When Do Camps Close, Unpublish, and Move to Past Events?
Updated
by Firewood Camps Support
When Do Camps Close, Unpublish, and Move to Past Events?
Every camp on your Firewood website has two independent switches that control where it appears and whether it can still take sign-ups. Firewood also closes camps automatically about a week after they end. This guide covers how that works, why a recently ended camp can still show up in a few places at once, and how to open or close a camp yourself at any time.
The two switches every camp has:
Every camp has two separate switches. They work independently, so you can use either one on its own.
Switch | What it controls | When it’s turned OFF |
Published | Whether the camp appears on your public website (your camps page and landing pages). | The camp is hidden from the public. |
Open for Business | Whether the camp accepts new registrations. | Visitors see “Registration Is Closed.” |
You’ll find both toggles near the bottom of a camp’s new / edit pages. For step-by-step instructions, see Opening / Closing Registration.
The automatic one-week rule:
One week after a camp’s end date, Firewood automatically unpublishes it and closes registration.
Once a day, Firewood looks for camps whose end date was more than 7 days ago and that are still published or still open for sign-ups. For each one, it turns both switches off - Published and Open for Business. This is the “1 week” rule people refer to, and it’s intended behavior.
A few things to know:
- The camp must have an end date. Camps with no end date set (for example, some session-based or “TBD” camps) are never closed automatically. They stay published and open until you close them yourself. This is the most common reason a camp “won’t close on its own.”
- It only touches camps that are still open. If you’ve already unpublished or closed a camp, the automatic process leaves it alone.
- It uses the camp’s end date — not individual session dates.
Why a camp can still look “active” after it ends
A recently ended camp can appear in more than one place at the same time. This is expected — your public site and your admin dashboard use different timing.
Where | How long an ended camp stays there |
Your public website (the camps page) | Until it’s unpublished — about 1 week after the end date. During that week it still shows (moved to the bottom of the list) and, unless you’ve closed it, can still take registrations. |
Your admin dashboard (active camps) | About 1 month after the end date. Ended camps drop to the bottom of the list but stay visible for roughly 30 days. |
Admin → Past Events | Immediately, as soon as the end date passes. |
Does this mean completed camps aren’t moved to Past Events right away?
They actually are. A camp appears under Past Events as soon as its end date passes. What causes the confusion is that the same camp also stays in your active dashboard for about a month afterward — so it can look like it hasn’t moved. It has already been added to Past Events; it just hasn’t left the active list yet.
Opening or closing a camp yourself:
You never have to wait for the automatic process. From a camp’s edit page you can, at any time:
- Unpublish the camp to hide it from your public site immediately.
- Close registration (turn off Open for Business) to stop new sign-ups while keeping the page visible.
- Re-open a camp by turning either switch back on — for example, to extend a registration window.
Manual changes take effect right away, and the automatic daily process won’t override them.
Troubleshooting: “My camps aren’t closing automatically”
If ended camps stay published and keep taking registrations well past the one-week mark, check these in order:
- Does the camp have an end date? Camps with a blank end date are never closed automatically. Add an end date, or close the camp yourself.
- Has it really been more than 7 full days since the end date? The check runs once a day and uses a 7-day window, so a camp that ended yesterday won’t close today.
- Still stuck? If the camp has an end date, it’s been more than a week, and it’s still open, contact us at operations@firewoodcamps.com and we’ll take a look.
Please contact operations@firewoodcamps.com if you have any questions or comments about this HelpDoc.
Related articles
