Attendees can withdraw their own sign-up without contacting you, using a personal link in their confirmation email. This guide covers where that link comes from, the two-step page it opens, and what the cancellation changes on your side.
Where the link comes from
Each sign-up gets its own long random token, and the link built from it is placed in the confirmation email under a short line asking whether the person can still make it. That is the only place it appears.
The link is deliberately never sent back to the browser that submitted the form. If it were, anyone could sign somebody else up and immediately obtain the link needed to cancel on their behalf. Keeping it in the email means only the mailbox owner gets it.
There is a practical consequence: if confirmation emails are switched off in the email settings, nobody receives a cancellation link, and every cancellation has to go through you.
The two-step page
The link opens a page on your own site, not a plugin screen. It is rendered between your theme’s header and footer, so it inherits your fonts, colors and navigation.
- The first screen is headed Cancel your RSVP and asks the person, by name, whether they are sure about cancelling their sign-up for that event.
- Two buttons follow: Yes, cancel my RSVP in red, and Keep my RSVP, which simply returns to the event page.
- Only after confirming does the cancellation happen, and a RSVP cancelled page appears with a Back to the event button.
The extra click is not caution for its own sake. Corporate mail gateways and browsers routinely fetch links in the background to scan or preload them. A one-click cancellation would be triggered by that scanning and would silently cancel sign-ups nobody meant to cancel. Requiring a real button press makes that impossible.
The other outcomes
- Already cancelled: the sign-up was withdrawn earlier. Nothing further is needed, and the message says so. Confirming twice is harmless.
- Cancellation link expired: no sign-up matches the token any more, usually because the record was deleted.
- Invalid cancellation link: the address was truncated or mangled in transit. Ask the person to click the link in their email rather than retype it.
- Session expired: the page sat open too long before the button was pressed. Reloading and confirming again works.
What changes on your side
The sign-up moves to the Cancelled status. The record stays in place, with the name, address, seat count and original sign-up date intact, so your history is not rewritten.
- The seats are released immediately, because only Going rows count against capacity. A full event opens back up as soon as someone cancels.
- No reminder is sent to that person, even if one was already scheduled. The reminder job checks the status before sending.
- No email is sent to the attendee, and none to you. Watch the Attendees screen if you need to keep track.
- The same address can sign up again later, since the duplicate check ignores cancelled rows.
Cancelling on someone’s behalf
You do not need their link. On the Attendees screen, select the row and run Cancel RSVP, which sets the same status and releases the seats the same way. Use that when someone phones or emails you instead of using the link.
If the sign-up was a paid ticket bought through Pro, cancelling the attendee record does not move any money. Refunds are handled separately, in refunding an order.
What’s next
- Make sure confirmation emails are on, or the link never goes out.
- Cancel and re-instate sign-ups yourself.
- Refund a paid order with Pro.