# How do you stop a high-demand on-sale from falling over? | Ticket Fairy Guides 1. [Ticket Fairy](https://www.ticketfairy.com/) 2. [Guides](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides) 3. How do you stop a high-demand on-sale from falling over? Questions organisers ask # How do you stop a high-demand on-sale from falling over? A queue that holds the rush before it reaches the checkout, releases that meter it, and a way back to everybody who did not get a ticket. For: Anyone putting an event on sale that will sell faster than it can be bought Takes: 6 minutes Three things come under pressure in an on-sale that sells out in minutes, and they are not the same problem. The site has to survive the crowd arriving at once. The checkout has to still work for the people who got through. And the people who missed out are worth being able to reach afterwards. The crowd is held before it arrives. A waiting room sits in front of the whole platform, and it turns itself on when arrivals pass a threshold. A buyer sees their place in the queue and roughly how long it will be, and the page moves them through when it is their turn. Because the queue never reaches the machines running the checkout, the checkout keeps working at the speed it does on a quiet day -- which is what stops a payment timing out halfway through. The rest is shaping the demand rather than absorbing it. Timed releases put a known number of tickets on sale at a known moment, so an on-sale is a series of smaller rushes. Invitations and pre-registration move part of the crowd before the public on-sale. And a waiting list catches the people who arrive after the last ticket has gone. ## How Ticket Fairy handles it - ### A waiting room in front of the checkout It sits ahead of the platform rather than inside it, and turns itself on when arrivals pass a threshold. Nobody has to switch it on for an on-sale, and nothing you do to your event changes whether it is there. - ### [Releases that meter the rush](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/schedule-when-your-event-goes-live) Each release is its own allocation at its own price and its own moment. Selling in tiers turns one crowd into several smaller ones, and gives the people who missed the first a reason to come back for the next. - ### Invitations before the public on-sale Move part of the demand ahead of the general sale: invite your list, or take pre-registrations and let those people in first. Every ticket sold before the on-sale is one fewer person in the queue at the on-sale. - ### [A waiting list, and a way back to it](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/marketing-tools-a-ticketing-platform-should-have) People who arrive after the tickets have gone go onto a waiting list, and they are an audience you can write to when a release is added or tickets come back through resale. ## How to set it up - [Set the on-sale time rather than publishing by hand](#step-1) - [Split the tickets into releases](#step-2) - [Move part of the crowd earlier](#step-3) - [Tell people what to expect](#step-4) - [Come back to the people who missed out](#step-5) ## What you need before you start - You're an owner or an admin on the event. - You know your on-sale time and roughly how many people will be waiting for it. Both decide how many releases are worth setting up. 1. ## Set the on-sale time rather than publishing by hand Schedule it. An event published by somebody clicking at the right moment goes live late, and a late on-sale is one where every buyer refreshes at once. ![The Schedule Publish dialog, with the date and time the event goes live and the Send Promoter Links checkbox under it](https://www.ticketfairy.com/embeds/posters/marketing-event-publish--schedule-publish-dialog.png) Publish, Payment/Support, Schedule Publish. 2. ## Split the tickets into releases Give each release its own allocation and its own moment, and set the later ones to appear when the one before sells out or at a set time, whichever comes first. Two releases turn one rush into two smaller ones, and give the people who missed the first something to come back for rather than a sold-out page. 3. ## Move part of the crowd earlier Send invitations to your own list, or open pre-registration, so the people most likely to buy are not queuing with everybody else on the day. 4. ## Tell people what to expect Say in your announcement that there is a queue, that it shows their place, and that refreshing does not move them up it. A queue nobody was warned about reads as a broken site. 5. ## Come back to the people who missed out After the on-sale, write to the waiting list and to anyone who left an abandoned cart. They are the warmest audience you will have all campaign. ## Questions you might have Is there a queue for a busy on-sale?: Yes. A waiting room sits in front of the platform and engages by itself once arrivals pass a threshold. Buyers see their position and an estimated wait, and are moved through in turn. Do I have to turn the waiting room on?: No. It is always in front of your on-sale and only engages when the traffic calls for it, so there is nothing to switch on and nothing to forget. Why do checkouts time out on other on-sales?: Because the crowd reaches the same machines that are processing payments. Holding the queue in front of them keeps the checkout doing only checkout work, at the speed it does on a quiet day. Does refreshing the page move somebody up the queue?: No, and it is worth saying so in your announcement. A queue that is explained reads as fair; the same queue unexplained reads as a site that is broken. What happens to the people who do not get a ticket?: They go onto the waiting list, which is an audience you can write to when you add a release or when tickets come back through resale. ## Where to go from here - [What else you can do with Ticket Fairy](https://www.ticketfairy.com/event-ticketing/features) - [Schedule when your event goes live](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/schedule-when-your-event-goes-live) - [What marketing tools should a ticketing platform give you?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/marketing-tools-a-ticketing-platform-should-have) - [Set up ticketing for a multi-day festival](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/sell-a-multi-day-festival) - [How do you manage many events on one ticketing platform?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/run-many-events-on-one-platform) - [How do you compare ticketing platforms on fees, payouts and customer data?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/compare-ticketing-platforms-fees-payouts-and-data) - [How do you build custom reports on ticket sales and buyer behaviour?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/build-custom-reports-on-ticket-sales) - [How do you manage backstage access passes for an event?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/manage-backstage-access-passes) - [How does event accreditation fit with your ticketing and CRM?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/accreditation-with-ticketing-and-crm) - [How do you manage tickets for a multi-day event?](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides/manage-tickets-for-a-multi-day-event) - [Every Ticket Fairy guide](https://www.ticketfairy.com/guides) ## Do this on your own event Create your account, build your event, and follow these steps in your own dashboard. No sales call first. [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)