Winner Gallery

The Winner Gallery is where you build the photo wall of winners on your public site — winner photos, prize handovers, testimonials and social proof that show your customers real people really win. This page covers adding gallery items, linking them to drawn winners and instant win claims, publishing and unpublishing, and exactly what visitors see.

Where to find it: Admin → Winner Gallery (/admin/winner-gallery). The link appears in the sidebar for admin roles with media access.

What appears on your public site

Published gallery items appear on the Gallery tab of your site's public Winners page (alongside the Main Prizes and Instant Wins tabs). Visitors see:

• A grid of photo cards, newest first, loading 24 at a time (more load automatically as the visitor scrolls, with a Load More button as backup).
• Each card shows the photo with the item's title overlaid, plus the first line of the description if you added one.
• Items linked to a winner carry a Main Prize or Instant Win badge in the corner of the card.
• Clicking a card opens a full-size lightbox with the photo, title and description. For linked items (with no custom title — see below), the lightbox also shows the winner's name, the competition title and their winning ticket number. Visitors can arrow through the whole gallery from the lightbox.

Draft items never appear publicly. If you have no published items at all, the Gallery tab shows a friendly "No Gallery Items Yet" placeholder rather than an empty page.

Choose an item type

Every gallery item is one of three types, chosen when you create it:

Type	Linked to	Best for
Main Prize	A drawn competition winner	Grand prize winner photos — the badge, winner name, competition and ticket number can display automatically
Instant Win	A claimed instant win prize	Instant win winner photos, with the same automatic winner details
Standalone	Nothing — free-form	Off-site winners, live draw event photos, special features, anything else

Linking to a real win is worth doing where you can: it saves you typing (the title defaults to the winner's name and competition), and it adds the badge and verifiable details (including the winning ticket number) that make the gallery convincing social proof.

You can only link to wins that already exist — a main prize winner must have been drawn, and an instant win must have been claimed by a customer. If the win happened somewhere the platform can't see (a charity event, a previous site), use Standalone.

Add a gallery item

1. Go to Admin → Winner Gallery and click Add Gallery Item.
2. Photo (required) — click Choose from Media Gallery. You can browse your media folders, search by filename or alt text, or upload a new image on the spot. See Media Library for organising your photos.
3. Winner Type — pick Link to Main Prize Winner, Link to Instant Win, or Standalone Entry.
4. Select Winner (linked types only) — a searchable list appears. For main prize winners, search by winner name or competition; each result shows the winner, competition and ticket number. For instant wins, search by winner name or prize title. Note that changing the winner type clears any winner you had already selected.
5. Custom Title — required for standalone items (up to 200 characters). For linked items it is optional: leave it blank to use the winner's name and competition title automatically. See the note below before filling this in on a linked item.
6. Description — optional, up to 1,000 characters. Shows on the card and in the lightbox. A good place for a short winner quote or the story behind the photo.
7. Publish to gallery — tick to make the item live immediately. Leave unticked to save it as a draft.
8. Click Create Gallery Item.

If the Create button is greyed out, a yellow warning box above it lists exactly what's missing — a photo, a title (standalone), or a winner selection (linked types).

Use a custom title, or show winner details

On a linked item, the Custom Title field controls more than the heading:

• Leave it blank — the title becomes "Winner name - Competition title" automatically, and the public card and lightbox show the winner badge, name, competition and ticket number.
• Enter a custom title — your title is used instead, and the winner badge and details are not shown publicly. The item displays like a standalone entry (the link is still saved in the admin, and the item still shows its Main Prize or Instant Win type badge in your admin list).

So if you want the "Main Prize" badge and ticket number on the public site, leave the title blank. If you want full control of the wording — or want to keep the winner's name off the page — set a custom title.

Publish, unpublish or keep as draft

Each item is either Published (live on your site) or Draft (admin-only). The three cards at the top of the page show your Total Items, Published and Draft counts at a glance.

To change an item's state:

1. Click the pencil (edit) icon on the item's row.
2. Tick or untick Publish to gallery.
3. Click Update Gallery Item.

The change takes effect on your public site straight away. Drafts are handy for preparing a batch of winner photos before a big announcement, or for temporarily pulling an item (for example while you swap the photo or a winner asks for a wording change) without deleting it.

New items default to draft unless you tick the publish box when creating them — so if you've just added an item and can't see it on the site, check its status first.

Find and filter items

• Search — matches against title, description, and the linked winner or competition. For instant win items, search by the competition rather than the winner's name. Results update as you type.
• Status dropdown — All Items, Published or Draft.
• The list shows 20 items per page, with Previous/Next controls underneath; each row shows the photo thumbnail, title and description, type badge (Main Prize / Instant Win / Standalone), Published/Draft status and created date.

Edit a gallery item

Click the pencil icon on any row to reopen the item. You can change the photo (Change Image), the winner type and linked winner, the title, description and published state. Click Update Gallery Item to save. Live items update on the public site immediately.

Delete a gallery item

Click the bin icon on the item's row and confirm. This only removes the gallery entry — the underlying win is untouched, so a linked main prize winner still appears on the Main Prizes tab of your public Winners page, and the draw and claim records remain intact. If you might want the item back later, unpublishing it (edit → untick Publish to gallery) is the reversible alternative.

Reorder gallery items

The public gallery displays items newest first, based on when each gallery item was created (not when the win happened). There is currently no drag-to-reorder control, so:

• To make a particular win appear at the top, add its gallery item last.
• To bring an older item back to the top, delete it and recreate it (a couple of minutes' work — the photo is still in your media library and the winner is still searchable).

Troubleshooting

I published an item but the winner's name and badge don't show on the site. You've set a custom title. On linked items a custom title replaces the automatic winner details entirely. Edit the item and clear the Custom Title field to restore the badge, name, competition and ticket number.

I can't find the winner when searching in the create panel. Check the win actually exists on the platform yet: main prize winners only appear once their competition has been drawn (see Winners), and instant wins only appear once a customer has actually won and claimed the prize. Also check you've picked the right winner type — a main prize winner won't appear under the Instant Win search, and vice versa. For wins that happened off-platform, use a Standalone entry instead.

My new item isn't showing on the public site. It's most likely still a draft — new items default to draft unless you ticked Publish to gallery. Filter the list by Draft, open the item, tick the box and update. If the item is published but linked to a winner, note that linked items are also hidden automatically if that winner has opted out of public display — this applies even with a custom title set. To show the photo anyway without their details, recreate the item as a Standalone entry.

The Create button won't enable. Check the yellow warning box in the panel — it lists the missing requirements. Every item needs a photo; standalone items also need a title; linked items also need a winner selected.

A winner has asked to be removed from the gallery. Edit the item and either untick Publish to gallery (keeps it as a draft) or set a custom title to hide their name while keeping the photo — or delete the item entirely. None of these affect their actual win or prize.

Related pages

• Winners — drawing winners, winner records and prize fulfilment; the wins you link gallery items to are managed there.
• Media Library — upload and organise the photos you'll use in the gallery.