Setting up events

An event is one of the core concepts in Ticketmatic. Events are used to define the inventory of tickets available for sale and are the base structure around which the ticket sales is configured. Events take place at a certain moment in time, on a certain location.

Examples:

* a concert taking place on a specific date and location would be a single event * a theatre production that takes place multiple times would be defined as multiple events: each performance of the production would be a single event * a multi-day festival will typically be defined as multiple events, with a separate event for each day of the festival

Ticketmatic supports a rich variation of options when defining events. You can have unseated or seated events, consisting of multiple sections. You can use locks to temporarily lock part of the seats.

Events are managed in the Events app. Click the button below to go there:

Go to events

Getting started: create a new event

1. Create the new event

Click the New event button to create a new event.

2. Fill in basic info

Click on Add basic info:

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Fill in the basic information for the event. This includes an name and optional subtitle, a start and enddate for the event and a location for the event.

3. Define tickets

Next, you need to define the tickets that are available for the event. The tickets in an event are grouped in 1 or more contingents. As you will see next, you can define different pricing and availability for each contingent.

When you click on Configure tickets you will create the first contingent. Specify a name and the number of tickets.

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This number of tickets is the maximum number of tickets available. You can come back here at any time to increase the number of tickets.

You can create a contingent by specifying a number of tickets (as we did here), or by importing a set of barcodes. This is great when importing tickets from an external system, as it allows you to perform the access control for these external barcodes within Ticketmatic. More info below.

4. Define locks (optional)

If you need to hold or reserve - either temporary or permanently - part of the tickets in a contingent, you can use locks. Locks can be used for example to:

* reserve some tickets for VIPs * decrease the capacity of the room beacuse of extra space taken by the stage * temporary decrease the capacity of a hall, to be released when the event is popular

You can create multiple lock types in ‘Lock types’ in ‘Settings’. Each lock type has a specific name (for instance ‘Technical support’) and is of a specific type: unavailable or blocked. Unavailable tickets cannot be sold and affect venue capacity. Blocked tickets can be sold manually through an action in the boxoffice and do not affect venue capacity.

Each event can lock any number of tickets for a specific lock type.

A number of example lock types:

* 'Guest' of type blocked. * 'VIP' of type blocked. * 'Technical support' of type unavailable.

‘VIP’ and ‘Guests’ tickets can still be sold via the boxoffice but ‘Technical support’ can not be sold via the boxoffice. It is always possible to decrease the number of locked tickets in the contingent configuration.

5. Configure prices and ticket fees

Now define the prices that you want to make available for the event. You can either select a predefined pricelist or use event specific prices. More info on price lists

To select a predefined pricelist, click the Configure prices button and select Edit pricing configuration:

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Here you can also select the ticket fees you want to use.

To add event-specific prices, click the Configure prices button and select Add event specific price type.

6. Additional configuration

Set up the sale start and end dates in the additional configuration. If needed, these can be specified for individual sales channels.

7. Publish event

When the configuration is finished click on Publish event. The event is now active.


Event lifecycle

When an event is created, it has status draft. The draft status allows the user to create an event and set it up completely before making it active. An event in status draft is not visible for (web)sales and it is not possible to add tickets for a draft event to an order. draft events can simply be deleted completely.

When the event is ready, the user will publish it and it will receive the status active. This is the main status for the event. With this status the event is visible and tickets can be sold for the event when it is on sale (see below).

When the event is finished completely, it can be closed. A closed event is read-only and the status of all tickets for the event is frozen. This means that sold ticket amounts and totals cannot change anymore. Events do not have to be closed, it is perfectly ok in an account to keep all events active when this functionality is not needed.

A closed event can be made active again by a user with the right permissions.

You can delete an event only if there are no orders that contain tickets for the event.

When is an event on sale?

An event is on sale for a specific sales channel when ALL following conditions are met:

* The event status is `active` * The current date is later than: * the salestart date for the sales channel OR if this is empty: * the salestart date for the event * The current date is earlier than: * the saleend date for the sales channel OR if this is empty: * the saleend date for the event OR if this is empty: * the end date for the event

Seated events

In seated events, a seating plan that defines the available tickets is linked to the event. More info on using seating plans

Locking and unlocking seats

You can use the tab Seating plan to lock or unlock specific seats on the seating plan.

  • Go to this tab and select view ‘Locks’:

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  • Click on Lock seats and select the lock type to use:

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  • Now use the brush to select the seats you want to lock. Click on Finish to confirm.

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Questions?

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