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Sell more convention passes and keep the doors moving

Sell weekend, day, VIP and child passes with photo ops and autographs in one checkout, reward your keenest fans and sell your exhibitor booths.

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Ticket Fairy Convention template with its selling choices, the exhibitor booth and child ticket questions, and the weekend, day and VIP passes it creates
  • Passes, photo ops and booths sold online
  • Fans who promote your convention for you
  • Guests, exhibitors and fans in on time

Sell passes fans understand at a glance

Start from the Convention template and choose how you sell. A first convention might sell weekend and day passes, and most add a VIP pass on top. A large one adds an early bird weekend pass and a small premium VIP tier. Say yes to child tickets and an exhibitor booth, and the template adds them, with a name on every pass. Group your passes into a category for the weekend and one for each day. Fans choose their days first and their price second.

A weekend pass passed back over the barrier is a lost sale. Set it to admit its holder once a day: a second scan on the same day is refused, and the pass gets in again tomorrow. Put a name on every pass, and your door team spots resold or shared passes easily.

Much of a convention's money comes from the extras. Sell a photo op or an autograph session with each guest as an add-on with its own price and stock. Or sell it as a ticket type with time slots, so fans pick their time when they buy. Add a cloakroom, parking or a convention tote to the same checkout, and fans buy a pass, a photo op and parking in one order.

  • Convention template: weekend, day, VIP and child passes from your answers
  • Passes by day: a category for the weekend and each day
  • Once-a-day entry: a weekend pass admits its holder once each day
  • Photo ops and autographs: sold with a price, stock or a time slot

Ticket types & pricing Add-ons & upsells Seating & timed entry

Ticket Fairy Ticket Categories section of an event's Tickets page with four categories and the resale type each one uses

Reward your keenest fans and let them spread the word

Take registrations from the day you announce your first guests, and open a presale for registered fans before the public on-sale. Fans who comment under your Instagram post and follow your account join a follower-only presale of their own. Each buyer gets a referral link and earns back part of their pass price as friends buy. Put prizes on the event, such as a VIP upgrade or a photo with a guest, for the fans who bring the most friends.

Fandoms travel in groups, so let friends team up in packs and win something together. Add a boost for announcement weekend, so each referral counts for more while the news is fresh. Draw winners at random or pick them yourself with a note on why they won. Each win keeps its status until the prize is delivered.

Fans who registered early get first access, and your Instagram following grows with each comment. The fans who care most about your event sell your passes for you. The referral results show who brought the most friends and what the rewards cost you against the sales they brought in.

  • Pre-registration presale: registered fans buy before everyone else
  • Follower-only presale: fans join from a comment under your post
  • Prizes, packs and boosts: rewards for the fans who bring their friends

Private sales & presales Referral rewards Social media

Ticket Fairy Prizes tab with the referral cash-back ladder above three prizes and what each one takes to win

Look after your special guests from booking to signing

Choose Convention as your event type, and your guests sit in Special guests, beside Schedule, Rooms and Public line-up. Send each guest's agent or manager one advance link for travel, hotel and hospitality details. Fai fills in answers from their emails for you to accept. Hold hotel rooms in a block and plan each airport pickup with a driver and a vehicle, so every guest arrives at their panel on time.

Put each guest's panels, photo ops, signings and meet and greets on your schedule. The checks flag a guest booked in two rooms at once or arriving after their first call. Fai offers a fix you apply or undo. Your guest liaisons and your door team see the same day, so nobody finds a clash in the queue.

Announce your guests in waves, each at the time you choose, with a photo, bio and links on your event page and your own website. Send guest tickets to your guests, their teams, cosplay judges and press on the pass each should hold. Give each guest's team the zones they need on an accreditation pass.

  • Special guests: each guest's schedule, travel and advance together
  • Advance links: the guest's team fills in their details, no account needed
  • Hotels and pickups: rooms held and each pickup planned
  • Guest announcements: reveal each guest when you choose

Artists & line-up Travel & hotels Accreditation

Ticket Fairy dialog announcing three acts at a chosen date and time in the event's time zone

Sell your exhibitor booths and fill artist alley

Sell exhibitor booths online with their price, how many you have, and the smallest and largest team one booking admits. Choose whether each exhibitor pays a deposit or the whole price online, and each exhibitor goes through an identity check before their card is charged. Take artist alley, trader and cosplay competition applications on your own form, or describe the form to Fai and she drafts it. Every application arrives in one list with the same questions answered.

