Let your keenest fans buy before the public

Open pre-registration the day you announce, reward fans for sharing, and let them buy first. Reveal hidden tiers with an access code, or sell one only to NFT holders.

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Ticket Fairy Pre-Registration Dates with the pre-registration and pre-sale windows and their enable switches
  • Keen fans signed up before you set prices
  • Private tiers only the right people see
  • Registered fans buying before the public

Build a list of fans from the day you announce

Turn on pre-registration on a published event, set when registration opens and closes, and share your event page. Fans register their interest and how many tickets they want, even before you set up a single ticket type. Your event page shows Pre-Registration Open while you take names. The Pre-Registration report shows how many people registered and how many tickets they asked for. You plan your releases against demand you can see.

Fans register with their Ticket Fairy account, and they buy in the presale with the same account. The list you build is a list of buyers with an email address you can reach. The registration form also asks each fan whether they want news from your brand. Your presale grows the audience you can market your next event to.

Total tickets requested is the number to plan against. It tells you whether the first release will sell out in minutes or needs a push, before you put any money into advertising.

  • Pre-registration: fans register before tickets are on sale
  • Registration window: opens and closes at the times you set
  • Pre-Registration report: people registered and tickets requested

Reward fans for spreading the word

The moment a fan registers, their confirmation gives them a personal share link and shows the prizes you offer. Fans earn points for each friend who registers through their link. They also earn points for sharing your event on Facebook or in Messenger and posting to their followers. Setting going on your Facebook event, following you on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, and connecting to Spotify count too. Each share puts your event in front of more fans before your tickets go on sale.

You choose the points for each action under Pre-Registration Actions. Give the personal link the most, because each friend it brings is another fan on your list, while a follow brings nobody new. Then add prizes with a name, a picture and a description. Fans value prizes only your event can give, such as a guest list place, a soundcheck visit or a bar tab. They are worth more to fans than they cost you.

  • Pre-Registration Actions: points for each way a fan shares your event
  • Personal share links: each fan brings their friends to your page
  • Pre-Registration Prizes: shown to each fan who registers

Let registered fans buy first

When registration closes, the presale window opens for the fans who registered. They sign in with the same account and buy before the public on-sale. Your event page shows them the date and time the presale tickets open. Give the presale its own release with the number of tickets you want to offer. Keep the public release hidden until the public on-sale. Your fans get the tier you promised, and you still have tickets to announce. For a fan club presale, give your fan club an access code, or let registered fans buy first.

With registration, you do not rely on a shared code that ends up on a forum. You decide whether a referral link from an existing buyer or the presale limited code also opens the window. Or make registration the only way in. When the window closes, mark the presale release sold out so nobody can buy it through any link. Fans who registered and did not buy are your warmest audience for the public on-sale.

Email everyone who registered the moment the presale opens, using Pre-registered customers as the audience. Tell them the day, the time and its time zone. Selling to your Instagram followers as well? With a follower presale, each fan who signs up through your posts gets their own link to the presale tickets.

  • Presale window: registered fans buy before the public
  • A presale release: the tickets you set aside for your fans
  • Pre-registered customers: an audience ready for your presale email

Keep the event page public and private tickets hidden

Your public on-sale and your private tickets often share one event. Think of a guest list rate, a staff ticket, a partner allocation or a fan club tier. Hide those ticket types and attach them to a promotion with an access code. Nobody sees them on your event page, and a buyer who enters your code sees them appear beside your public tickets. Your fans, guest list and partners all use the same event page, and each group sees the tickets meant for them.

Choose No Discount for each hidden ticket type, and the code reveals the ticket without changing what you charge. The ticket keeps its own price, fees, allocation and sale dates. A staff rate or a partner tier sells exactly as you set it up. Always hidden keeps the ticket out of sight even when a scheduled release or a sold-out rule would show it. To give money off, use a promo code. To make the whole event page private too, put it behind a password.

  • Always hidden: kept off the event page until the code is entered
  • Access code: reveals each ticket type attached to it
  • No Discount: the ticket keeps its normal price and fees
Ticket Fairy promotion editor with a Guest List access code, No Discount and two hidden ticket types attached

Choose when each code works and how much it opens

Set a start and an end on the promotion, and the code works only during your private on-sale window. Cap how many tickets the code can open for each ticket type, or set one shared total across all of them. Give each group its own code. Add several codes to one promotion when they share tickets and limits. If a code reaches the wrong people, replace it without closing the sale for everyone else.

A code limit never adds tickets. The ticket type's own allocation stays the final limit, so a generous code cannot oversell your venue. Delete the promotion and all its codes close at once. That is how you end a private sale the moment the public on-sale opens.

