Corona virus or other temporary event interruptions - What to do and best practices
As many businesses are getting affected by this virus, event organizers are among the ones who are hit the hardest, with many events postpones or cancelled.
On the other side, are millions of ticket buyers who are isolated at home and are craving some sort of entertainment and activity.
What can you do to minimize the damage?
1- Move your event online:
Thanks to the technology, a lot of events can be performed online. Events such as conferences, speeches, most classes, stand-up comedies or even music, concerts, shows and performing events.
Events can be streamed through social media or YouTube or in video conferencing services such as Zoom or Webex.
Can your event be performed online? Be creative and find solutions to keep your business going.
You can keep selling tickets through your Ticketor website. Create a venue and call it "Online".
You can communicate the link to attend the event in different ways:
1- Edit the event and put the instruction and link in "After Purchase Notes" so the buyer will receive the information on their confirmation page.
2- Or keep the information confidential and send an email to them a few hours before the event using the Newsletter feature with the link and instruction to attend.
Some of the streaming services, allow you to limit the attendance to certain people. In that case you can download the Admission List and upload it to the streaming service so only people who purchased the tickets can attend.
2- Postpone the event instead of cancelling
Cancelling the event will cost you the payment processor fees as well as loss of current sold tickets as most payment processors do not refund the collected fees.
Moreover, you have to have enough cash available in your account to refund the tickets.
If postponing the event is an option for you, the buyers can keep their tickets and seats until new date is announced.
Most organizers are trying this approach and most buyers are understanding and cooperative.
Some suggestions if you need to postpone the event:
- Edit the event and from the details tab, add a red ribbon with the word "Postponed". Potentially add "Postponed" to the event title as well.
- In the event description, explain that the event is postponed and why and that the new date will be announced later and that the tickets will be valid for the new date and the buyers will keep their seats.
- If you want to stop the sales, set the "Sales end date" for the event to the past.
- If you have a new date change the event date, otherwise potentially change the date to an approximate date or keep the current date.
- Use the newsletter to send emails to people who purchased tickets to the postponed events and let them know about the date change.
- If necessary, you can process refunds or exchanges on a case by case basis. Optionally you can send out an email and asking anybody who needs a refund to respond to that email.
- Potentially you can edit the events Return Policy or Exchange Policy and allow the buyers to return or exchange their tickets in a self-service manner.
When the new date is confirmed, edit the event, change the date, change the sales end date, update the event description, remove the red ribbon or update it to "New date".
All tickets will remain valid for the new date. The buyers do not have to re-print their tickets, however, if they do, they will get the tickets with the new date on them.
Note that:
1- You can adjust the refund amount to any amount that you want to refund. The refund amount can be any amount between zero and the invoice amount. So you have full control on how much you want to refund.
Some common options are refunding full amount, refunding full amount minus the service charge.
2- Refunds can be made toward Store Credit or Refund to buyers credit card.
The buyer can use the store credit to purchase tickets later on your site.
If a purchase is made using the store credit, no payment processing fee and no Ticketor fee applies to the amount paid by the store credit. So if returning for Store Credit is an option, you can save some fees by doing so.
¿Qué debo hacer si mi evento se cancela?
Los eventos pueden ser cancelados o pospuestos por diferentes razones. Lo que hagas en caso de que el evento se posponga o cancele depende de ti y de tus estrategias comerciales. Ticketor no te obliga a tomar ninguna acción, sin embargo, te proporcionamos las herramientas para que informes adecuadamente a los compradores de la cancelación y para que reembolses las entradas.
Posponiendo un Evento:
Si estás considerando la posibilidad de posponer un evento a otra fecha, puedes simplemente editar el evento y cambiar la fecha. Todas las entradas vendidas seguirán siendo válidas y escaneables. Si el comprador accede a la entrada después de que cambies la fecha o reimprimas su entrada, las entradas tendrán la nueva fecha.
Puedes informar a los compradores de la nueva fecha o seguir las instrucciones de reembolso para devolver el dinero a aquellos que no estén contentos con el cambio de fecha.
Para enviar un correo electrónico, simplemente usa el Panel de Control -> Eventos y Lugares -> Lista de Correo y envía un correo electrónico a todas las personas que compran entradas para ese evento específico, explica la cancelación y cuándo y cómo van a recibir los reembolsos.
Cancelando un Evento:
La mayoría de los organizadores informan a los compradores de la cancelación del evento tan pronto como ocurre y les avisan que van a ser reembolsados en pocos días. Esto reducirá la posibilidad de cualquier posible disputa o devolución de cargo de la tarjeta de crédito.
- Edita el evento y establece la "fecha de finalización de ventas" para que las ventas se detengan. También puedes actualizar el título y añadir "Cancelado" al título. Además, puedes explicar la razón de la cancelación y cuándo los compradores pueden esperar un reembolso en la descripción del evento o título.
- Para anular o reembolsar las facturas, sigue las instrucciones en Panel de Control > Ayuda y Soporte > Ayuda e Instrucciones > Devolución o Cambio de Entradas / Anulación de Facturas. Los reembolsos con tarjeta de crédito aparecerán en el estado de cuenta del comprador en unos pocos días. Por lo tanto, es posible que desees pedir a los compradores que sean pacientes y esperar un par de días para ver el reembolso.
Ticketor reembolsa su tarifa cuando reembolsa las entradas a la tarjeta de crédito del comprador, sin embargo, la mayoría de los procesadores de pago no reembolsan su tarifa. Algunos incluso pueden cobrar por las transacciones de reembolso.
Para evitar esos cargos, debes hacer lo posible por evitar la cancelación y, de ser posible, posponer el evento en lugar de cancelarlo.
También puedes considerar la posibilidad de reembolsar las entradas como Crédito en Tienda para que el comprador pueda utilizar el crédito para comprar entradas para tus otros eventos y así evitar todos los gastos del procesador de pagos.
Si reembolsa un boleto, la tarifa de Ticketor solo se reembolsará como crédito en su cuenta, que puede usarse para otras facturas. Ticketor no reembolsa las tarifas a su tarjeta de crédito o PayPal y no emite cheques de reembolso.
