Using Openstage's ticketing solution, you can host your own box office for your events, selling tickets directly to your fans and retaining all ticketing data with minimal fees.
The Openstage ticketing solution is ideal for running VIP ticketing as upgrades to your existing shows, and for any small intimate shows or pop-ups. Using the audience builder you could even offer your core fans access to VIP tickets first.
Setup
Connect Stripe
First, connect to a Stripe account in order to take payments for your tickets. In Artist Settings, click Payments & Billing and 'Connect Stripe' under the Ticket Payments heading.
Once this step is complete, you can proceed to create a box office.
Top tip: Use a separate box office per campaign for clearly tracking ticket sales.
Create a box office and your first event
Head to Engage --> Tickets. Create and name your box office accordingly.
Start building your first event by entering all of your event details:
Event Name
Email for correspondence (fan queries/refunds etc)
Event Location
Ticket Pin (for ticket scanning - see below for details)
a URL to display for when the event has sold out
Preference on donation collection (must have connected stripe to toggle on)
Show/Hide dates on box office page
QR codes - true
Fan info collection preferences including location, DOB (for age restricted events note: we don't collect proof of age, so this will need to be brought your age restricted events), & phone numbers (good to collect for sending show comms to fans).
Top tip: Save as you go, and DO NOT navigate away from any tab before saving as you will lose any un-saved progress.
Design your event
Choose how your box office is going to look by adding:
Event image
Thumbnail image
Background image
Optional thank you video
Page content
Email content (w/ticket info)
Top tip: Next to save, you can click duplicate to clone an event. This is useful if you have multiple dates for your shows, as you can design one, clone it, and amend the specifics accordingly. Build out your whole event, including ticket types and prices, before duplicating an event.
Event Times
If your event is reoccurring, add the times and dates in this section. If your events differ between dates, such as event info or ticket types, build separate events rather than adding multiple event times and dates.
Ticket Types
Click 'add new ticket type' and choose a name for your first type of ticket – e.g., General Admission, Standing etcetera. Then add the relevant information for each ticket type, including:
Ticket Name
Description
Number of Tickets (per type)
Max Tickets per order (per type)
Ticket Price
Booking fee (we recommend this be at least 9% to cover your Openstage and Stripe fees)
Next, add your ticket content including image, and copy.
Fan names on tickets
You can also choose whether to collect individual fan names for tickets. A fan is created in your database for each name assigned to a ticket - and these names are all added to your door list, too. This allows for you to accurately track all those who come to shows and for better ticket validation on the door.
Once on sale, for each ticket type, you'll see Confirmed Tickets underneath for tickets that have been purchased, unconfirmed (in basket) or cancelled.
We recommend doing a test event so you can familiarise yourself with the fan journey of using an Openstage box office.
Publish
When you are ready to put tickets on sale, publish your event(s) from the main event screen.
Share your links in broadcasts, direct to your fans.
Ticket scanning
The QR codes on tickets can be scanned via any phone camera
The first time the member of staff logs in to scan a code they will be asked for a ticket PIN code and it is the one you set for your event.
The ticket will then be displayed and you won't have to re-enter the pin when scanning other tickets going forward
Please make sure you’re NOT on Incognito or Private mode of your browser as you won't stay logged in otherwise. And you'll be prompted to enter the code again and again.
For a valid ticket your screen will have a green pop up saying "Valid Ticket"
If the code has already been used you will see a yellow pop up saying "Used ticket"
Refunds
Sometimes, fans can't make it to your events or bought too many tickets, in which case you can refund them.
To action a refund:
Navigate to Confirmed Tickets within the relevant event.
Find the corresponding fan name and click on one of their tickets.
Click on their order number.
Click on the URL next to 'view in Stripe' which will take you to the Stripe billing portal.
Refund the appropriate amount.
Back in your Openstage box office, below the order summary, click on a ticket and toggle the ticket status to 'cancelled'.
Repeat this process for the amount of tickets you need to cancel in that customer order.
These tickets will be made available in your box office again.
See here for Stripe's Help Guide on refunding customers. Please note you must ensure you've also cancelled the tickets in your box office as detailed above.
Top tip: Use All Orders (towards bottom of left-side panel) to search for specific orders using fan name or order number. This will include orders from ALL events.
Reports and Downloads
Within an event, navigate to Reports and Downloads on the left-side panel. From here you can see sales in the last 24 hrs, 7 days or 30 days.
You can also print a door list (handy to have should you have issues with wifi for ticket scanning), and various formats of order reports which include customer details, order details and links to the corresponding transactions in Stripe.
If you click on Reports and Downloads on your Event list page, this will report sales for ALL events rather than the specific event you were viewing.