You can offer pre-sale access to priority customers (also known as advance sale period, presale, early bird or advanced booking) ahead of your general onsales by setting up Priority Booking.
Priority Booking allows you to specify a group of customers who can book online Events before their Start Selling Date or general on-sale.
Before you read this article, make sure you’re familiar with:
How does Priority Booking work?
Priority Booking can limit access using specific eligibility criteria:
- Customers Criteria: Includes Tags, Promotion Codes or Subscriptions. Eligible Customers must log in first.
- Event Criteria: You can choose if you’d like presale to be available onto specific Instances.
- Payment Eligibility: Limit presale to specific payment cards. Customers must pay with the card at checkout or use a stored card in the Wallet. Cards stored in Apple Pay and Google Pay are not eligible.
Either Customer Criteria or Payment Eligibility is required to set up Priority Booking.
Multiple Priority Bookings periods can overlap. For example, you can have multiple Priority Bookings with different start days and different customer eligibility such as 7 days early access for Gold Members and 5 days early access for Silver Members.
TIP: If you'd like one Priority Booking to end before another starts, you'll need to delete or change eligibility criteria of the first Priority Booking before beginning the second.
If Customers are eligible for multiple Priority Bookings, they are able to access at the earliest period. If you delete one Priority Booking, a Customer may still be able to access through another Priority Booking.
Customer experience online
When the Priority Booking period opens, eligible online customers can log into their account, select an Event and access Priority Booking if it is available on an Instance.
Access to Priority Booking lasts until the day of the Start Selling Date for online customers. Priority Booking periods cannot end earlier than the Start Selling Date.
TIP: If you’d like Priority Booking to end some time before the Start Selling Date, for example, if the Priority Booking is one week before but only lasts two days, you may need to delete the Priority Booking or change eligibility criteria to prevent online customers from purchasing during the interim period.
Priority Booking is only available only for online sales. It will not affect sales in the Sales Interface. Tickets can be visible and available on the Sales Interface at any time.
TIP: We recommend adding a pop-up note on an Event or Instance to let Sales Users know when Priority Booking is available and what groups of Customers may be eligible.
All Seats in a Seating Plan, except Locked Seats ineligible for purchase, are available to purchase during Priority Booking.
TIP: If you’d like to limit the Seats available for Priority Booking, you can create a Lock Overlay with a Lock Type that locks seats and makes them unavailable for purchase online.
Priority Booking is only available for individual and group ticket sales. Priority Booking cannot be used for sale of Subscriptions including Memberships, Fixed Series Subscriptions and Ticket Subscriptions as Subscriptions are on sale upon making them Active.
Priority Booking follows the same transaction limits as general onsales. For example, if a customer can purchase ten tickets in a transaction, they are limited to ten tickets for presale.
TIP: If you’d like to limit the number of tickets customers can purchase in a transaction during Priority Booking, you can create a Lock Overlay with a Lock Type that limits the maximum number of tickets in a transaction.
What do I need before setting up a Priority Booking Period?
Consider the following details before setting up a Priority Booking period:
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Set up Start Selling Date and Time
Priority Booking is set relative to an Instance’s Start Selling Date and Time on the Web. An Instance must also be made visible on the Web.
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Set up Payment Eligibility
If you’d like for Payment Eligibility to be an option for your Priority Booking, you must turn on the feature.
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Set up Custom Website Messaging
A message displays if Priority Booking is available. You can customize that message to include details such as requiring a Membership.
Set up the Start Selling Date and Time
Priority Booking is set relative to an Instance’s Start Selling Date and Time on the Web. For more information, read the Start Selling Time section in the How to Set Up Instances article.
You can edit or create Instances in the Admin Interface > Events. Select or create an Event to add Instances.
TIP: To access the Admin Interface, you’ll need the General Administrator Role. If you don’t have this Role, ask the Settings Administrator in your organization to add this Role to your User Account.
Make sure to:
- Check Visible
- Check On Sale
- Enter a Start Selling Date
- Enter a relative time for Sell until (or use the default)
It is important to check both Visible and On sale as not doing so may prevent your customers from accessing the Priority Booking:
- If only Visible is checked, the Instance will be visible online effective immediately, with the message No online booking.
- If both Visible and On Sale are checked, the Instance will be visible online effective immediately, with the message Online booking opens on (the date of the Start Selling Date).
- If only On Sale is checked, you'll receive an error saying Must be visible in an interface to be on sale in that interface and will not be able to proceed.
Set up Payment Eligibility
If you’d like for Payment Eligibility to be an option for your Priority Booking, you must turn on the feature in the Settings Interface > System Setup > Payment Eligibility. This feature only needs to be turned on once for all Priority Bookings.
TIP: To access the Settings Interface, you’ll need the Settings Administrator Role. If you don’t have this Role, ask the Settings Administrator in your organization to add this Role to your User Account.
Toggle on Enable Payment Eligibility for Priority Periods.
Set up Custom Website Messaging
When Priority Booking is available for an Event, the following message will appear in the Choose Seats iframe:
The message will display:
Online booking for this event opens at [time] on [date]. For priority booking please log in to your account or enter a code below.
The Promotion Code field appears if Priority Booking has a Promotion Code requirement in the Customer Criteria.
