New guide, October 2026. Every TixFox step was checked in the real dashboard on October 20, 2026.
It's 7:40 on show morning. There are 60 cars in a line that reaches the road, a folding table, a cash box, a stack of paper registration forms and two volunteers trying to read a smudged phone number. Half of the cars pre-registered by mailing a check, and nobody can find the list.
This guide gives you a free car show registration form template and printable dash cards, then shows you how to take registrations online instead: how to price show cars and spectators, how to close pre-registration in time for judging, what to ask about each car, how to handle the dash plaques and the gate, and what it all costs. It uses real fee schedules from shows running now and real screens from TixFox.
Quick answer: Sell show car registration as a ticket type with a pre-registration price and a sale end date, usually $15 to $35 per car, and add a slightly higher day-of-show ticket for the gate. Ask the year, make, model and class of every car at checkout, sell spectator tickets and shirts on the same page, and export the list to make class sheets and dash cards before the show.
What you'll have at the end: a registration form that asks the right questions, and one event page where owners register their cars, spectators buy entry, and you get a single list with every car's year, make, model and class.
Free car show registration form template (PDF)
Download the two printables below. They're free, US Letter, and made to print in black and white:
- Car show registration form (PDF): one page per car, with owner, vehicle, class, entry and extras, a box for your rules and release, and an office-use strip for the car number and plaque.
- Car show dash cards (PDF): two cards per page with the car number, class, year, make and model, owner and hometown, to sit on the dashboard facing out.
Rather skip the paper? Owners can register and pay online, you get every car, class and email in one list, and late entries pay at the gate from your phone. Set up car show registration on TixFox, free to set up, 39¢ a car. The rest of this guide shows how.
Taking registrations online? Use the same fields. In TixFox, name and email come with every order, and the rest are custom fields (Step 3):
- First name, last name and email (every order asks these).
- Mobile number for show day (Phone field).
- Year (Number field, required).
- Make and model (Text field, required).
- Show class (dropdown, required): your class names, for example Classic, Muscle car, Modern, Truck, Import, Motorcycle.
- Hometown (Text field, optional), for the announcer and the judges.
- Club (Text field, optional), if you give a club award.
- Shirt size (dropdown), shown only to people who add a shirt.
- "I've read the show rules" (Checkbox Group, required), with a link to your rules and rain date.
Why paper registration slows down show day
Paper forms and mailed checks work, but they push all the work to the worst possible moment. You type up the list the week before, you sort the classes by hand, and on the day you're taking cash from late entries while the line grows.
Most shows also tie judging to pre-registration. McPherson College's C.A.R.S. Club show in Kansas says it plainly: "Only vehicles registered by April 20 will be judged." That rule only works if you have a clean list on April 21.
Step 1: Set your prices and your deadline
Look at what shows near you charge. Here's what three real shows charge or charged:
- McPherson College C.A.R.S. Club Car Show (May 2, 2026): $20 per vehicle pre-registered by April 20, $25 on the day.
- Freedom Car Show (West Virginia): $25 early, $30 on the day, and the first 50 registered cars get a commemorative dash plaque. Registration includes a dash sheet, a space of about 12 by 10 feet and eligibility for awards. Proceeds support the WV Independence Network.
- Triple Crown Charity Car Show (Sanford, North Carolina, October 10, 2026): a $20 charitable donation for the Open Class, no pre-registration, registration closing at 1:30 pm, and a $5 donation for spectators to enter the indoor exhibit.
A $5 gap between pre-registration and the day of the show is common, and it does two jobs: it rewards owners who sign up early, and it gives you an accurate count for trophies, plaques and parking.
Pick your pre-registration deadline from your print dates. If dash plaques, class lists and judging sheets go to the printer two weeks out, close pre-registration a few days before that.
Step 2: Make two ticket types for show cars
In TixFox, open your event, go to Ticket Types and click Create Ticket. Make two:
- Show Car: Pre-registration. Set the Price ($20), Max Tickets Per Order to 1 so every car has its own registration, and Quantity to the number of show spaces. Under Sale Date & Time, untick Available for the full event duration and set the end date to your pre-registration deadline.
- Show Car: Day of Show. The higher price ($25) and the spaces you're holding back for late entries. You'll sell these at the gate.