  • Code dates: the window the code works in
  • Code limits: for each ticket type or one shared total
  • A code for each group: replace one while the others still work
Ticket Fairy ticket options with Hidden turned on and Always hidden selected

Sell tickets only to your NFT holders

An NFT project, a web3 community or a token-gated club wants its holders in the room. List your collections on the event, and a buyer connects a wallet holding one of your NFTs before the tickets open to them. A wallet with none of your NFTs is turned away before it sees a ticket. Require an NFT for the whole event or for one ticket type. Holders then get their own tier, such as early entry or a holder price, while everyone else buys the rest.

Holders use the wallets they already have: MetaMask for Ethereum and Polygon collections, and Phantom for Solana NFTs. At the door, your scanning app checks that the buyer's connected wallet still holds one of your NFTs. A ticket bought with an NFT that has since been sold does not get in. Your team, artists and partners can still come. Guest tickets you send need no wallet when you send them or when your door team scans them.

  • Wallet check: tickets open once a holder connects their wallet
  • Holder-only ticket types: one tier for holders, the rest for everyone
  • Checked again at entry: a sold NFT does not get its old owner in
Ticket Fairy Require ownership of NFTs to attend settings, turned on with two Ethereum contract addresses

Ask Fai to set up your presale

Ask Fai, the assistant inside your dashboard, to set your registration and presale windows and give points to the sharing actions you choose. She tells you how many people have registered and how many tickets they asked for. She drafts your presale email to the pre-registered audience. She hides the tickets you name and creates a no-discount access code with its dates and limits. She replaces a code, and closes the promotion when the private sale ends.

Fai shows you the dates, the tickets, their normal prices and the promotion she will create. She asks you to approve each change before she makes it. Nothing is sent or saved until you say so.

  • Ask Fai: windows, codes and emails in a sentence
  • You approve each change: nothing changes until you say so

How organisers run presales

  • A festival announcing its line-up

    A festival opens pre-registration on announcement day, with a guest list prize for the fan who brings the most friends. The Pre-Registration report shows ticket requests well above the first release. The festival opens a presale release for registered fans and keeps the general release hidden for the public on-sale a week later.

  • A club night guest list rate

    A club promoter hides a guest list ticket and attaches it to a no-discount access code that works only until doors open. The DJs share the code with their friends. The event page stays public for everyone else, and the public never sees the guest list rate.

  • A conference partner tier

    A conference gives each partner company its own code to a hidden partner pass, all on one promotion with one shared total. When one partner's code is forwarded too widely, the organiser replaces that code and the other partners carry on.

  • A web3 community meetup

    An NFT project sells an early-entry holder ticket beside a general admission ticket. Holders connect MetaMask on the event page to see it. At the door, the scan turns away a ticket whose NFT was sold before the night.

  • An artist's fan club tour presale

    An artist's team runs pre-registration for each tour date. It leaves the referral and limited-code options off, so registration is the only way into the presale. Fans who registered and did not buy get a message when the public on-sale opens.

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Questions About Presales and Access Codes

Presales & access codes

No. Registration collects interest, so it runs on a published event with no tickets set up yet. Fans see nothing on a draft event, so publish the event first. Have the tickets ready before the presale opens.

After pre-registration ends. The registration window and the presale window each need both an opening and a closing time. A presale with no closing time can turn registered fans away while it is running.

Yes. A fan signs in to their Ticket Fairy account, or creates one, as they register. They sign in with the same account to buy their presale tickets.

No. It gives them access to the presale before the public. Hold back enough tickets for the presale to be worth registering for.

A referral link from an existing buyer and the presale limited code can also let a buyer in during the window. Turn both off when registration should be the only way in. Hiding the presale release only removes it from the event page, so mark it sold out when the window closes.

Not while rewards are running on it. Finish or remove the rewards first, and the switch is available again. Points and prizes are optional, and you can add them after registration opens.

The person who receives it can use it while the promotion is on, inside its dates and with uses left. Replace or remove the code when it reaches the wrong group. Use an event password or personal invitations when the page itself, or each guest, needs its own control.

Check that the ticket is attached to the promotion and that the promotion is on and inside its dates. The ticket must be active and on sale, with tickets left. Leave the promotion's automatic application empty, because an automatic promotion needs no code.

Ethereum and Polygon collections through MetaMask, and Solana NFTs through Phantom. One requirement takes Ethereum and Polygon collections together, or Solana NFTs on their own. To offer both, give each its own ticket type. A browser with no crypto wallet shows Crypto-enabled browser required. On your own website's checkout, NFT buyers move over to your Ticket Fairy event page to buy.

You need an owner or admin role on the event to set up pre-registration and NFT requirements. For an access code, you need permission to edit all the ticket types and to manage Promotions.

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