Accept or decline each application, and each trader you accept gets their own page with their pitch, invoice and trading terms. Place traders and artists on pitches on your site map, invoice their fees and see who has paid. Each exhibitor's booth staff get a lead scanner link for their own phone or tablet, rate each visitor and add notes. Each exhibitor then approves the follow-ups Fai drafts from them.

Exhibitors and artists are customers too, and they rebook when the weekend paid off. Each exhibitor sees their leads, the follow-ups sent and the share of checked-in fans they met on a page of their own, with no login. That is what you show them when next year's booths go on sale.

  • Exhibitor booths: sold online with a deposit or the whole price
  • Artist alley applications: your own form, one list to accept or decline
  • Pitches on your site map: each trader placed and invoiced
  • Lead scanners: booth staff record visitors from their own phone

Exhibitors & sponsors Traders & markets Add-ons & upsells

Ticket Fairy answers to an artist application form, with four applicants, their answers and each decision

Staff the whole weekend with volunteers who turn up

Take volunteer applications on your own page, with the roles you need and your own questions. Fai goes through each application and suggests where each person fits. Accept volunteers in groups, invite last year's team back with the shifts each one worked, and offer open shifts to the people who fit. Each volunteer gets their own page with their shifts, open shifts to pick, their day sheet, the induction and their documents.

Your convention needs volunteers on the doors, in the queues, at the panels and on the info desk. Log the hours each one offers and works, approve them, and give each volunteer the rewards they have earned. Volunteers, crew and booth staff get an accreditation pass with the zones and days they need. The pass scans at the same door as fans' tickets.

Feed your team from the meal desk. Each pass carries the meals it allows, and your crew room staff record who ate from a desk link on a phone. The people who give up their weekend for your convention see a well-run team, which is why they come back.

  • Volunteer applications: Fai suggests where each person fits
  • Shift offers: open shifts to the people who fit
  • Volunteer page: shifts, day sheet, induction and documents on their phone
  • Passes and meals: zones, days and meals on each crew pass

Crew & volunteers Accreditation Crew meals & safety

Ticket Fairy volunteer page on a phone with their shifts, open shifts to pick, the day sheet, the induction and documents

Get your fans through the doors every morning

Your door team scans passes on their own phones with the Entry Fairy app. Each person has a Door Staff login that opens the scanning app and nothing else, so every admission carries a name. See arrivals by hour on each day of the convention, so you know when the queue peaks and when to move volunteers from the doors to the hall. Sell walk-up passes from the same app, and fans pay in cash or by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay tapped on your team's Android phone.

When a fan says their pass was already scanned, find them by name and see when it was scanned and by whom. The refused scans report shows each pass turned away at the door, with the reason, the entrance and the hour, so you can fix a problem at one entrance before day two.

Fans plan their weekend before they arrive. Put your timetable on your event page and your own website, where fans star the panels they want and add them to their calendar. Publish your site map so they find the hall, the stages and the toilets. On your event page, fans keep their personal agenda and report lost property. When a panel moves, email the holders of one pass type.

  • Entry Fairy app: scan passes on your door team's own phones
  • Arrivals by hour: for each day of the convention
  • Walk-up sales: cash or a tap of a card at the door
  • Timetable for fans: fans star panels for their own schedule

Check-in & box office Front of house Event pages & website

Ticket Fairy hourly check-in report with arrivals by hour on event day

How convention teams use Ticket Fairy

  • A comic con weekend

    Weekend, day and VIP passes sit in categories by day, and each guest's photo ops sell with a time slot. Once-a-day entry stops weekend passes going back over the barrier. The hourly arrivals report shows the Saturday peak, so the team moves volunteers from the hall to the doors at the right time.

  • An anime and cosplay convention

    Fans who comment under the guest announcement and follow the account join the follower-only presale. Cosplay competition entries arrive on the convention's own form, and the judges get guest tickets on the pass they need. Packs of friends compete for a meet and greet with the headline guest.

  • A tabletop games convention

    Publishers book exhibitor booths online with a deposit, and the artist alley fills from one list of applications. Each publisher's booth staff record the players they demo to with lead scanner links. Next year's booths sell to exhibitors who saw their results.

  • A science fiction fan weekend

    A volunteer-run convention takes volunteer applications on its own page and fills each shift with offers to the people who fit. Special guests' flights and hotels are advanced from one link per agent. The team copies its setup into next year's edition, with the rooms, teams and volunteer shifts already in place.