The Pricing Summary shows what the owner pays. On a $20 registration with fees passed on, TixFox's fee is $0.39 and processing is $0.92, so the owner pays $21.31 and you keep $20. You can absorb the fees instead under Handle Fees in the advanced settings.
When pre-registration closes, the ticket stops selling on its own and shows as Sales Ended on your page, while the day-of ticket stays on sale.
If you give plaques to the first 50 cars, there are two easy ways to do it. You can sort the registration list by order time and take the first 50 rows. Or you can make a separate "Pre-registration with dash plaque" ticket type at the same price with a quantity of 50, put it first, and turn on Hide When Sold Out, so once the plaques are gone only the regular pre-registration ticket is left.
Step 3: Ask for the car, not just the owner
Every order already asks for the owner's first name, last name and email. Add the car under Custom Fields:
- Year, as a Number field, required.
- Make and model, as a Text field, required.
- Show class, as a dropdown, required, so every answer matches one of your class names.
Under Visibility Conditions, add a Ticket condition so these questions only appear when someone picks a show car ticket. Spectators won't see them.
A few more questions are worth considering: the owner's town (judges and announcers like it), a mobile number for show day, whether the car is club-registered, and a required "I've read the show rules" answer that links to your rules. A checkbox at checkout is not a signed waiver, so keep the waiver your insurer asks for. The custom fields feature covers every question type.
Step 4: Sell spectator tickets and shirts on the same page
Spectators are often where a charity show makes its money. Add a Spectator ticket type, plus a free ticket for kids so you still get a headcount.
On a $5 spectator ticket, TixFox's fee is 30¢. That matters more than it sounds: on Eventbrite, the service fee on the same $5 ticket is $1.98 before payment processing, because its fixed $1.79 applies to every ticket.
Sell shirts, dash plaques or a lunch voucher as add-ons under Add-ons, Create Add-on. For shirts, add a size question and show it only to people who buy a shirt (the ticket condition lists add-ons too). See add-ons.
For a charity show, turn on Donations under Checkout Settings, so owners and spectators can give a little more at checkout (donations). Then tell people where the money goes, the way the Freedom Car Show and the Triple Crown show do on their pages.
Step 5: Before the show, turn the list into class sheets and dash cards
When pre-registration closes, go to Orders and click Export. You get one row per registration with the owner's name and email, the ticket type, and the year, make, model and class answers.
From that one file:
- Sort by class and you have your judging sheets and the parking order.
- Number the cars in the order they registered. The first 50 rows are your dash plaque list.
- Mail merge the rows into dash cards with any word processor or design tool, one card per car.
- Email the parking plan. Edit the order confirmation email in your event's Communication tab to include roll-in times, the entrance for show cars and where to unload. TixFox also sends every buyer reminder emails 7 days and 24 hours before the show.
Step 6: Run the gate from your phone
Every registration and spectator ticket arrives by email with a QR code.
- Show cars: scan the owner's ticket at the entrance, hand over the dash card, and point them to their class row.
- Late entries: sell the Day of Show ticket at the gate with the TixFox app, by Tap to Pay or cash. The car lands in the same list as everyone else (selling onsite).
- Spectators: a second volunteer scans spectator tickets at the walk-in gate. Add volunteers as check-in assistants; they can scan tickets for your show and nothing else.
What car show registration costs
TixFox is free to set up. It charges $0.39 per paid ticket or add-on, 30¢ on low-priced tickets (its pricing page says under $5, and its own Pricing Summary showed 30¢ on our $5 ticket), and nothing on free tickets, plus Stripe's card processing of 2.9% + 30¢. For a show with 150 pre-registered cars at $20 and 500 spectators at $5, that's $208.50 in TixFox fees for the whole show, which you can pass on to buyers or absorb. On Eventbrite's published rates, the service fees on the same show come to $1,367 before its 2.9% processing fee. See TixFox pricing.
Planning next season's show? Create your car show on TixFox and open pre-registration today. Free to set up, 39¢ a car.
Which registration setup fits your show?
Paper forms and a cash box cost nothing and are fine for a small cruise-in where nobody's judged. They get hard when you have classes, plaques, a judging deadline and a few hundred spectators.
Dedicated car show software exists too. The Freedom Car Show, for example, takes registrations through carshowpro.com. These tools are built around car shows, so compare their per-registration and card fees with your other options before you choose.
