Registration and payments
Online car show registration that takes entries before the gate opens, or right at it. Registrants fill out a form you control and pay through your own Square, Stripe, or PayPal account, so the money goes straight to you and the registration table stops being the bottleneck.
Ask exactly what you need
Build your entry form with the fields that matter for your show: a proper street address block, year and make on one row, model and class on the next, and a liability waiver box nobody can miss. Agreement is recorded with the entry. The whole form is built to be fast on a phone in a parking lot.
Checkout through your own payment account
Payments run through your provider’s hosted checkout on your own account, so funds land in your bank directly. Card details never touch Car Show HQ, we are never the merchant of record, and payments are reconciled against entries automatically, so a missed confirmation gets caught in minutes instead of at closing. Refunds and disputes are handled by your payment provider.
Pay online or at the event
Not everyone signs up early. Offer a pay-at-event option and register walk-ups on a kiosk at the gate. Everyone ends up in the same entry list, however they paid.
Connect the account your club already uses
Connect Square, Stripe, or PayPal, whichever your club already banks with. Connecting payments used to mean asking a volunteer treasurer to create a developer application and copy three keys across. With Square it is nothing like that any more: click connect, sign in, approve, and you are taking money. Nothing to renew and nothing to keep up to date, just a quiet Connected card with the account name on it. PayPal connects through a guided flow of its own, and Stripe is supported too, set up with keys and plain-language instructions written for a treasurer rather than a developer.
Open and close registration when you choose
Set the dates online registration opens and closes and it runs itself, while the day-of kiosk stays available for walk-ups regardless. Upload your insurer’s waiver PDF instead of retyping it, and add your own welcome note to every confirmation email with gate times, parking, and what to bring. Classes can carry a description and a photo, which the entry form turns into a guide for anyone unsure which category they belong in, so fewer cars land in the wrong class and you do less shuffling on show morning.
Charge one price ahead, another at the gate
Set a lower price for registering ahead and a higher one on the day, and the registration page tells people what the gate price will be, which is the entire point of doing it. You can run discount codes too, either a percentage or a flat amount, with an optional cap on how many times each is used and a switch to turn it off. Use them for club members, sponsors, or returning entrants. Codes come off the entry fee only and never off a donation, and the code box only appears on your form if you are actually running codes.
Checkout already knows who is paying
The name, email, and phone somebody just typed into your entry form are handed to your payment provider, so the payment page arrives filled in. It sounds minor until you watch someone try to retype their email on a phone at a windy gate, which is exactly where entries get abandoned.
Car show registration questions
How does online car show registration work?
You build an entry form with the fields your show needs, add categories, and include a liability waiver. Registrants sign up from their phone, agree to the waiver, and pay the entry fee before they arrive. Everyone lands in one entry list you can search, filter, and check in on show day.
How do car show entrants pay?
Payments run through your provider's hosted checkout using your own connected payment account, so funds land in your bank directly. Card details never touch Car Show HQ, and we are never the merchant of record. Refunds and disputes are handled by your payment provider.
Can people register at the show instead of online?
Yes. Offer a pay-at-event option, and register walk-ups on a kiosk at the gate with a staff unlock code. Online and walk-up entries end up in the same list, however they paid.
Can I collect a waiver during registration?
Yes. Add a liability waiver to your form and registrants must tick an agreement checkbox before they can finish. You can upload your insurer's PDF rather than retyping it, and the agreement is recorded with their entry.
How hard is it to connect payments?
Connect whichever account your club already uses: Square, Stripe, or PayPal. For Square it is two clicks, sign in and approve, with no keys to copy and nothing to renew. PayPal connects through a guided flow, and Stripe is set up by pasting keys, with step-by-step instructions written for a treasurer rather than a developer.
Can car clubs be credited on the windshield card?
Yes. The entry form has an optional car club field, and the club name prints on the windshield card under the owner's name and comes through in the registrant export. Clubs that turn up ten cars deep tend to care about this a lot.
Can I cancel an entry that should not count?
Yes. An owner or admin can withdraw an entry, which is what you want when a declined card was retried on a good one and left a stray pending entry sitting in your numbers. The car number stays reserved, so a printed card is never handed out twice.
Can people pay by card at the gate?
Yes, two ways. The kiosk can take a card through your own hosted checkout with no hardware at all, or you can pair a Square Terminal and let walk-ups tap to pay. Either way the payment reconciles against that car's entry and the money lands in your own account.
