Selling event tickets

An event ticket on Zillo is a time-bound product with a fixed capacity. Customers buy a ticket at the price tier you set — General, VIP, Early bird, whatever fits your event — and each ticket gets a unique QR code your staff scans at the door using the Redemptions tool on desktop or the mobile app. It's the right product for anything with a set date and a head count: concerts, comedy nights, workshops, fundraisers, classes, screenings, and conferences.

A single ticket product can carry multiple dates — a Saturday cooking class that runs every weekend, a tour with several departure nights, a three-night theatre run. Customers see every available date on your storefront and pick one at checkout. Each date keeps its own capacity, so a sold-out Saturday never blocks the Sunday from selling.

When to use tickets vs. a booking

Tickets are for fixed dates you publish. Appointments and reservations are for open times generated from weekly hours.

• You decide the dates (a 7pm show on the 14th, a class every Saturday at 10am) → event tickets, one date per purchase.
• The customer picks any open time from your hours (a 2pm haircut, a table at 7
  ) → appointments and reservations. See Taking appointments and reservations.

A class or session — where everyone is admitted to a specific date and time you set — is a ticket, not a booking. Each attendee gets their own per-seat QR.

Set up an event

1. Open Products. Go to Products and click New product → Event ticket.
2. Fill in the event basics. Add a title, description, photo, and venue. A clear photo and a couple of lines on what's included help the listing convert.
3. Add one or more dates. Each row is a date plus a start time (and optionally an end time and a venue override). Click + Add another date for recurring nights ("every Saturday at 10am") or multi-night runs. The customer picks one date — that's the one they attend.
4. Add your price tiers. At minimum, add one. Many events have just "General admission". Others stack three — Early bird, General, VIP — each with its own price and optional per-tier seat count.
5. Set capacity per tier. Leave a tier's seat count blank for unlimited, or set a number to cap it.
6. Publish when you're ready, or save it as a draft to come back to. Publishing makes it live on your storefront straight away.

Price tiers

Tiers let you sell the same event at different prices and seat counts:

• Early bird — a cheaper price with a small seat count that sells out first and rewards quick buyers.
• General admission — your standard ticket and usually your biggest tier.
• VIP — a higher price with perks; cap it low to keep it special.

Each tier has its own price and optional seat count, and each shows as a separate choice at checkout. You can add, rename, reprice, or resize a tier any time from Products — changes go live immediately.

How capacity works

• Each tier has its own seat count. Early bird (50 seats) can sell out while General (200 seats) still has stock.
• The event total is the sum of all tier capacities.
• The event shows "Sold out" once every tier is exhausted.

Your storefront prevents overselling automatically. Even if two customers try to grab the last seat at the same moment, only one of them succeeds. When a buyer reaches checkout, their seats are held for a few minutes while they pay — a countdown shows how long — so the seats can't be sold out from under them. If they don't finish in time, the seats are released back for someone else. When stock runs low, the storefront nudges with "Only N left".

Selling out — turn on a waitlist

When an event sells out, you can capture demand instead of losing it. Turn on a waitlist so customers can ask to be notified if seats open up (after a cancellation or refund), and review who's waiting from Waitlists. It's a quick way to gauge whether to add a date or bump capacity. See Waitlists.

Each ticket has a QR code

After purchase, the customer receives an email with their ticket(s) attached as PDFs carrying QR codes. Apple Wallet and Google Wallet links let them save each ticket straight to their phone. If a customer loses theirs, resend the email from the order in Orders.

At the door:

1. Open the Redeem tool. Use the Redeem tab in the mobile app, or Redemptions on desktop.
2. Scan the QR. Pick "Ticket" and scan the customer's code, or type the code by hand if the screen is too dim to scan.
3. Confirm admission. The ticket flips to "Redeemed" instantly. Scan the same QR again and the app refuses, showing the time it was first redeemed — so a screenshot can't get two people in.

You can review every scan, who scanned it, and when from Redemptions.

Multi-entry tickets

For events that run across multiple days or allow in-and-out re-entry — 3-day festivals, weekend exhibits, all-week conferences — toggle Multi-entry ticket on the ticket form and set the entry count.

The ticket still belongs to one event. Multi-entry doesn't make a festival-hopper pass; it lets a single buyer scan in N times during the event window. Capacity still counts one seat per ticket — a 200-seat venue with 200 weekend passes is full, even though the door will see 600 scans across the weekend.

For class packs and punch cards (one purchase, several separate visits over time), use a multi-use voucher instead — see Selling multi-use passes.

Refunds and capacity

When you refund a ticket from Orders, the QR is voided so the customer can't use it. The capacity is not released automatically — refunded tickets stay counted against the cap, which matches how most venues plan seats: once sold, the seat is "spoken for".

For the full refund walkthrough, see Refunding an order.

Closing sales after the date

The event date is informational — there's no automatic "stop selling" at the door time. To close sales:

• Archive the product from the product editor so it drops off your storefront, or
• Drop the tier capacity to match what's already been sold so no more can be bought.

Add upgrades and required choices

Attach add-ons to a ticket — merch, a programme, a drink token, a parking pass — from the product editor. Optional add-ons are simple extras the customer can tick on; group them into a required, choose-one menu (a seat section, a meal choice) when you need a selection before checkout can finish. See Add-ons and upgrades.

Track ticket sales

Every sale lands in Orders, and issued tickets are listed under Tickets where you can search by customer, see which are redeemed, and resend emails. For sales totals, redemption rates, and trends over time, check Insights and Reports.

Next steps