TixFox fits shows that want owners and spectators on one page with the lowest fee per ticket, a pre-registration deadline, car details in one list and gate sales from a phone. It doesn't score cars or tally People's Choice votes, so keep your judging sheets and ballots.
Mistakes that make show day harder
- No pre-registration deadline. You can't print plaques or class sheets for cars you don't know about. Set the sale end date.
- One ticket for two cars. Keep Max Tickets Per Order at 1 for show cars, so each car has its own owner, email and class.
- Free-text classes. "Muscle", "muscle car" and "60s muscle" make three classes. Use a dropdown.
- Forgetting spectators. A full field of cars with nobody walking the rows is a long day. Sell spectator tickets early and post them where car clubs and families will see them.
- No rain date in writing. Put it in your refund policy under Checkout Settings, Refund Policy, so owners know before they pay. See our guide to event refund policies.
How we tested this
We set up a sample car show in TixFox's real dashboard on October 20, 2026, using our demo account: a $20 pre-registration ticket with 150 spaces and a sale end date, a $25 day-of ticket, a $5 spectator ticket, a $15 shirt add-on, and three vehicle questions. The screenshots show those forms filled in. We didn't publish the show. The dates in the pre-registration screenshot are the form's defaults, and the dash card uses sample details.
The fee schedules come from each show's own page. Platform prices are from TixFox's own Pricing Summary and from Eventbrite's pricing page on October 20, 2026.
FAQ
Is there a free car show registration form template?
Yes. This guide has a free one-page car show registration form and a sheet of dash cards, both as printable PDFs. The form covers the owner, the car, the show class, entry and extras, your rules and a signature. Use the same fields if you take registrations online.
How much should I charge for car show registration?
Most local shows charge $15 to $35 per car, with day-of registration about $5 more than pre-registration. McPherson College's 2026 show charged $20 and $25, and the Freedom Car Show $25 and $30. Charity shows often call the fee a donation and say where the money goes.
How do I set up online car show registration?
Create a ticket type for show cars with one car per order, a price and a sale end date for your pre-registration deadline. Add required questions for the year, make, model and class, and share the event link with local car clubs. Owners pay by card and get a QR code for the gate.
What should a car show registration form ask?
The owner's name, email and phone, the car's year, make and model, the class you'll judge it in, and agreement to your show rules. Optional extras: the owner's town, club membership and shirt size.
Should spectators pay to get into a car show?
Many shows let spectators in free and earn from registrations and food. Charity shows often ask for a small donation or sell a $5 ticket. A free spectator ticket still gives you a headcount and reminder emails.
How do I give dash plaques to the first 50 cars?
Export your registrations and take the first 50 by order time, or sell a separate plaque ticket type at the same price, limited to 50, that hides itself when it sells out.
Can I accept registrations at the gate?
Yes. Keep a day-of-show ticket type and sell it from the TixFox app by Tap to Pay or cash. The car joins the same list as the pre-registered ones.
Open registration for your next show
You know the cars, the classes and the people who'll show up. Put the registration, the spectator tickets and the shirts on one event page, and spend show morning talking to owners instead of reading handwriting.
Create your car show on TixFox. It's free to set up, and registrations cost 39¢ each.
Sources
- McPherson College C.A.R.S. Club Car Show registration: May 2, 2026; $20 pre-registered by April 20, $25 on the day; only cars registered by April 20 judged.
- Freedom Car Show registration: $25 early, $30 on the day, dash plaques for the first 50, what registration includes, proceeds, registration through carshowpro.com.
- 2026 Triple Crown Charity Car Show: October 10, 2026; $20 charitable donation, no pre-registration, $5 spectator donation for the indoor exhibit, beneficiaries.
- Eventbrite pricing, checked October 20, 2026: 3.7% + $1.79 per ticket, 2.9% processing per order.
- TixFox dashboard, demo account, October 20, 2026: Create Ticket Type (Max Tickets Per Order, Quantity, Sale Date & Time, Pricing Summary on $20, $25 and $5 tickets, Hide When Sold Out), Custom Fields and Visibility Conditions, Create Add-on, Donations, Refund Policy. Fees from tixfox.co/pricing.
Written by the TixFox team. We build ticketing for organizers of every size, and we set up every TixFox step in this guide ourselves.
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