this event (i.e. VIP, table number, etc.).

Methods for adding guests

One by one - Type out the guest's contact info the long way. You're able to assign a guest a status, input answers to RSVP questions, and even fill in contact-level information.

Paste Contacts - A simple bulk-adding function: paste the email addresses you'd like to add with a comma between each address. This one's definitely a fan favorite :)

Upload CSV - Spreadsheets are event marketers' weapon of choice. They offer extremely nuanced levels or organization.  

Notice some of the fields you can import — we'll go into more depth next chapter — especially Lists and Tags, which can be added in bulk, per contact, using comma separation.

Upon importing your spreadsheet, Splash will recognize the number of rows and columns, and attempt to map your spreadsheet columns to Splash fields, a combination of event-level and contact-level inputs.

You can use the drop-downs to apply custom mapping.

Got custom columns? We'll talk about those in our Power Moves chapter! 

My Events - You can grab groups of guests from previous events by status (i.e. attending, checked in) or by custom lists you created for that event. 

Example: "Hey, I want to invite everyone who sat in the balcony for my last event to my upcoming one — they were a great bunch!"

My Lists - Within the email sender, you can access any list you already created for the event you're adding guests to, as well as guests by their status. 

Note: Unlike the Quick Lists option in your Email Sender, status lists in the Bulk Adder are not dynamic. That means if you schedule an email to your Attending list, the number of recipients will not be updated to the new RSVP total at the time of send. 

Contacts - Any guest on any of your guests lists automatically becomes a contact in your account. This option allows you to retrieve contacts in bulk or one-by-one.

Tags - Remember, tags are contact-level lists. If you tagged guests for any previous events, you can quickly grab them using this feature.

Guest Statuses

Quick refresher: A guest's status indicates where they are in the event's lifecycle. Were they invited? Have they responded yet? Are they unable to attend? Did they show up? Were they waitlisted? 

When a guest is added to your list or RSVPs, a status is assigned to them.

There are two ways ways a guest's status will change:

1. When you do stuff:

• By adding a guest to an email draft, the guest's status in your guest list will be set to Added. That means they're on the list, but they have not been invited yet, nor have they responded.
• When you send a guest an email, their status will automatically go from Added to Awaiting Reply — this means they've been invited but they have not responded yet.
  
  Note: Statuses have a hierarchy. So if you email a guest who has already RSVP'd (Status: Attending), the Awaiting Reply status would overruled by the more important status. This prevents a status change for reminders and follow-ups.
• When you add a guest to your Guest List - Whenever you add guests to your Guest List tab, you'll be prompted to indicate their statuses. The most common statuses to assign are Added — people you haven't invited yet but will later — and Attending, a list of confirmed guests. 
  
  
• When you change a status manually - Within your guest list, you can apply statuses in bulk or person-by-person. 
• When you check a guest in (or out) - Checked In and Checked Out are our weightiest statuses; they are the end game of an event's lifecycle. So when a guest with a status of Attending is checked in, their status will be upgraded.

2. When your guests respond: Whenever your guest RSVPs, that triggers an immediate status change from either Added or Awaiting Reply to Attending, Not Attending, or Waitlist.

Alright, now that we know all the ways to get guests on our list and their statuses are assigned, let's dive in a little deeper. The next chapters will cover power moves in guest organization and then how to navigate your list for success. Join us, won't ya?