1. Features
  2. Orders, refunds & resale
  3. Refunds & cancellations

Refund Buyers Quickly and Handle a Postponement or Cancellation Calmly

A buyer who cannot come wants their money back without a long wait, and a headliner who pulls out turns one refund into thousands of questions. Refund an order yourself from the Orders page, confirmed with a code only you receive. Let buyers refund their own tickets on the terms you agree, so your team stops processing requests by hand. When plans change for the whole event, postpone it with the new date shown or hidden and choose who can ask for a refund, or cancel it and let Ticket Fairy refund the orders and email each buyer. Every refunded place can go back on sale or to your waiting list.

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  • Buyers refunded without waiting on support
  • Every refund confirmed by you or on your terms
  • Ticket holders told the same day plans change
Ticket Fairy Refund Order dialog stating the amount and order number, with the Get authorization code button

Give a Buyer Their Money Back From the Orders Page

Refund any eligible paid order straight from the Orders page. The Refund Order dialog states the amount and the order number before you go further, so you refund the order you meant to. Once you confirm, the money goes back to the card the buyer paid with, and the buyer receives an email that their tickets are refunded.

Every ticket on the order is marked refunded and its barcode stops working at the door at once. The order moves to the Refunded tab, and your sales reports take the amount off revenue.

  • Refund: from the order's menu on the Orders page
  • Back to the buyer's card: the card they paid with
  • Buyer told: an email that their tickets are refunded
Ticket Fairy Orders table with a paid order's row menu open on Resend and Refund

Confirm Every Refund With a Code Only You Receive

Every dashboard refund needs a code that Ticket Fairy emails to the address you sign in with. A teammate who opens the menu cannot send money back without that code, so a refund always has a person who chose to make it.

While a code is live, the order's menu shows Refund Code in place of Refund. Open it to resend a fresh code when the email went astray, or revoke the code when you decide not to refund after all.

Your event's activity log records Order Refunded with the amount, the order number and the person who confirmed it. When a partner asks why the takings dropped, or a buyer says they were never refunded, the answer is already written down.

  • Authorisation code: emailed to the address you sign in with
  • Resend or revoke: a fresh code, or cancel it without refunding
  • Activity log: the amount, the order and who confirmed it
Ticket Fairy refund authorisation dialog with the code field and the Confirm Refund button

Let Buyers Refund Their Own Tickets on Your Terms

Most refund emails ask for something the buyer could do themselves. With Allow customers to initiate refunds on in your event's ticket settings, buyers see Refund ticket beside each ticket on their own order page. They see exactly what they get back before they confirm, and the refund email they receive is their record of it.

You agree the terms with Ticket Fairy: the full face value, a percentage of it, the face value less a fixed amount you keep, or a flat sum. Where you agree on more than one, the buyer chooses between them on the confirmation. Most buyers refund one ticket at a time, so the friend who drops out of a group refunds their own place and the rest of the group keeps theirs.

Switch self-refunds off again whenever you choose, and refunds already made stay as they are. You can still refund any order yourself from the Orders page while self-refunds are on. Fai, the assistant inside your dashboard, can switch self-refunds on or off for you, and she tells you what changes for your payout and asks you to approve first.

  • Allow customers to initiate refunds: one switch for the event
  • Refund ticket: beside each ticket on the buyer's order page
  • Your terms: in full, a percentage, less a fee or a set sum
Ticket Fairy Ticket Settings card with the Allow customers to initiate refunds switch turned on

Turn Every Refund Into a Sale for Another Fan

A refunded ticket stops working at the door, and its place goes back on sale, or to the next fan on your waiting list when you send returned tickets there. Any reserved seat the ticket held is released with it. On a sold-out show, a refund at lunchtime can be a new buyer's ticket by the evening.

  • Barcodes stop: a refunded ticket no longer scans
  • Waiting list: returned tickets offered to the next fan
  • Seats released: a reserved seat goes back with the ticket

Postpone Before You Have a New Date

A venue falls through and your ticket holders need to hear the same day. Postpone Event announces the change straight away: hide the new date while the venue and the artists are still being confirmed, or show it when they are. Ticket Fairy emails every ticket holder when you confirm, and a postponement notice shows on your event page until the date you choose.

A postponement keeps every order, so the money stays on your event while you rebook. Choose who can ask for a refund: every ticket holder, only those who bought before the postponement, or nobody, in which case your team handles each request. The ticket holders you allow refund their own tickets from their order page, and a buyer who cannot make the new date can pass their ticket on at face value to a fan who can.

  • Hide new date: announce the postponement while the date is agreed
  • Postponement email: sent to every ticket holder when you confirm
  • Refund choice: everyone, earlier buyers only or no automatic refunds
Ticket Fairy Postpone Event dialog with date visibility, new event dates, the postponement banner date and refund choices

Reveal the New Date When Everything Is Confirmed

Once the venue and the artists confirm, Disclose Event Date puts the new date on your event page. Update Postponement changes the dates, the banner end or the refund choice, and ticket holders are emailed again when you save. When the event is back on its feet, Remove Postponed Status takes the notice off the page and the event keeps its new dates.

Close the refund window when the new date is announced by switching the refund choice to No automatic refunds, so buyers who are coming keep their tickets and buyers who asked in time already have their money.

