Dynamic Custom Registration Questions: Collecting Roll Numbers, T-Shirt Sizes, and GitHubs

Why Rigid Event Forms Fail Technical Fests

Every university event has unique data requirements: A Hackathon needs: GitHub Profile URL, Tech Stack Expertise, Discord Tag, Dietary Preference. A Robotics Competition needs: Team Size, Robot Weight Category, Frequency Band. A Dance Fest needs: Audio Track Upload URL, College Dance Society Name, Performance Duration*.

If your ticketing platform only asks for "Name and Email", organizers are forced to send secondary follow-up forms that attendees ignore.

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1. Spark’s Dynamic JSONB Questions Engine

Spark by Clstr implements Dynamic Custom Registration Questions stored directly within PostgreSQL (events.custom_questions and registrations.form_responses):

Supported Question Types: `text` (e.g., College Roll Number / USN) textarea (e.g., Brief Project Pitch / Past Experience) `select` (e.g., T-Shirt Size: S, M, L, XL, XXL) multiselect (e.g., Interested Tracks: AI/ML, Web3, Hardware) `checkbox` (e.g., I agree to the Hackathon Code of Conduct) url (e.g., LinkedIn / GitHub Portfolio Link)

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2. Client and Server Validation

When configuring custom questions: 1. Organizers mark questions as Mandatory or Optional. 2. Form inputs are validated in the browser before submission (e.g., verifying that a GitHub field contains a valid URL). 3. The atomic registration RPC (register_for_event) validates that all mandatory question keys exist in the submitted payload before confirming the seat.

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3. Reporting and Gate Inspection

Organizer Dashboard: In the attendee inspection modal, organizers can view submitted custom answers directly. CSV Export: Every custom question automatically becomes a dedicated column in the exported CSV roster. Gate Pass*: The attendee's digital pass surfaces key custom responses (such as dietary preference or T-shirt size) for gate volunteers to review during kit distribution.