Most competition organisers still collect entry fees the hard way — a cash box at the registration table, a WhatsApp message with a bank transfer screenshot, or a spreadsheet column someone updates by hand. It works for a small event. It falls apart the moment you have 500 candidates across a dozen schools or chapters, several competitions each with a different fee, and a treasurer who needs to reconcile who actually paid before the draw. Here’s how to set up registration fees properly for a judged competition — and what to decide before you open entries.
Where the fee actually lives
A competition’s entry fee isn’t a single event-wide number — it’s set per competition item, because different items often cost different amounts to run (a solo elocution slot costs less to judge and schedule than a group dance item with a stage changeover). When you assign a competition to an age group in Assign Competitions to Groups, the fee is one of the rules you set alongside time limits, max entries per unit and max candidates. That means a candidate entering three items can owe three different fees, and the system — not a spreadsheet — adds them up.
Three ways fees get collected
- Public Registration Form — a candidate or guardian registers themselves (typically at the first/entry level only, e.g. school or chapter level) and sees the fee for each item they select before they submit. This is where most online collection happens, because it’s the only path where the payer and the registrant are the same person at the point of entry.
- Sub-coordinator or bulk entry — at higher levels, entries are usually promotions of candidates who already qualified below, not fresh paid registrations; a sub-coordinator or coordinator adds them in bulk. Fee collection at this stage, if it happens at all, is usually a flat per-unit or per-delegation charge handled offline, not a per-candidate online payment.
- Membership-based discounts — clubs and associations (especially diaspora and community events) often give a reduced or waived fee to paid-up members. Treat membership status as a field you check during review, not something the form itself needs to police — approve at the listed fee, then apply the discount or refund the difference once membership is confirmed.
Decisions to make before you open entries
| Decision | What to settle |
|---|---|
| Fee structure | Flat per-candidate fee, per-item fee, or a bundle discount for entering 3+ items |
| Who pays | Candidate/guardian directly (entry level) vs. a block payment from the unit/delegation (higher levels) |
| Discounts | Membership, early-bird, sibling or multi-child household, or none |
| Refund policy | What happens if a candidate withdraws before the draw, or is rejected on review |
| Proof of payment | Online payment confirmation, or a bank transfer reference the coordinator verifies manually before approving |
Review before you trust a “paid” entry
Every submission through the Public Registration Form goes into a candidate database for the coordinator to review — approve, reject, or send back requesting changes. This review step is exactly where fee verification belongs: don’t rely on a checkbox the registrant ticks themselves. If your payment flow is a bank transfer with a reference number, check it at the same time you check age-group eligibility and item limits, before the candidate is approved and locked into the draw. Rejected entries get notified by email so a genuine mistake (wrong age group, duplicate item) can be corrected and resubmitted rather than silently losing the registrant’s money.
Keep the fee rules honest once levels cascade
In a multi-level festival (school → district → state, or chapter → regional → national), only the entry level typically charges a registration fee — candidates promoted upward are already-qualified winners being carried forward, not new paying registrants. Don’t apply registration fees at a promotion level by mistake; it’s a common configuration slip when an event’s levels are set up for the first time.
FAQ
Can different age groups or competitions have different fees?
Yes — the fee is set per competition-item-per-age-group in Assign Competitions to Groups, so a Group Dance item for the senior band can carry a different fee than a Solo Song item for juniors.
Do we have to collect fees online, or can we still take cash?
The Public Registration Form is built for self-service online entry, but nothing forces every registrant through it — a coordinator can still add a candidate manually via Bulk Participant Management for someone who pays in person, with the fee tracked the same way.
What if a family is entering several children or several items and the total looks wrong?
Check the review queue before approving — the coordinator sees every item a candidate selected and the fee each one carries, so a miscounted bundle discount is caught before money changes hands rather than after.
Try it on a live event
You can see the registration form, fee rules and the coordinator review queue on a real event — open the live demo and log in as a demo coordinator, no sign-up needed. For a full walkthrough of setting up a festival end to end, see the kalolsavam management software page. Questions about setting this up for your own event? Message us on WhatsApp or email support@etalenter.com — we’re happy to help with the eTalenter software side.
