Adding tickets to an event

Introduction

It's entirely possible to create sign-up events without tickets. Known as simple sign-up events, prospective sign-ups are presented with a simpler sign-up form but without a ticket selection being required.

When to use tickets?

Adding tickets to a sign-up event has four distinct use cases:

• Where you wish to provide prospective sign-ups with a choice of sign-up options e.g. "Adult ticket", "Child ticket", "Standard Price ticket", "Early Bird ticket", "Concession/Team ticket"
• Where event participation is subject to a charge - you can add free, pay online or pay-on-arrival tickets
• Where you wish to restrict sign-up to a range of dates e.g sign-up is active after [date] from or sign-up by [date to] or sign-up between [date from] and [date to]
• Where you wish to share a private event page link that includes hidden ticket options, such as a concession-priced ticket, or a free ticket for those who are serving at your event

Adding tickets

Adding tickets is only possible if sign-up has been enabled for the event. Viewing the event, click Edit [event] and scroll down to the Sign Up settings. Other sign-up settings are also available, but Sign-up through Event Page must be ticked.

Click on the Tickets tab and Add ticket.

On the Add ticket pop-up, add a suitable ticket Name - e.g. "Adult" or "Family" and an optional ticket Description, perhaps details of what the ticket includes. Optionally enter a range of ticket availability dates/times. By adding separate tickets with different availability dates you can easily offer "early bird" price incentives and standard-price tickets. The dates/times specified determine when the ticket is visible on the Event Page. A ticket will cease to be visible when the End date/time has passed (optional) or when the event date/time has passed; however, you can also set the end date/time after the event date/time - ideal if you need to keep tickets visible on the event page for collecting late signups/payments for 'walk-ins' who didn't register before the event.

Add the ticket Price - this can be left blank or set as zero if the ticket is 'Free'. The Price is always in your local ChurchSuite account currency - multi-currency ticket prices are not supported. In addition to 'pay online' tickets, note the option for Pay on arrival which reveals a further field to add brief alternative payment instructions. Those choosing a pay-on-arrival ticket can still sign up online but without requiring an online payment. Pay-on-arrival sign-ups are added against the event as Unpaid and the signup's confirmation email makes clear that payment is required, is unpaid, and shows payment instructions if added. If using Event check-in at your event, you have the option to mark those on-arrival payments as Paid. Note, you are unable to process card payments on arrival - card payment is only supported for non-pay-on-arrivale tickets.

Optionally set a ticket Quantity where you wish to limit the number of sign-ups for a certain ticket. The ticket Quantity works in conjunction with the event Capacity (if set), perhaps where you have venue constraints and need to restrict the overall number of all tickets. For example, you might have 3 tickets, each with a maximum quantity of 100, but have an event capacity of 100. In this scenario, no more than 100 tickets of any combination will be sold.

The Visibility setting determines whether the ticket is shown on the Event Page. Typically, you'll set tickets as visible, but you can also create hidden tickets where you wish to restrict ticket usage to just Calendar module users (who can manually add sign-ups for a hidden ticket) or where you wish to share a private event page link that includes hidden tickets to just a certain audience. For example, a hidden ticket for a concession-priced or free ticket could be shared with just a few selected people. The private link will provide those people with access to an alternative version of the event page that only includes selected tickets, including hidden tickets if you wish. See the next section of this article for further information about hidden tickets. Finally, where the event belongs to a sequence, tick Add to sequence to add this ticket to all other future event sequence dates from today. Click Save to add the ticket.

Continue adding other tickets as desired. Working within the Tickets tab for an event, note the available ticket Actions to Duplicate or Edit an existing ticket. The Delete action is only shown if there are no sign-ups for that ticket. You can also change the Order of tickets, which determines the order they are shown on the event page.

Hidden tickets

The event below has three ticket types - pay-online, pay-on-arrival and a hidden concession-priced ticket. Choosing to Create private link from any ticket Action opens a pop-up through which a private link can be generated...

On the Create private link pop-up, select each of the tickets to include. In this example, the private link will be for an event page showing just the concession-priced ticket. You can Preview the private event page to check it shows only the expected ticket options.

You can then share that private event page URL or the QR code with your intended audience, perhaps in an email.

Editing or deleting tickets

Care should be exercised before making changes to tickets where sign-ups have already been processed. Where Sign up to the sequence is enabled, changes made to tickets for one event date are applied to all dates in the sequence, which may have unexpected consequences on past and future events in the same sequence that have existing sign-ups!

Editing tickets with existing sign-ups

Changes to a ticket Name will not update existing sign-ups - they'll continue to show as signed up to the original ticket name at the point they signed up. However, you can Edit each sign-up in turn and re-select the new ticket name, saving the changes when you are done.

Changes to a ticket Price will immediately affect existing sign-ups - existing sign-ups will show as either overpaid or partially paid, depending on whether the revised ticket price is lower or higher than the amount they paid at sign-up. Existing sign-ups who have not yet paid (e.g. pay on arrival) will continue to show as unpaid.

Changes to any other ticket details will have no impact on existing sign-ups.

Deleting tickets with existing sign-ups

The option to Delete a ticket is only available for tickets without any sign-ups. If you wish to delete a ticket, you will need to Edit each sign-up for that ticket and select an alternative ticket. Once all sign-ups have been re-assigned, the Delete action will be available.