What’s New in Zoho Backstage – November 2025 Updates

A new month, a new set of updates. With a mix of new features and thoughtful improvements, you get smoother workflows and better control across registrations, exhibitors, and communications.

Let's take a look at what's new and enhanced in Zoho Backstage for November 2025. 

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Ticket Waitlist

You asked, you waited, and yes…the waiting finally paid off.

The Waitlist feature helps organizers manage sold-out ticket classes by automatically handling excess demand. When tickets become available due to cancellations or increased quantities, waitlist tickets are automatically confirmed, subject to event and ticket limits. The feature is enabled per ticket class from Registrations > Ticket Class > Edit > Advanced Settings > Waitlist, where organizers can set a specific waitlist quantity. Once tickets sell out, the website displays the Join Waitlist option.

All waitlisted entries appear in a dedicated Waitlist tab under Registrations, where organizers can view, edit, or cancel entries individually or in bulk (up to 20 at a time). Once confirmed or canceled, entries are removed from this tab. Waitlist orders remain visible in the Orders tab with a clear indicator, and waitlisted tickets are tagged within order details. Associated attendees display a Waitlist status in the Attendees tab.

If a waitlist ticket is canceled, a full refund is always issued, regardless of the event’s cancellation policy. Online payments are refunded to the original payment method, offline payments are marked as refunded offline, and unpaid orders are simply canceled. In mixed orders, cancellation fees apply only to confirmed tickets.

For approval-based tickets, requests go through approval before joining the queue. Waitlist confirmations stop once the event enters the Running state. Unconfirmed waitlist tickets are automatically canceled and refunded three days after the event starts. Automated emails notify purchasers about waitlist orders and confirmations.

Plan availability: Included in the Premium and Ultimate plans. 

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Exhibitor Pro

A smarter, more flexible way to manage exhibitors and booths.

Zoho Backstage introduces a major upgrade to exhibitor management with the Exhibitor Pro add-on, bringing a clear separation between exhibitor visibility (directory listing) and interactive booth management. This structure gives organizers better flexibility, clearer pricing, and the ability to scale across events of any size.

Organizers can create exhibitor categories with benefits, manage exhibitor profiles, handle requests and proposals, display exhibitors on the website and app, assign booths, manage floor plans, and track booth-level analytics such as revenue, leads, meetings, members, and exhibitors. Exhibitors don't log in at this level. It's designed purely for organizer-managed visibility.

Exhibitor Pro is a paid, booth-level upgrade that unlocks full booth functionality. Organizers can assign one Exhibitor Pro add-on per booth, manage booth members and admins, enable collateral, videos, banners, lead scanning, meetings, and complimentary tickets, as well as track detailed booth analytics. Exhibitors gain access to their Exhibitor Space to manage content, leads, meetings, inquiries, members, and rehearsal tools.

Organizers can explore a fully functional booth with sample content, media, leads, meetings, inquiries, members, and Exhibitor Space navigation before purchasing.

Included across Essentials, Premium, and Ultimate plans, this layer supports unlimited exhibitor listings per event. Exhibitor Pro remains $49 per booth. Existing customers are auto-migrated. Premium plans includes 5 Pro add-ons, Ultimate includes 15, and they now support unlimited exhibitor listings by default.

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Exhibitor Import

Exhibitor Import makes it easy to onboard exhibitors in bulk for large expos and recurring events. Instead of creating exhibitors one by one, organizers can now upload exhibitor data using CSV, XLS, or XLSX files and manage everything in one go—saving time and reducing manual errors.

The import option is available within the Exhibitors module and follows a simple three-step flow, supporting up to 500 records per upload. During import, organizers can choose whether to send the Exhibitor Request Approved email to imported exhibitors. This option is enabled by default and can be turned off when communication isn't required.

Smart field mapping and validations ensure data accuracy. Mandatory fields include Exhibitor Category, Company Name, First Name, Email, and Booth Number. The system checks for duplicate emails, category mismatches, duplicate booths, and missing mandatory data. For blank price fields, organizers can apply default pricing, mark exhibitors as free, or skip those records.

After import, organizers receive detailed success and error summaries, with row-specific failure reasons and email reports. 

A Merge Existing Requests option prevents duplicates by automatically merging matching records while retaining full history.

Plan availability: Included in the Premium and Ultimate plans. 

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Other enhancements 

Quick access to the embeddable widget

We’ve made it easier for event organizers to access the Embeddable Widget for attendee registrations with a new quick-access entry point. The Embeddable Widget is now available directly under Registrations > Setup > Embeddable Widget, allowing organizers to find and configure it right from the Registration module.

This shortcut is in addition to the existing access under Manage > Promote, so your current workflow remains unchanged. With this enhancement, setting up and managing your registration embed is now faster and more intuitive.

Plan availability: Included in the Free, Essentials, Premium, and Ultimate plans. 

WhatsApp message preference for attendee imports

Organizers can now choose whether WhatsApp messages should be sent during attendee imports. This helps prevent unnecessary WhatsApp credit usage, especially when importing attendees for post-event reporting, internal tracking, or data updates.

During the import process, you can enable or disable WhatsApp messaging from Registrations > Attendees > Import. Based on your selection, WhatsApp messages will either be sent or skipped for the imported attendees.

After the import is completed, the summary screen clearly indicates:

1. If WhatsApp messages were skipped based on your selection.
2. If messaging couldn't be sent because WhatsApp isn't enabled at the event level.

This ensures full visibility into message delivery during imports.

Smarter country code detection during registration

Phone number country codes are now auto-detected during registration based on the attendee’s location, improving WhatsApp messaging accuracy and credit usage. The system follows this priority:

1. IP address
2. Browser locale
3. Event location (for in-person events)

This works across in-person, virtual, and hybrid events. 

Zone module support in workflow automation

You can now automate zone-based access control using Workflow Rules in Zoho Backstage. The Zone module is now available as a workflow trigger under Portal Settings > Automation > Workflow Rules.

With the new Before Check-In, Check-In, and Check-Out triggers, you can control how many times a participant is allowed to access a zone. This enables use cases like limiting food counter visits or restricting multiple goodie collections. Once the defined limit is reached, further check-ins are blocked and organizers are notified in real time.

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All the features and enhancements mentioned in this article are available across all Zoho Backstage-supported data centers.

We’re excited for you to experience them in your next event. If you have any question or need access to early access features, please contact support@zohobackstage.com. 

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• Jithan Raghuraj

  

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