  • A family fan day

    Child tickets sit beside adult day passes, and parking sells as an add-on in the same order. Door staff scan with their own phones, and walk-up families pay by card at the door. Parents plan the day from the timetable on the event page.

  • A convention that tours several cities

    Each city's convention starts as a copy of the last one. Its passes, rooms, teams and volunteer shifts are in place before the new guests are announced. Every city sells under the same brand, so the team can invite fans who bought in one city to the next. The team compares each city's arrivals and booth sales to plan the following year's tour.

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Everything you need to sell and run your convention

  • Ticket types & pricing

    Earn more per ticket with releases that open by themselves, hold tickets back for guests, and group day and weekend tickets so buyers choose fast.

  • Add-ons & upsells

    Earn more from each buyer. Sell parking, camping, merchandise and upgrades with the ticket. Take VIP table bookings with a deposit and sell passes that cover several of your events.

  • Private sales & presales

    Sell to exactly the people you choose with personal invitations, group invitation links, passwords and access codes. Reward registered fans with a presale, or sell only to your NFT holders.

  • Referral rewards

    Sell 20% more tickets through your buyers' friends. Buyers earn back part or all of their ticket price as friends buy, fans chase prizes you choose, and you see what each referral brought in.

  • Social media

    Sell more tickets from your social accounts. Draft posts and campaign plans with AI, and answer comments and messages as a team. Send ticket links to fans who ask and run follower-only presales.

  • Check-in & box office

    Your door team scans tickets on their own phones and fastens the right wristband on each guest. Walk-ups buy at the door, and you see who has arrived as the night goes on.

  • Guest lists & comps

    Send guests free tickets your door team scans, upload a whole list at once, and let partners hand out their own allocation.

  • Event pages & website

    Build event pages that answer buyers' questions and give each campaign its own page. Test which version sells more and sell tickets on your own website.

  • Exhibitors & sponsors

    Exhibitors collect leads at their booth, approve the follow-ups Fai drafts and see their results. Sponsors see what you delivered for them.

  • Artists & line-up

    Advance each act within its allowances, catch running-order clashes early and publish a line-up fans can add to their calendar.

  • Travel & hotels

    Fill hotel blocks night by night, sell rooms to ticket buyers at checkout and plan each pickup with a driver and a vehicle.

  • Traders & markets

    Get the right mix of traders, with their paperwork and payments in before load-in. Place each pitch on your map and invoice your share of sales.

  • Crew & volunteers

    Fill shifts with offers to the people who fit, keep one record of your crew across events, and recruit, look after and reward your volunteers.

  • Accreditation

    Give everyone who works your event the right pass, handed out at your desk and checked at your staff gates.

  • Front of house

    Balance your box office each night and check ages once. Give VIP guests a host, keep merch stocked, guide fans through their day and take cashless payments on wristbands.

Run your convention step by step

Questions About Ticket Fairy for Conventions & Fan Events

Conventions & fan events

No. Each new scan looks back over the previous 24 hours, so the window moves with the pass.

Set the online deposit to 100, and the whole booth price is held on the exhibitor's card and charged once they pass the identity check. Set a lower percentage to take a deposit online and collect the rest yourself.

Yes. Fans without Instagram can join through pre-registration on your event page, and both lists can buy before the public on-sale. The follower-only presale runs on Instagram, so connect your account first.

Yes. Sell each one as an add-on with its own price and stock. Or sell it as a ticket type with time slots, so fans pick a time when they buy. Add each photo op, signing and meet and greet to your schedule beside the guest's panels. Your team then sees the whole day.

No. Booth staff work from a lead scanner link on their own phone or tablet. They scan with a USB or Bluetooth barcode scanner, or enter the code printed on the pass. Each exhibitor sees their leads, follow-ups and results on their own page, and each trader sees their pitch, invoice and terms on theirs.

Volunteers must be 16 or older by default. A volunteer under 18 adds a parent or guardian, who agrees too.

The Entry Fairy app needs an internet connection to scan passes, so check the connection at each entrance before the doors open.

Compatible Android phones, in the country of the payment processing account the event uses. The option appears once the event has a venue and your business address or the venue's address is complete. Cash sales work on any phone that runs the scanning app.

No. Fai can set up prizes and presales, draft your application forms, decide trader and volunteer applications with you, and draft exhibitor follow-ups. She shows you each change and waits for your approval before anything is saved or sent.

Pop culture conventions, comic cons, gaming and anime conventions, and fan events sell their passes here, from one-day shows to long weekends.

Ticket Fairy in full: online ticketing system, with the features, pricing and support behind this page.

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