Cancelling choir rehearsal: mark events as “Cancelled” instead of deleting them

The choir director is in bed with a fever, the rehearsal room is double-booked, or the club's summer party is rained out. Sooner or later every choir has to call off a rehearsal. The only question is how. If you want to cancel a choir rehearsal in Chorilo, you don't delete the event, you mark it as “Cancelled”. The event stays visible, all members hear about it, and nothing that is already attached to it gets lost. For events that are not yet confirmed, there is also the “Tentative” marking.

Why deleting is the wrong way to cancel a rehearsal

A deleted event is simply gone. All responses, comments, tasks and attached files disappear with it, for good. For members this is confusing: yesterday the rehearsal was in the calendar, today it has vanished without explanation. Anyone who missed that it was removed may end up standing in front of a locked door.

A cancellation, on the other hand, is information that everyone should see. That is why a cancelled event in Chorilo stays wherever it was before: in the event list, in the calendar and on the home page. It is struck through and marked “Cancelled”. On the detail page, a notice at the very top explains why the event is not taking place, provided you gave a reason. Responses, comments, tasks and files are kept in full.

How to cancel a choir rehearsal

Open the event and choose “Cancel event” from the “···” menu. It works the same in the browser and in the app. Chorilo then asks for a reason, for example “Choir director is ill” or “Rehearsal room not available”. The reason is optional, but it helps everyone understand the cancellation. Once you confirm, the event is cancelled.

If the rehearsal is part of a recurring series, you decide what the cancellation applies to: only this event, this and all future events, or all events in the series. That way you can, for example, cancel all rehearsals during the summer holidays in one step.

Who finds out about the cancellation?

Everyone who is allowed to see the event receives an email and a push notification, each according to their own notification settings. Invited guests with a Chorilo account are informed as well. If you gave a reason, it appears right in the message. There is no need for an extra group email, and nobody has to ask around to find out what is going on.

If you cancel several events of a series at once, only one single message is sent, listing all the affected dates. Ten emails for ten holiday rehearsals would annoy rather than inform. For events that are already in the past, no message is sent at all. If you tidy up afterwards and mark a rehearsal that really did not happen as “Cancelled”, nobody is disturbed.

What happens to a cancelled event

As soon as an event is cancelled, responses are locked. Answers that were already given stay saved, but no new ones are possible. No more reminders go out for the event, not even to those who had not replied yet.

The event disappears from the personal calendar subscription so that it no longer sits in members' phone calendars. It does not count in the attendance statistics or the attendance export. That matters, because when a rehearsal is cancelled, nobody missed it. If you evaluate attendance for awards or for the club's annual report, you get honest numbers. And no GEMA setlist is created for a cancelled concert.

Cancelling a concert: what visitors and ticket buyers see

With concerts, it is not just about your own members. If the event is listed on your choir's public website, it stays there marked “Cancelled”, without a button to buy tickets. Concertgoers who check will know right away. The event also stays in the website's public calendar subscription, with “[Cancelled]” in the title.

If tickets exist for the concert, whether sold or handed out for free, the event can only be cancelled once those tickets have been cancelled. You do this in the event's “Tickets” tab. The order is deliberate: nobody should be left holding a paid ticket for a concert that is not happening, waiting in vain for a refund.

Undoing a cancellation

Sometimes things clear up faster than expected: the choir director is well again, the room is free after all. Then open the event and choose “Undo cancellation”. The event takes place again, responses are possible again, and members receive a message. Because nothing was deleted when you cancelled, everything is back: the previous responses, the comments, the tasks and the files.

Tentative events: planning before everything is settled

Not every event is certain when you add it. The extra rehearsal before the concert depends on whether enough singers can make it. The performance at the town festival is still waiting for the organiser's confirmation. For cases like these, tick the “Tentative” checkbox when creating or editing the event.

Members see the marking and know the event is not certain yet. They can still reply yes, no or maybe. That is exactly the point: you see early on who would be available and can decide on that basis. A message to everyone only goes out if you tick “Send notification to all members”.

Once the event is confirmed, untick the box again. If you send a change notification at the same time, members see “Tentative → Takes place” in it. In the personal calendar subscription, a tentative event carries “[Tentative]” in its title, so it is clear in the phone calendar too that it is still uncertain. And if the event falls through in the end, simply cancel it.

Who can cancel events?

Anyone who may edit events can cancel them, undo a cancellation and mark events as tentative. By default, that is administrators and moderators. No separate choir setting is needed: the feature is there when you need it, and choirs that don't use it won't notice anything. An event that takes place as normal still carries no marking.

You will find step-by-step instructions in the help article on cancelling events. The next time you have to cancel a choir rehearsal, one click in the menu and a short sentence about the reason are enough. Your members find out right away, and the event stays where everyone looks for it.