---
title: Moving or cancelling an in-person race
description: Publish a schedule change, notify participants, and manage transfer and refund requests
order: 87
---

# Moving or cancelling an in-person race

Use a schedule change when a published in-person race must move to another date or be cancelled. A postponement updates the existing event—it does not create a replacement—so registrations and event history stay together.

**Path:** Organizer console → open the in-person race → **Schedule changes** → **Move date / cancel**

## Before you confirm

The wizard separates the decision into reviewable steps:

1. Choose **Move to another date** or **Cancel event**.
2. For a move, enter the new event start, end, and registration deadline.
3. Review operational and commercial deadlines.
4. Choose participant notification channels.
5. Write the public notice and notification content.
6. Configure transfer destinations, refund availability, response deadlines, and secure-link lifetime.
7. Map source distances to destination distances.
8. Review the full impact and confirm.

Confirmation applies the change atomically, publishes the current notice, freezes which entries are eligible, supersedes any earlier active schedule-change notice, and queues notifications once.

::: warning Review before confirming
This workflow changes a live event and freezes participant, contact, payment, and transfer/refund eligibility at confirmation time. Check the review step carefully.
:::

## Moving the date

Enter the new start and end. If you leave the new registration deadline empty, DistantRace shifts it by the same offset as the event start.

The impact step shows linked times. Some move automatically; optional checkboxes let you shift active:

- participant self-edit deadlines;
- ticket price deadlines;
- reserved-entry periods;
- product availability; and
- discount validity periods.

## Cancelling

Cancellation keeps registrations and financial history, closes registration, and publishes the cancellation notice. Participants can receive the response options you configure; a cancellation itself does not automatically issue bank refunds.

## Participant notifications

Choose no direct notice, email, SMS, or both. SMS is available only when the organization has a working SMS integration.

Write localized public, email, and SMS content for the languages you use. The public event page shows the old and new dates (or cancellation), the effective registration deadline, response deadlines, and available transfer destinations.

An optional billing-contact fallback can also notify the person who paid for an entry. Leave it off unless that person should receive the participant's schedule-change message.

## Transfer options

Transfer targets must be published, future in-person races managed by the same organization. Map every eligible source distance to its permitted destination distance. An unmapped distance cannot be transferred.

After confirmation, issue either:

- a link for one participant entry; or
- a whole-cart owner link covering the eligible entries in that purchase.

A submitted transfer is a request, not an automatic move. Review it in **Schedule changes**, then use **Create target registration** to fulfil it.

## Refund requests

If refunds are offered, set their deadline before confirming. Through a secure whole-cart owner link, the buyer can request a refund for eligible entries and submit the account holder, IBAN, optional BIC, and note. Bank details are encrypted.

Refunds are handled outside DistantRace's payment gateway:

1. Review and approve complete requests.
2. Reauthenticate with MFA for finance actions.
3. Create an immutable refund batch from approved requests.
4. Download the XLSX and pay it through your organization's approved banking process.
5. Select the paid rows, enter the payment time and bank/accounting reference, and mark them refunded.

Only the marked entries are withdrawn and recorded as refunded. Other entries in the same cart keep their own status, including entries being retained or transferred.

::: danger Protect refund exports
Refund spreadsheets contain bank details. Do not upload them to event documents, support tickets, shared object storage, or logs. Transfer them only through your organization's approved secure accounting channel.
:::

## What participants see

The secure response link is valid for the configured period (1–30 days). Depending on the action and your settings, a participant can:

- keep the entry for the new date;
- request a transfer to an offered event; or
- request a refund through the cart-owner link.

See [Responding to a race schedule change](../joining-events/responding-to-a-race-schedule-change.md).

## Related

- [Create an in-person race](create-an-in-person-race.md)
- [Managing individual racers](managing-individual-racers.md)
- [Two-factor authentication](../joining-events/two-factor-authentication.md)