When should I set up my gallery?
Set the gallery up well before the event — your sharing window opens automatically two weeks before the date.
~3 min read
You can set up a PixVenu gallery any time after purchase — there's no "too early." The whole point of the platform is that you get the QR code and the magic link the moment your account is ready, so you can print invitations, table cards, or save-the-dates with the QR baked in.
That said, galleries don't go publicly visible to guests the instant you create them. PixVenu auto-schedules a gallery to flip to live exactly two weeks before its event date. Before that, the gallery is in a "scheduled" state — only you (and any co-hosts you've added) can see the photo grid. Anyone scanning the QR or tapping the magic link before the two-week window opens lands on a friendly Coming Soon page with a countdown to opening day, plus an option to add the event to their calendar.
Two weeks is the right window for most events. It gives you a buffer to test your QR by scanning it yourself, verify the welcome message reads correctly, fix the theme, and walk through the upload experience exactly as a guest would. Once you're satisfied, you don't have to do anything else — the gallery flips public automatically on the threshold date.
If you want to flip it live sooner — say you're sharing the magic link with guests via group chat ahead of time — you can also manually activate it from the host dashboard at any moment. The activate affordance lives on the gallery detail page; one click flips status from scheduled to live and the gallery becomes publicly reachable.
On the photo cap. Free galleries hold up to 30 photos; every paid tier is unlimited. That cap is the free-tier ceiling regardless of when you set the gallery up — see Free vs paid galleries.
For events that have already happened, you can still set up a gallery and collect photos. Just enter the past event date and the gallery flips live immediately (no scheduled window when the date is already past). How long guests can keep uploading depends on your plan: free galleries have no time limit (the 30-photo cap is the ceiling instead), Essential galleries stay open for 3 months, and Signature and Premier for 12 months — measured from your event's end date. See Free vs paid galleries for the tier details.
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