Why is my gallery already live?

If you set up your gallery a few weeks before your event and noticed it's already live, that's intentional. PixVenu auto-activates galleries 14 days before the event date so your guests have time to test their QR code, bookmark the magic link, and even start uploading any pre-event photos you'd like.

Why 14 days?

Two weeks gives you a comfortable buffer to:

• Print and proof your QR signage (table cards, welcome signs, take-home cards)
• Send the magic link in pre-event communications without it bouncing
• Catch any branding tweaks that look different on a phone screen than they did in your design tool
• Let early-bird guests upload getting-ready or rehearsal-dinner photos

If your event is less than 14 days away when you create the gallery, it goes live immediately — there's no point in scheduling a future activation when the event itself is the practical activation date.

Want to schedule it later?

You can override the auto-activation by switching the gallery status to scheduled and picking a specific moment via the Schedule for later affordance on the host detail page. PixVenu won't accept anon visitors until your chosen live_at moment lands — they'll see the Coming Soon page with a countdown to your scheduled time. Useful for events where the gallery shouldn't be visible until the day-of, or where you've timed the activation to a specific announcement.

Want to open it early?

The Activate now button on the host detail page flips a scheduled gallery to live immediately. The activation email fires when you click it, so use this when you're ready for guests to start hitting the magic link / QR right away.

What "live" means for your guests

Once the gallery is live:

• The public URL works for anyone with the link
• Guests can scan the QR and upload (subject to the upload-window and PIN settings you've configured)
• Search engines can't see the gallery — every guest URL ships with noindex (you control discovery via your QR / link, not Google)
• The view counter starts ticking on each gallery visit

You can flip back to archived any time post-event to close off new uploads while keeping the gallery accessible for downloads. See the help article on deleting an event for the cleanup steps after that.