Merchants managing recurring or seasonal events regularly run into confusion around storefront cleanup, the difference between deleting and archiving, restoring deleted events, duplicating for new seasons, and whether to reuse old events year-over-year. This article covers each of those workflows.
“Hide past dates” is a UI aid only — it does not affect your storefront
The Hide past dates checkbox in the event editor only de-clutters the editor view. It does not remove past date variants from your Shopify product listing or storefront. This is a common misconception — toggling it will not clean up what customers see.
To actually remove past dates from your storefront, configure automatic cleanup in:
Event Ticketing → Settings → Product management
Recommended settings:
- Variant action: Delete — removes the past date variant from the Shopify product
- Product action: Archive — archives the Shopify product once all dates have passed
Setting either option to “Do nothing” leaves past events visible on your storefront indefinitely.
You can also delete variants manually in Shopify if you prefer not to use the automated setting.
Note: Shopify still lets you report on deleted variants and products, so deleting variants does not lose your sales history.
Archive events rather than deleting them
Archiving is the right tool for a finished event, and deleting is not — but not because deleting is irreversible. A deleted event and its attendee records can be restored (see below); the problem is that deleting takes the whole registration history out of your active data, where archiving keeps every attendee record intact and simply moves the event out of your active views.
- Archive the event to hide it from active views while preserving all attendee records.
- Delete or archive the Shopify product and variants (via Product management settings above) to remove it from the storefront.
If you’ve already deleted events, see the restore section below.
How to archive past events (in bulk)
- Go to Guest Manager → Events → Past
- Add a filter: Event type = Parent (or Recurring — do each type separately for large sets)
- Select the events you want to archive
- Click Actions → Archive
Large events with many variants can time out during archiving. If you hit errors, archive in smaller batches.
Once the archive finishes, delete and reinstall the Guest Manager Check In app on your iOS devices. Archiving controls what the app downloads from that point on, but devices already carrying last year’s data keep it until the app is reinstalled — so the archive does not shrink or speed them up on its own. Make sure each device is fully synced first, because reinstalling erases anything not yet uploaded. See Check-in app configuration for the details.
How to restore a deleted event
- Go to Events → All
- Click Filter → enable Show deleted
- Find the event and click the green Restore button
If the restore times out — common for large events — contact support. Events can be restored from the backend.
How to unarchive an event that has disappeared from your list
If an event vanishes from your events list, it was likely archived accidentally.
- Go to Events → All
- Click Filter → enable Show archived
- Select the event → Actions → Unarchive
Finding past events that are not showing in the list
The events list defaults to showing upcoming and active events. Remove the Date active/upcoming filter to see past-dated events. This also applies when you need to find a past event so you can duplicate it.
Duplicating an event
To copy an event for a new season or a repeat occurrence:
- Go to Events → [event name]
- Click Duplicate
This creates a brand-new event with no prior ticket sales or attendee history.
Shopify: The Duplicate action is only available in the Event Ticketing Shopify app — it is not available in the standalone Guest Manager app.
Annual reuse: create a new event each year
Create a new event each year rather than renaming or updating dates on an existing one.
Reusing an existing event carries over:
- All previous ticket sales (prior attendees appear as already registered)
- All historical analytics (new-year reports will be mixed with prior years)
- Ticket counts that cannot be reset
If you rename and reuse, previous tickets remain valid for the “new” event and analytics become unreliable. This is the source of many reporting issues.
The clean path: Duplicate the event to get a fresh slate, then update the dates and details on the copy.
Common issues
- Auto-archiving too early: If products are archiving before the event ends, check the event’s end date in Events → Edit Event. If the end date and time are set incorrectly (for example, matching the start time), the archive fires immediately. Fix the end date to resolve this.
- Reusing is technically possible but not recommended: Updating the date and manually archiving old registrants can work if you do not rely on Event Ticketing for reporting, but there are unforeseen edge cases — proceed knowing the trade-offs.
- Recurring events are separate from duplicating: If you want automatically-generated recurring dates (weekly, hourly, etc.), use the Recurring event type rather than manually duplicating each date. See the multi-date and recurring events doc for that workflow.
- iOS Check-in app: After archiving last year’s events, delete and reinstall the Guest Manager iOS Check-in app so each device drops the archived data and comes back on a clean active set. Sync every device first — see How to archive past events (in bulk) above.
