Run the early bird draw
Awarding your early bird prizes partway through the raffle — while sales keep going.
If you set up early bird prizes, there's a second, smaller draw to run partway through your raffle — on the early bird draw date you advertised. This page covers running it.
The key thing to know: the early bird draw doesn't close your raffle. Sales carry on exactly as before, and the early bird winning tickets stay in the pool for the final draw. The only thing it changes is that those early bird prizes get awarded.
On the day
On the early bird draw date, we email your organisation's admins a reminder — "Time for your early bird draw" — with a button to Run the early bird draw. You'll also find the Early Bird Draw panel on the raffle's Draw & Timeline tab, with three steps that tick off as you go: Drawn, Winners notified, and Results published.
Choose Draw Early Bird Winners. Until the date arrives, the button is unavailable and explains why: "Available on [date] — tickets keep entering until then."
Confirm in the Draw Early Bird Winners? dialog. It draws a random winner for each early bird prize from the tickets bought before the cut-off. You can record a Witness Name and Witness Role here if you'd like the draw witnessed — both optional. Then choose Draw Now.
Notify Early Bird Winners, then Publish Early Bird Results when you're ready to show them on your raffle page. Publishing early bird results doesn't trigger a payout — your proceeds are still settled once the whole raffle is drawn.
A few things that are handled for you
- Sales keep going. Your raffle stays open and selling the entire time — running the early bird draw only stamps the milestone, it never changes the raffle's status.
- Not enough early tickets? That's fine. If fewer tickets were bought before the cut-off than there are early bird prizes, the draw still completes — it awards what it can and the rest simply go unawarded. If nothing sold before the cut-off, no early bird prizes are awarded and the raffle carries on to its final draw untouched.
- The final draw waits its turn. Your main draw stays locked until the early bird draw has run, so the two can't happen out of order.
- The same ticket can win both. An early bird winning ticket is never removed from the final draw — buying early adds a chance, it doesn't spend one.
What buyers see
While your raffle is still selling, published early bird results show as a small Early bird winners drawn — view badge on your public page, opening a dialog of the winners. Winner names are shown as a ticket number and location, not full names. The full Winners section — with both the early bird and final results — appears once you publish your final results.
When the raffle later closes, you run the final draw as normal — see Run the draw.