How to persist a model across multiple requests in ASP.NET MVC 2

I'm building a web application that has a particular model representing some events. Users need to be able to add N number of people to a given event. Choosing people is handled by a partial view.

I'm trying to build a menu that displays when users click "add a person" to the event. Because the event hasn't been filled out completely yet, there is nothing in the database to persist be开发者_运维知识库tween requests.

I also have validation logic on the event page.

My proposed solution is to add the form to search or add for people on the event form itself and have a submit button that sends the values that have been added back to the server, where I can store them in ViewData or Session.

Unfortunately, doing this flags the validation.

My second solution is to load a partial view responsible for loading the UI to add/search for a person. I could add a little code on the method in the controller that returns a partial view storing the existing data in a session variable or viewdata. Trouble is, I have to submit the form to do it--again tripping the validation!!!

I'm wondering if perhaps I chose the wrong tool to do this...because in webforms, there would probably be a postback and you would just perform an operation on that postback. I'd like to avoid rewriting the application in webforms and am wondering if there are ways I'm overlooking in ASP.NET MVC.

Thanks in advance for the ideas!

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I would probably have the partial view send it's data to the main page (with javascript). That way there is only one post to the server and it is when all of the data the user needs to enter has been filled out. How are you displaying the partial view? Is it on the main page (in a div), or is it a separate pop-up window? Either way, you should be able to use javascript to store this data on the main page and post all of the data back at one time.

HTH