A pre-sale lets a targeted audience buy tickets before the event opens to the general public.
Pre-sale buyers get in one of 2 ways:
Passcodes. You can create as many passcodes as you need, each active during its own date window.
Email access. Patrons who qualify (members, a group or organization, or a list of email addresses) can enter their email address instead of a code.
You can use either one, or both on the same event. All pre-sale dates and times use your venue's time zone.
Step 1: Set your dates and announcement
In the event, click Public Display and select 'Buy' button & pre-sale settings on the left hand menu,and then set Pre-sale access to Active.
Set your event activation date to a date/time in the future. This is when tickets go on sale to the general public.
Set a Pre-sale announcement date before the activation date.
Enter a pre-sale announcement. We recommend copying the event description into the announcement and adding when tickets go on sale to the general public.
The pre-sale options will not appear until the activation date is set to some time in the future.
Step 2: Create one or more passcodes
In the Pre-sale access section of your event:
Click + Create passcode.
Enter a name, the passcode, and the start and end date.
Click Save passcode.
Each passcode only works between its start and end date. When the window closes, the code stops working automatically. This makes it easy to run staged pre-sales, for example a donor code on Tuesday, a member code on Wednesday, and a general pre-sale code on Thursday.
Your passcodes are listed in a table with their name, start date, and end date. Use the Actions menu on any row to Edit, Inactivate, or Delete it. Inactivating turns a code off without deleting it.
Step 3 (optional): Let qualifying patrons in by email
Click Configure in the banner at the top of the pre-sale settings and choose who qualifies:
All memberships: any patron with an active membership
Selected memberships: only the membership levels you choose
Group search: patrons in a group or organization in your Patron Database
Select emails: a comma-separated list of email addresses
When email access is on, the pre-sale prompt changes to "Enter passcode or email address." A qualifying patron enters their email and goes straight to checkout, no code needed. The email address they used is filled in on the checkout form and can’t be changed, so the tickets stay with the person who qualified.
Hiding the event until the pre-sale ends
If you don't want the general public to see the event during the pre-sale, temporarily set the event to semi-private. It can only be seen by people who have the link, so you can email the link to just your pre-sale list.
If you used the pre-sale password before this update: your existing password was not removed. It now appears as a passcode in the table. Check its start and end dates to make sure the window matches your pre-sale.
To set up a presale that requires a coupon code at checkout, please see this discussion:
