Early bird prizes
Reward people who buy in early with a bonus draw — while their tickets still stay in the final draw.
An early bird prize is drawn partway through your raffle, among the people who bought tickets early — a way to reward buying in sooner and keep momentum up before the closing date. The clever part: an early bird winning ticket stays in the pool for the final draw too, so buying early only ever adds chances, it never uses them up.
This is optional. Most raffles don't need it — but if you want to nudge people to buy early rather than waiting until the last day, it works well. (Early bird draws aren't available on 50/50 raffles.)
How it fits together
You set a few prizes aside as early bird prizes and pick an early bird draw date somewhere in the middle of your raffle. When that date arrives, you run a separate draw for just those prizes, using only the tickets bought before the date. Sales carry on as normal — the early bird draw doesn't close your raffle.
You always keep at least one main prize for the final draw. Early bird prizes are the bonus; the main draw is still the main event.
Set it up in two places
On the Operating Details step, under Draw Details, turn on Enable Early Bird Draw. The helper text explains what you're setting up: "Tickets purchased before this date are entered into an early draw for prizes marked 'Early Bird' in the Prizes step. Winning tickets stay in the pool for the final draw."
Set the Early Bird Draw Date (AEST) — the cut-off. Tickets bought before this date go into the early bird draw. You need your start and end dates in place first; until they're set you'll see "Set the start and end dates above to pick an early bird draw date."
On the Prizes step, add a prize as usual and turn on Early bird prize in the prize window. You'll see the note: "Drawn early among tickets bought before your early bird draw date. Winning tickets stay in the final draw." Do this for each prize you want in the early bird draw.
Keep at least one prize as a main prize. In your prize list, the Draw column tags each prize as either Early bird or Main so you can see the split at a glance.
What to watch for
- You need at least one main prize. If you mark every prize as early bird, saving is blocked with: "Add at least one main draw prize — early bird prizes are drawn separately before the final draw."
- Turn the draw on before you flag prizes. If you've marked an early bird prize but haven't switched the draw on, saving the Prizes step is blocked with: "Turn on the early bird draw in Operating Details and set its date before saving." On Operating Details itself, leaving the date empty gives you "Pick the early bird draw date, or turn the early bird draw off".
- The two halves keep each other honest. Switch the draw on but flag no prizes and you'll see "No prizes are marked Early Bird yet. Flag at least one in the Prizes step before this raffle can go live, or turn the early bird draw off." Try to switch it off while prizes are still flagged and the switch tells you "Some prizes are marked Early Bird. Switch them back to the main draw in Prizes first."
- The date sits inside your raffle, not on the edges. The earliest you can pick is the day after your start, and the latest is the day before your end — so there's real time for tickets to sell before the draw and real time for the raffle to keep running after it. A raffle shorter than three days doesn't leave room: "This raffle is too short for an early bird draw. The draw date needs a full selling day before it and after it, so the raffle must run for at least 3 days. Extend the end date above, or turn the early bird draw off."
Once the early bird draw runs, those prizes lock
After you've run the early bird draw, the early bird prizes and the draw date can't be changed — the section switches to read-only and shows "Drawn: tickets purchased before [date] were entered. The date can no longer be changed." That's deliberate: people bought tickets on the strength of an advertised early bird draw, so the terms hold once it's run.
When your raffle is live, your public page shows the early bird prizes in their own group with the cut-off date, and buyers get a note at checkout that buying before the date enters them in the early bird draw. When the time comes, see Run the early bird draw.
Next: Tickets and pricing.