Get a participant by email

GET/v1/event/{eventId}/participants

US Region: https://public-api.sessionboard.com · EU Region: https://public-api-eu.sessionboard.com

Look up one participant by email address. The match is exact and case-insensitive. Returns the participant, or 404 when no contact with that address holds a session role on the event.

Search on this API is a POST, so a GET on the collection path is free for the lookup — no /by-email sub-path is needed. email is required; a bare GET /participants is a 400, not an unpaginated list.

Contacts are not unique by email. If more than one contact on the event shares the address, the earliest-created one is returned; use POST /v1/event/{eventId}/participants with the email filter to see them all.

Request example

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://public-api.sessionboard.com/v1/event/{eventId}/participants?email=jane%40example.com' \
  --header 'x-access-token: <api-token>'

const response = await fetch('https://public-api.sessionboard.com/v1/event/{eventId}/participants?email=jane%40example.com', {
  method: 'GET',
  headers: {
    "x-access-token": "<api-token>"
  },
});

const data = await response.json();
console.log(data);

import requests

response = requests.request(
    "GET",
    "https://public-api.sessionboard.com/v1/event/{eventId}/participants",
    params={
        "email": "jane@example.com"
    },
    headers={
        "x-access-token": "<api-token>"
    },
)

print(response.json())

<?php

$curl = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curl, [
    CURLOPT_URL => "https://public-api.sessionboard.com/v1/event/{eventId}/participants?email=jane%40example.com",
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST => "GET",
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        "x-access-token: <api-token>",
    ],
]);

$response = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);

echo $response;

package main

import (
  "fmt"
  "io"
  "net/http"
)

func main() {
  req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", "https://public-api.sessionboard.com/v1/event/{eventId}/participants?email=jane%40example.com", nil)
  req.Header.Add("x-access-token", "<api-token>")

  res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
  defer res.Body.Close()
  body, _ := io.ReadAll(res.Body)

  fmt.Println(string(body))
}

HttpRequest request = HttpRequest.newBuilder()
    .uri(URI.create("https://public-api.sessionboard.com/v1/event/{eventId}/participants?email=jane%40example.com"))
    .header("x-access-token", "<api-token>")
    .method("GET", HttpRequest.BodyPublishers.noBody())
    .build();

HttpResponse<String> response = HttpClient.newHttpClient()
    .send(request, HttpResponse.BodyHandlers.ofString());

System.out.println(response.body());

Try it

Response headers

Authorizations

x-access-tokenstringheader
Organization API token. Generate from Organization Settings → API Tokens.
AuthorizationBearer <token>headeror
OAuth 2.1 access token. Obtained via the OAuth PKCE flow at /oauth/token.

Send one of these. See Authentication.

Path parameters

eventIdintegerpathrequired
The event ID.

Query parameters

emailstring<email>queryrequired
The contact's email address. Matched exactly, ignoring case.
expandstring[]query
Expand records with additional data.

Possible values:
- translated_fields — includes the translated_fields array on records when the event has language variants configured.
- subsession_details — applies to session responses. Each subsession inside parent.subsessions[] is returned with full parent-session field parity (status, custom_status, custom_fields, chairpersons, moderators, sponsors, exhibitors, tags, language, track, level, room, is_public, external_url, client_session_id, ceu_credits, capacity, source) instead of the default minimal shape. Subsessions inherit is_abstract, composition_status, and optional composition from the parent. Not required when calling GET /v1/event/{eventId}/sessions/{sessionId} with a subsession UUID — that endpoint always returns the full shape at the top level.
- linked_sources — include sessions that are linked as composition sources (excluded from list/search results by default).
- composition — attach a full composition object with target and source details on each returned session. Recommended for single-session GET; use cautiously on broad searches.
A single value can be passed directly, and multiple values repeat the parameter — all of these are accepted:
- ?expand=composition
- ?expand=translated_fields&expand=composition
- ?expand[]=translated_fields&expand[]=composition
Allowed values
"translated_fields", "subsession_details", "linked_sources", "composition"

Responses

200`application/json`

A contact (speaker, attendee, or organizational contact) in Sessionboard.

