How To Sell Event Tickets On Squarespace without any external software!

Hosting events tends to be a great way to market your business, it can create buzz for your business, provide value for your customers, and foster deeper connections with other business owners in your area.

In this article, I will walk you through how to sell event tickets on your Squarespace website along with some tips and tricks to make the process as stress-free as possible.

SOME THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE WE START:

You will need the following to sell tickets on your website:

• Squarespace Business or Commerce plan
• Stripe Account (for receiving online payments)
• Square Account *optional* (for receiving in person payments)
• PayPal Account *optional* (for receiving PayPal and Venmo payments)

If you plan on selling over 500 tickets I would recommend a more sophisticated ticketing system, the methods I teach in this article are best for smaller events in which a simple ticket tracking system is optimal.

Step 1: Upgrade your Squarespace plan and connect payment processors

If you don’t already have a Squarespace Business or Commerce plan you will need to upgrade before you’re able to utilize Squarespace payment processing.

You will also need to connect your payment accounts such as Stripe, Square, and PayPal.

Stripe will allow you to accept online credit and debit cards, Square will allow you to sell tickets at the door with a Square card reader, and PayPal will allow you to accept PayPal and Venmo payments on your website.

Step 2: Create a digital product

Select the “Digital” product type from the product options and describe your event. 

For example:

TITLE: General Admission Ticket – Annual Open House

DESCRIPTION: General Admission gives you access to over 20 vendors and a cocktail hour with 1 complimentary drink. Doors open at 7:00pm at 1234 Example St. City, State 12345

Be sure to include any details that a potential customer needs to know like what time it starts, where the event is at and what the ticket purchase includes or does NOT include. 

Note!! If there are limited seats available, you may consider listing your event tickets as a “service” instead of a digital product. You will have to manually deliver any post purchase material or information but you will be able to set a quantity limit.

Most of the time keeping an eye on the amount of sold products and manually shutting them off is perfectly sufficient but if you have a very limited amount of space and you know that customers are chomping at the bit to get in, you may need more control over the quantity.

Upload some images that pertain to the event, you can use images from previous events if this is not your first or include some info-graphics about the event and its details.

Step 3: Upload a digital ticket or PDF 

In place of your “digital product”, you will upload a digital ticket or a PDF file with all the important information like the address and time the event begins.

Canva has some great ticket templates that you can use for this. You can fully customize them to fit your branding and most templates have spots for the important information that a customer might need.

Your customers will present this “ticket” at the door to your event or they can present their receipt email.

You can also print a list of everyone who ordered a ticket and check off names at the door if you are wary of people sharing tickets or if you just want create an exclusive feel to the event.

In your receipt, or PDF download include links to any promotional pages that your customers can share such as a Facebook Event page. This will make it super easy for customers to invite friends and help spread the word about your event.

If you are using the services product method you will have to manually send any followup materials or information.

Step 4: Follow up reminders

Now that you have sold tickets it’s important to remind your customers when the event is getting close. 

Email all customers 2-7 days before the event and remind them to come.

Step 5: Selling tickets at the door

Only available in the US.

If you want to sell tickets at the door of your event, you’ll need to have a Square account and a Square card reader (Square offers a free card reader when you create an account), as well as a Squarespace Commerce plan. 

If you don’t sell in person very often I don’t think it’s worth upgrading to the Commerce plan for the sole purpose of integrating Square. Just create ticket items inside your Square account and be sure to turn off online ticket purchases to prevent overselling.

If you have the Squarespace Commerce plan you will be able to sell your tickets live at the door using the Squarespace App. 

Your customers purchasing at the door will also receive a digital ticket or PDF if you select the ticket option we made earlier, OR you can simply enter “custom amount” when making an order in the mobile app.

Squarespace has a great tutorial on how to use their mobile app for selling in person that you can find here.

Congrats you did it!

You’ve nailed down selling tickets to an event through your Squarespace website! Add it to the list of 23093 things you know how to do as a business owner! 

Cheers to a successful event!

via GIPHY