You can customize this message, for example, to add “If you have a membership, you may be eligible for priority booking.”
Add a message in the Settings Interface > System Setup > Custom Website Messages. This only needs to be set up once for all your Priority Booking periods. For more information, read Custom Website Messages for Iframes.
TIP: To access the Settings Interface, you’ll need the Settings Administrator Role. If you don’t have this Role, ask the Settings Administrator in your organization to add this Role to your User Account.
Add text to the field marked "Custom message about priority booking. This appears on chooseseats.aspx when the Instance is only available via priority booking."
To add formatting to this text, use Wikitext markup. For more information read Editing Content on Iframes with Wikitext.
WARNING: This change is global and applies to all Instances with Priority Booking. You can only have one Priority Booking message for all Priority Booking periods.
Where do I set up and manage Priority Booking Periods?
Priority Booking Periods are created and managed in the Admin Interface > Other > Priority Booking:
TIP: To access the Admin Interface, you’ll need the General Administrator Role. If you don’t have this Role, ask the Settings Administrator in your organization to add this Role to your User Account.
The list includes the name of the Priority Booking and the number of days prior it can be accessed.
Here you can Add new Priority Booking periods and Edit or Delete existing Priority Booking periods.
How do I set up a Priority Booking Period?
To add a new Priority Booking period:
- Go to Priority Bookings
- In the lower right of the screen, click + Add
Complete these sections in the Priority period editor:
1. Basic Details
Complete the Basic Details to set up your Priority Booking Period:
- Name (Required): Give your Priority Booking period a clear name
- Description: Add an optional description for internal use
- Days before: Enter the number of days before the Start Selling Date/Time of an Instance that eligible customers are allowed to book online
Click Next for Customer Criteria. You can also click Cancel to abandon the Priority Booking Period.
2. Customer Criteria
Select which Customers are eligible based on Customer Criteria.
If customer eligibility is not required for this Priority Booking, you can skip this section.
REMINDER: Priority Booking requires Customer Criteria and/or Payment Eligibility criteria. If you leave the Customer Criteria section blank, you must select Payment Eligibility criteria.
Drag and drop the Customer metrics you want to use to filter in or out certain Customers. To learn more about how to choose specific Customer Eligibility Criteria, read the Customer Eligibility article.
If you select Memberships, Ticket Subscriptions or Promotion Codes, consider the following:
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Memberships
Customers with an eligible Membership can log into their account to access Priority Booking.
If a Customer logs into their account and then adds an eligible Membership to their Basket/Cart, they can then access Priority Booking. If they try to remove the Membership from their Basket/Cart, they'll see the following message:
"The following problem(s) occurred: Some of the tickets in your basket depend on this membership subscription. You cannot remove them without removing them first."
If they’d like to remove the Membership, they must remove the Tickets first.
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Ticket Subscriptions
Customers with an eligible Ticket Subscription can log into their account to access Priority Booking.
If a Customer logs into their account and then adds an eligible Ticket Subscription to their Basket/Cart, they can then access Priority Booking. If they try to remove the Ticket Subscription from their Basket/Cart, they'll see the following message:
"The following problem(s) occurred: Some of the tickets in your basket depend on this ticket subscription(s). You cannot remove them without removing the tickets first."
If they’d like to remove the Ticket Subscription, they must remove the Tickets first.
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Promotion Codes
Customers can add an eligible Promotion Code on the Event Details page or the Choose Seats page. They don’t need to be logged in until checkout.
Click Next for Event Criteria. You can also click Cancel to abandon the Priority Booking Period.
3. Event Criteria
Choose eligible Event Instances based on Event Criteria. If you’d like to add all Instances, you can leave this section blank.
To specify the Event Criteria, drag and drop the Event metrics you want to use to filter in or out certain Instances. To learn more about how to choose specific Events and Instances, read the Event Criteria article.
Click Next for the Payment Eligibility section. If you don’t have the Payment Eligibility turned on, click Save. You can also click Cancel to abandon the Priority Booking Period.
4. Payment eligibility
Choose which card types are eligible.
If payment eligibility is not required for this Priority Booking, you can skip this section.
If you do not see the Payment Eligibility section, turn on the Payment Eligibility feature in the Settings Interface.
REMINDER: Priority Booking requires Customer Criteria and/or Payment Eligibility criteria. If you leave the Payment Eligibility criteria section blank, you must select Customer Criteria.
Check the box for the cards that are eligible for presale payment.
TIP: If you need to include a new card type to this list, contact Support.
Click Save. You can also click Cancel to abandon the Priority Booking Period.
How do I test the Priority Booking period?
Once you've created a Priority Booking period, test to make sure it works as expected.
To prevent customers from booking tickets online while you’re testing your Priority Booking Period, try temporarily amending your Customer Eligibility Criteria:
- Set up a Normal Tag called Priority Booking Testing.
- Edit the Priority Booking Customer Criteria to only include only the Priority Booking Testing Tag. If you have other Customer Criteria, you can replace it with or add the Priority Booking Testing Tag.
- Apply the Tag and other Customer Criteria to your Customer Record.
- Go to an eligible Event and check you're able to select Tickets and proceed to checkout.
If you've successfully accessed Priority Booking, you can remove the Tag from your Customer Record and the Customer Criteria.