# How do you answer a custom ticket sales question? | Ticket Fairy Guides 1. [Ticket Fairy](https://www.ticketfairy.com/) 2. [Guides](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides) 3. How do you answer a custom ticket sales question? Solving event ticketing problems # How do you answer a custom ticket sales question? Start with the event report that matches your question, filter the Orders table when you need a narrower view, then export those rows for further analysis. For: Answering a question your standard reports do not cover Takes: 6 minutes Start with the dashboard report closest to your question. Event statistics cover sales over time, traffic, buyer demographics, referrals and check-ins. If you need the transactions behind a total, filter **Orders** and export those rows. For questions that need a different view, work from the orders table: filter it to the orders you need and export those rows to CSV, or export every ticket rather than every order when the question is about attendees. That file is what goes into a spreadsheet, a BI tool or a finance system. You can also ask in words. Fai in the dashboard, your own assistant over MCP and the command line can all get your dashboard figures. Ask "which age band bought the most, and how does that compare with last time" instead of building a spreadsheet. ## How Ticket Fairy handles it - ### [The statistics your event already has](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/read-your-audience-demographics) You get Performance, Orders, Traffic, Demographics, Psychographics, Geographics, Influencers, Check-In and Devices. Each answers a different question about your event. - ### The orders table, filtered Filter **Orders** by ticket type, status, add-on, discount code or search. The table and export then contain the matching orders. - ### Export to CSV, orders or tickets **Export to CSV** takes the rows as you have filtered them. **Export all Tickets** and **Export Filtered Tickets** give you one row per ticket instead, which is usually the right level for questions about attendees. - ### [The same numbers, asked in words](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/see-how-visitors-find-your-event-page) Fai gets these figures inside the dashboard, your own AI assistant gets the same figures over our MCP server, and the command line prints them as JSON for a script that runs every morning. ## How to set it up - [Check whether a report already answers it](#step-1) - [Filter the orders table to the orders you need](#step-2) - [Export the rows you need](#step-3) - [Schedule a recurring report](#step-4) ## What you need before you start - You need an owner or admin login to open **Orders** and export its rows. **Stats** and **Limited Stats** logins can use the event reports but cannot open the orders table. - Your event has at least one completed ticket sale that has not been cancelled or refunded. Unpaid and abandoned checkouts do not fill the sales or buyer reports. 1. ## Check whether a report already answers it Open **Statistics** on your event and start with **Analytics** for ticket sales and sales over time. Traffic sources, ages and locations, referrals and check-ins each have their own report beside it. ![The event Analytics overview, with tickets sold, revenue and the sales curve across the run](https://www.ticketfairy.com/embeds/posters/marketing-analytics--analytics-overview.png) Statistics, Analytics. 2. ## Filter the orders table to the orders you need Open **Orders** and narrow it to one ticket type, one add-on, one order status, one discount code, or a search. The rows left in the table are the orders your question is about, one row per order rather than one per person. Use the event's sales-over-time report when the question is about a particular date range, and use **Orders** when you need the transactions behind the total. ![Ticket Fairy Orders table with search, status filters, export controls and order rows](https://www.ticketfairy.com/embeds/posters/marketing-orders--filters-and-export.png) Event, Orders. 3. ## Export the rows you need Choose **Export to CSV** for the filtered orders, or **Export Filtered Tickets** when you need one row per attendee ticket. One order can hold several tickets, so an orders export and a tickets export answer different questions. Pick the one whose rows are the thing you are counting. 4. ## Schedule a recurring report Where the same question comes back every week, ask it from the command line with JSON output and let a script run it. You get the same figures the dashboard shows, so you never have to reconcile two answers. ## Or have it done for you Ask Fai or your own assistant for event statistics, or use the command line to return them as JSON for a scheduled report. ### In your dashboard, with Fai Compare this event with the last one I ran and tell me what sold, where the buyers came from, and which age band bought the most ### From your own assistant, over MCP Connect your assistant to [our MCP server](https://www.ticketfairy.com/mcp-server) and ask it: Keep `--read-only` in your MCP configuration. This task only reads data, so your assistant does not need tools that make changes. Find my event and compare its sales, traffic, age groups and top referring sites