  • Disclose Event Date: publish the new date when you are ready
  • Update Postponement: change the dates, the banner or who can refund
  • Remove Postponed Status: take the notice down and keep the new dates
Ticket Fairy Update Postponement dialog with the current date visibility, event dates, postponement end time and refund choice

Call Off an Event and Let Ticket Fairy Refund the Orders

When the event cannot go ahead, Cancel Event calls it off with one confirmation. Ticket Fairy refunds the event's orders for you, and each buyer gets an email as their own refund goes through. You never refund the orders one by one.

Reminder emails and resale for the event stop, and multi-event passes can no longer be used for it. You can still change the description and artwork, so anybody who reaches the page sees what happened and what you are doing next. Check the refunded total on your Orders page a day or two later against what the event sold.

If you have to choose, postpone when the event will happen on a later date, even without a date yet, and cancel when it will not happen at all. A postponed event can still be cancelled later.

  • Cancel Event: one confirmation for the whole event
  • Refunds for you: each buyer emailed as their refund goes through
  • Reminders and resale stop: nothing goes out for a show that is not happening
Ticket Fairy Cancel Event confirmation, warning that the action cannot be undone and that pending card payments are cancelled with it

Let Fai Handle the Refund Steps and Draft Your Announcement

Ask Fai, the assistant inside your dashboard, to refund an order. She shows you the buyer, the tickets and the amount, requests the code for you, and refunds the order once you give her the code from your email and approve. She can resend or revoke a code, and switch self-refunds on or off for an event after you approve the change.

When plans change for the whole event, ask her what the event has sold and whether its money has been paid out, then have her draft the announcement to your ticket holders. The email from Ticket Fairy tells them what changed, and your message tells them why, in your own words.

  • Ask in a sentence: Fai finds the order and the amount
  • You approve the refund: no money moves until you give the code
  • Fai drafts the message: an announcement you approve before it goes

How Organisers Handle Refunds and Changes

  • A Theatre Run

    A buyer is ill on the night and the producer agrees a refund. The owner refunds the order from the Orders page with the code from their email, and the two seats go back on sale for the next performance's walk-up buyers.

  • A Festival With Self-Refunds

    A festival agrees a refund of the face value less a fixed amount it keeps, and turns on self-refunds until the line-up is final. Buyers who drop out refund their own tickets, and each returned place goes to the waiting list, so the team answers questions about the line-up, not refund requests.

  • An Outdoor Concert Hit by Weather

    A storm warning forces the promoter to move the show. They postpone with the new date hidden and refunds for everyone, and ticket holders get the email within the hour. Two weeks later they disclose the new date and close the refund window.

  • A Conference That Loses Its Venue

    The organiser cannot find a replacement venue in time and cancels. Ticket Fairy refunds the orders and emails each delegate as their refund goes through, while the organiser sends their own explanation the same day and updates the event page.

  • A Club Night With a Late Line-Up Change

    The headliner pulls out a week before. The promoter postpones with refunds only for tickets bought before the change, so fans who bought for the original act can claim their money and newer buyers keep their place.

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Questions About Refunds, Postponements and Cancellations

Refunds & cancellations

The event owner. Admins, promoters and Stats logins do not see the Refund option, and Ticket Fairy support can refund an order for you. To turn self-refunds on or off, or to postpone or cancel an event, you need an owner or admin login.

A paid order with an amount above zero, paid by card through your own connected payment processing account, with every ticket still valid and no table booking, on an event with dashboard refunds turned on. One ticket already checked in, resold, transferred or refunded removes the option for the whole order. The event's funds must not be paid out. Ticket Fairy support refunds the rest.

Not from the Orders page, which refunds the whole order's face value in one step. A buyer can refund one of their own tickets when self-refunds are on, and Ticket Fairy support handles other partial refunds.

No. A dashboard refund returns the order's face value, less any referral reward already paid on its tickets, and the booking fee stays charged. On the standard self-refund terms the buyer also gets the face value. Email the address the Refund Order dialog gives when a buyer should receive the full amount.

Thirty minutes, with five attempts. Five wrong attempts cancel the code, and you can request a new code once a minute. The buyer's card issuer can take several days to show the refund on their statement after you confirm.

While Ticket Fairy still holds the event's ticket money. Once the money is released to you, the switch is greyed out and self-refunds switch off. You can turn them off yourself at any time. One set of terms covers every ticket type on the event.

A ticket already refunded, transferred or checked in has no button, and neither does a free ticket, an order paid in cash at a shop or an order from a partner box office. A ticket listed for resale asks the buyer to take it off resale first. When the card provider answers that a refund is pending, the barcode stops and the place returns once the provider confirms it.

No. Postponing keeps the orders and issues no refunds itself. Your refund choice decides which ticket holders can ask for one, and only paid tickets that are still valid or listed for resale can use the self-service refund.

Ticket Fairy removes the old sales start and check-in times and moves the sales end to the new start. Doors, last entry, ticket-level entry times and scheduled emails keep the old date until you move them, so check each one against the new date.

Ticket Fairy processes the refunds over one to two days. A cash order paid at the door cannot go back to a card, and an order whose payment never completed, one with a refund already pending and any refund the payment provider rejects are passed over, so take those to support. Only Ticket Fairy support can reinstate a cancelled event, and refunds already paid stay paid. Neither postponing nor cancelling is available once the event has ended or its funds have been paid out.

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