Changing Ticket Prices After Sales Have Started

Summary: Once the first ticket has been sold for an event or a specific ticket type, its price is locked and cannot be edited. This policy is crucial for financial accuracy and fairness to all customers. This article explains why this is the case and provides a step-by-step guide on how to offer tickets at a new price.

Why Prices Are Locked After the First Sale

We understand that sometimes you need to adjust your pricing strategy. However, once a sale has been made, locking the price is a standard practice for a few important reasons:

• Fairness to Early Buyers: Customers who purchased tickets at the original price expect that to be the set value. Changing it later can create a poor experience for your most enthusiastic, early-supporting attendees.
• Financial and Reporting Accuracy: All of our financial reporting, including your sales data, tax calculations, and payout amounts, is tied to the price at the time of purchase. Altering the price mid-sale would compromise the integrity of these reports for both you and us.
• Clarity on Refunds and Exchanges: In the event of refunds, the transaction must be tied to a clear, unchangeable price to avoid confusion and ensure legal compliance.

Our Recommended Solution: Cloning Your Ticket Type

The best way to introduce a new price is to clone the event and set the new price on the copy. On Ticketlab each ticket type is its own event, so this keeps your reporting clean and is clear for your customers.

Here’s the most effective way to do this:

1. Take the original event off sale. On your dashboard, press Take off sale on the original event so nobody buys at the old price.
2. Clone the event. Press Clone on the original event. The copy is created as a draft (off sale and private) and opens in the edit drawer. (For more on ticket types, see Setting up multiple ticket types.)
3. Edit the copy.
   • Update the price to your new amount.
   • Crucially, adjust the quantity to the number of tickets you still want to sell.
   • (Optional) Rename it for clarity (e.g. “Phase 2 tickets”, “Final release” or “General admission”).
4. Save, then set the copy live (on sale and public) when you’re ready.

Your new tickets will now be available for purchase at the new price, while all previous sales records remain accurate.

What If I’ve Already Shared My Event Link?

If you shared a series or company page, your link won’t change.

However, if the link you were sharing was for the old event, the new event has a different URL. If you can’t update the link (for example, it was printed, or you posted it somewhere you can’t edit) and you need to reuse the original link, we may be able to help.

Once your new event is set up, simply contact our support team with the old and new event URLs. We can redirect the old link to the new one, ensuring a seamless experience for your customers.