over the same dates ## From your terminal Install the CLI from [our CLI page](https://www.ticketfairy.com/cli), sign in with `ticketfairy auth login`, and choose the brand you are working on with `ticketfairy brand use `. `ticketfairy brand list` and `ticketfairy event list` show the IDs the other commands use. Sign in with the same account you use in the dashboard. The commands below return a sales summary without downloading individual orders, so they work well in scheduled reports. ### What has sold, as the summary at the top of Analytics ticketfairy event stats \ --metric sales ### The same numbers per ticket type ticketfairy event stats \ --metric performance --output json ## Questions you might have How do I answer a question that spans several reports?: Start with the relevant report, filter **Orders** to inspect the transactions behind it, and export the result when you want to combine it with other data. You can also ask Fai, your own assistant over MCP, or the command line to get the same figures. What is the difference between an orders export and a tickets export?: One row per transaction against one row per ticket. A single order can carry four tickets in three names, so counting attendees from an orders export undercounts them. Can I get ticket sales into our BI tool?: Yes. Export the matching rows as CSV for a one-off, and for something that runs on a schedule use the command line with JSON output, which returns the same figures shown in the dashboard. Who can see these reports?: You can open the reports on an owner, admin, **Stats** or **Limited Stats** login, so you can let somebody view the reports without letting them change the event. You need an owner or admin login to open the orders table, so that is what the filtered export asks of you. Do the reports include refunded orders?: You choose. Filter the orders table to include or exclude refunded and cancelled orders, and decide which of the two your question means before you export. ## Where to go from here - [What else you can do with Ticket Fairy](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/features) - [Understand your event's buyer demographics](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/read-your-audience-demographics) - [See how visitors find your event page](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/see-how-visitors-find-your-event-page) - [Understand who buys tickets across your events](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/understand-who-buys-tickets-across-your-events) - [How do you keep a high-demand on-sale running smoothly?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/keep-a-high-demand-on-sale-running-smoothly) - [How do you manage many events without repeating the same work?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/run-many-events-on-one-platform) - [What should you compare when choosing a ticketing platform?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/compare-ticketing-platforms) - [What is social ticketing, and how do referral rewards work?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/social-ticketing-and-referral-rewards) - [What marketing tools should a ticketing platform give you?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/ticketing-platform-marketing-tools) - [How do you manage backstage access passes for an event?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/manage-backstage-access-passes) - [How do you manage event accreditation with your tickets?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/manage-event-accreditation) - [How do you manage tickets for a multi-day event?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/manage-tickets-for-a-multi-day-event) - [How do you let buyers pay for tickets in instalments?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/let-buyers-pay-for-tickets-in-instalments) - [Can you sell tickets directly from your own website?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/sell-tickets-on-your-own-website) - [Can ticket buyers join your email list automatically?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/add-ticket-buyers-to-your-email-list) - [How can fan club members get presale access?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/give-fan-club-members-presale-access) - [Every Ticket Fairy guide](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides) ## Do this on your own event Create your account, build your event and follow the steps in your own dashboard. You do not need to book a sales call. [Create a free account](https://manage.ticketfairy.com/welcome) [Book a demo](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/book-a-demo) --- This page is on Ticket Fairy, a ticketing, marketing and operations platform for live events and the venues that host them: festivals, club nights, concerts, conferences and tours, and night clubs, beach clubs and concert venues. It grows revenue with fan rewards that turn an audience into a sales channel, and runs the money side with payments and payouts, Vault business banking, and working capital advanced against ticket sales. [How Ticket Fairy ticketing works](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing) ยท [Ticket Fairy for AI assistants](https://www.ticketfairy.com/llms.txt)