Overview
This guide explains what happens when you cancel an event, how cancelling differs from deleting it and from postponing it, and what you're responsible for handling yourself. For the click-by-click steps, see Cancel Events.
Cancelling and Deleting Are Different Actions
The Cancel or delete this event panel at the foot of the event's edit page holds two buttons. Only your organisation's admins can use them: staff with Events access and the event's team can edit the event, but Horsify refuses a cancel or delete from them.
- Cancel event and tell entrants: the event stays on Horsify marked as Cancelled, comes off the public listings, stops taking entries and payments, and everyone who has entered is emailed and sent an in-app notification. It is offered on a published event, and on any other event people are still entered in.
- Delete event: the event is removed entirely, along with every entry, payment record and document attached to it, and nobody is told. Deleting a published event first warns you to cancel instead. Horsify refuses to delete an event that people are entered in and that is still to run, or any event that still holds an entry payment; the dialog says why and what to do instead.
If people have entered, cancel. Delete is for drafts, duplicates and mistakes.
What Cancelling Does Not Do
Cancelling marks the event and tells your entrants. It does not:
- Refund anyone. No money is returned automatically. If entrants have paid, you refund them yourself, one payment at a time. The cancellation email tells a rider who has paid that your organisation will arrange their refund, so issue them promptly. After you cancel, the edit page shows how many entries still hold a payment, and the event can't be deleted until none does. See Cancel Events.
- Change your entries. Every entry keeps its status. Cancelling closes the card payment pages still open for unpaid entries and stops new payments, but a payment made in the moment before a page closes is recorded for you to refund, never refunded for you.
- Tell everyone. The email goes once to each address with a live entry (confirmed, awaiting approval or awaiting payment) and the in-app notice to entrants with a Horsify account. Riders who are only watching the event or on its waitlist, and entrants entered by hand without an email address, hear nothing, contact them yourself.
Cancel, Delete or Postpone?
Before cancelling, decide whether the event is really off, or whether you can keep it and change it:
| Cancel the event | Delete the event | Postpone (edit the event) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| When to use | The event isn't happening and people have entered | A draft, a duplicate or a mistake nobody has entered. Horsify refuses while people are entered or an entry payment has not been refunded | The event is going ahead, just on a different date or at a different venue |
| What you do | Cancel event and tell entrants on the edit page | Delete event on the edit page | For a new venue, use Change venue. For a new date, use Reschedule (see Edit Events) |
| Effect on registrations | Kept, so you can refund against them; the listing is removed | Removed with the event | Kept; entrants keep their place |
| Are participants told? | Yes, everyone with a live entry is emailed once and notified in the app | No | Yes, Change venue and Reschedule both tell everyone who has entered; title and description changes on a live event notify entrants and watchers too |
| Reversible? | The event can be published again from its edit page, but refunds you have issued are not undone | No | Yes, you can keep editing the event |
If the event will still run in some form, postponing is usually better than cancelling: your entrants keep their registrations and are told about the change automatically.
A published event's dates are locked on the edit form, because entries, sessions and reminders all hang off them. Use Reschedule beside the date fields instead: it moves the whole timetable with the event (sessions, running-order days, helper shifts, and any ticket sales window or early bird deadline still to come) and tells everyone who has entered. Deadlines that have already passed stay passed, so postponing never reopens early bird pricing. Don't unpublish an event to change its date: that takes it off the public listings and loses you the timetable shift.
Notifying Participants
Horsify's cancellation message says the event is cancelled, names who is entered, and tells each rider where they stand: one who has paid that your organisation will arrange their refund, and one who has not that nothing is owing. It doesn't know your circumstances, so:
- Send your own message from Communications → Messages (New broadcast) explaining why the event is off and what happens with refunds.
- Reach the people Horsify can't: watchers, and entrants with no email on their entry.
- Do it promptly; don't rely on riders noticing the event has disappeared from listings.
Related Features
- Cancel Events: step-by-step guide to cancelling and deleting, including how to refund
- Edit Events: change the date or venue to postpone instead of cancelling
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View Registrations: see who's registered before you cancel\n\n---\n\nSource:
wiki/features/EVENT_CANCELLATION_GUIDE.md\nLast synced: 2026-10-21 13:11:29 UTC