5 things to check before buying tickets online
Before buying tickets online, five things are worth checking: where you buy, the details on the event page, the ticket type and price, the attendee details and the refund terms. All five take a few minutes before you reach checkout.
Tickets used to be bought at the box office, and the paper in your hand told you what you had. Now someone in the group drops a link, everyone replies "got it", and who bought which ticket often only becomes clear at the door. This post is about cutting down those surprises at the door.
1. Check where you are buying
Buy from the sales channel the organizer announces. That is whichever channel the event page, the brand’s own account or its website points to.
Tickets bought from other people carry a real risk. Whoever holds the QR code gets in once. If a screenshot of the same ticket was sold to several people, only the first one scanned gets in.
On innclude the door system only recognises tickets issued on innclude for that event. A QR code from another system shows as "Invalid" at the door.
2. Read the event page to the end
The name and the poster usually make the decision. The useful information sits further down the page.
- Date and time: doors and stage times can differ.
- Address: exactly where the venue is and how to get there.
- Age limit and rules: whether ID will be checked and what is not allowed in.
- Organizer: who is putting the event on.
On innclude the rules are in the rules section of the event page, if the organizer has added them.
3. Compare ticket types and prices
An event can have more than one ticket type. Early bird, standard, a premium area, and day or full passes at multi-day events are the common ones. The description of each type says what it includes. Two types with similar names can cover different days or different areas.
At seated events you choose seats instead of a quantity. If you are going as a group, picking the seats in the same order is the easiest way to sit together.
Knowing what you will pay from the start is part of this step. On innclude the service fee is included in the ticket price, so the price on the event page is the price you pay. If you have a discount code, enter it in the code field at checkout.
4. Enter the attendee details correctly
If you are buying for friends, each ticket gets its own attendee details: first name, last name and email. The ticket is issued to that person and carries its own QR code.
The name on a ticket cannot be changed afterwards. At events with ID checks, the name on the ticket is expected to match the ID. Ask the group for their details before checkout instead of guessing.
On innclude you can buy up to 9 tickets of a ticket type at a time. The organizer can set a lower limit.
5. Know the cancellation and refund terms
Before buying, it is enough to know what happens in two cases.
- If the event is cancelled: on innclude the ticket price is refunded to the card you paid with automatically. You do not need to request it, and the amount reaches your card within 5 days at the latest.
- If the event is postponed: your ticket is valid on the new date.
Changing your mind is different. Tickets for events held on a set date cannot always be refunded. The details are in the Distance Sales Agreement you accept at checkout.
Checkout and after
As soon as you select tickets they are held for you and a timer starts on screen. If it runs out, the tickets go back on sale. That is why collecting the attendee details in advance helps.
You confirm the payment on your bank’s 3D Secure screen. Once it completes, the ticket is saved to your account and also sent to your email. In the app it sits under My Tickets in the Profile tab.
Open the app once before the event. The ticket is saved to your phone and opens even without a connection at the venue. Do not share a screenshot of your ticket, because whoever holds the QR code gets through the door.