idstring
friendly_idstring
full_namestring
first_namestring
last_namestring
emailstring
created_atstring
updated_atstring<date-time>
When the contact last changed, from any source: an admin or portal edit, a sync, or a Public API write (create, update or bulk). Send it back as updated_at on PUT /v1/event/{eventId}/contacts/{contactId} or a bulk update for optimistic concurrency; the write returns the new value.
photo_urlstring
URL of the contact's headshot. Images larger than 2 MB are delivered resized from this URL, scaled to fit within 2400 x 2400 pixels (a PNG may arrive as WebP for clients that accept it). The uploaded file is stored unchanged; for full-resolution originals use the bulk download tools in Sessionboard, such as Download Headshots (Contacts, More menu).
company_namestring
titlestring
aboutstring
phone_homestring
phone_mobilestring
address_line_1string
address_line_2string
address_citystring
address_statestring
address_postal_codestring
address_countrystring
website_urlstring
linkedin_urlstring
twitter_urlstring
facebook_urlstring
honorificstring
salutationstring
pronounsstring
genderstring
past_companiesstring
educational_affiliationstring
highest_level_of_educationstring
ethnicitystring
languagesstring
speaker_scorestring
organization_contactstring
speaker_feestring
availabilitystring
preferred_session_formatstring
annual_revenuestring
headcountstring
years_in_operationstring
organization_structurestring
industrystring
global_regionstring
audience_typestring
target_age_rangestring
topic_expertisestring
brandstring
translated_fieldsTranslatedField[]
Show child attributes
- idstring
- namestring
- typestring
- parent_field_idstring
- parent_field_sourcestring
- parent_field_namestring
- parent_field_internal_namestring
- translated_languagestring
- valuestring
custom_fieldsCustomFieldValue[]
Show child attributes
- idstring
- namestring
- valuestring | boolean | null
  The formatted field value, or null when the field is empty. Numeric field types (number, currency, percent, quantity, formula) serialize a stored zero as its formatted value (for example "0") — null means the field has no value, not that the value is zero.
  
  checkbox fields serialize as the strings "Yes" (checked) and "No" (explicitly unchecked); a checkbox that was never set is null. Writes take boolean true / false.
  
  datetime fields serialize as ISO 8601. On event custom fields (GET /v1/events?expand=custom_fields) the value is event-local time with the event's UTC offset (for example 2026-08-15T09:00:00-03:00), falling back to the raw UTC instant (2026-08-15T12:00:00.000Z) when the event has no valid timezone. On session, speaker, sponsor, and exhibitor custom fields the value is the raw UTC instant.
  
  date (date-only) fields serialize as M-DD-YYYY: month without a leading zero, day with one, four-digit year (for example 9-22-2026 for 22 September 2026, 3-04-2026 for 4 March 2026). This is not ISO 8601; parse it with that exact pattern.
- typestring
- internal_namestring
- created_atstring
admin_urlstring<uri> | null
Deep link to this entity in the Sessionboard admin UI.
rolesParticipantRoleAssignment[]required
Every role the contact holds on the event and the sessions it holds each one on. Always the contact's complete set — not narrowed by the request filters. Ordered by the role's configured sort order.
Show child attributes
- roleIdstring<uuid> | nullrequired
  The role's id — the value to pass in the roleIds filter and the id returned by GET /v1/event/{eventId}/participant-roles. null only for a standard role on an event whose roles have not been created yet (see the endpoint description).
- roleNamestringrequired
  Display name of the role (singular), e.g. Speaker, Panelist.
- slugstringrequired
  Stable programmatic identifier for the role within the event.
- coreRolestringrequired
  The standard category the role maps to. Not a display label.
  Allowed values
  "speaker", "chairperson", "moderator"
- isCustombooleanrequired
  true for a role the organizer added; false for Speaker, Chairperson and Moderator.
- sessionIdsstring<uuid>[]required
  Ids of the sessions (including subsessions) on which the contact holds this role.

400

email is missing or empty.

401

Unauthorized

404

Event not found, or no participant with that email on the event.

Response examples

{
  "id": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
  "friendly_id": "SPK-42",
  "full_name": "Dr. Jane Smith",
  "first_name": "Jane",
  "last_name": "Smith",
  "email": "jane.smith@university.edu",
  "created_at": "2023-11-01T10:00:00Z",
  "updated_at": "2024-02-15T16:30:00Z",
  "company_name": "State University",
  "title": "Professor of Computer Science",
  "custom_fields": [],
  "roles": [
    {
      "roleId": "84bd12e5-d5ec-4c64-a604-4051e06c8dc2",
      "roleName": "Speaker",
      "slug": "speaker",
      "coreRole": "speaker",
      "isCustom": false,
      "sessionIds": [
        "04efb360-2b15-44db-b639-4035fae2772c"
      ]
    },
    {
      "roleId": "4efeb845-050f-4002-9496-cb586cdf10f2",
      "roleName": "Moderator",
      "slug": "moderator",
      "coreRole": "moderator",
      "isCustom": false,
      "sessionIds": [
        "26e465fc-1fb1-4c04-af52-f4d6314dfca4"
      ]
    },
    {
      "roleId": "52d60237-19db-4bda-a116-8b9fcb6750e9",
      "roleName": "Panelist",
      "slug": "panelist",
      "coreRole": "speaker",
      "isCustom": true,
      "sessionIds": [
        "140b8e82-41ca-444e-82ab-f7dd1011e95b",
        "2c198cce-adff-4fb2-81e1-319b601d564b"
      ]
    }
  ]
}