Questions organisers ask
How do you let buyers pay for tickets in instalments?
A deposit at the checkout and the rest collected on a schedule you set, so a ticket priced for the whole festival does not have to be paid for in one go.
- For
- Anyone selling a ticket priced high enough that buyers hesitate
- Takes
- 6 minutes
A festival ticket at several hundred is not an impulse buy, and the people who want to come are often the ones who cannot pay for it in one go in January. Asking them to is how you lose them to a payday four months away, by which time the tier they wanted has sold.
A payment plan takes a deposit at the checkout and collects the rest automatically from the same card. You choose weekly or monthly payments, the most instalments anybody gets, how long before the event the final payment is due, when an unfinished order is cancelled, and how the deposit is sized. Somebody buying late gets fewer payments, because only whole intervals that finish before your cutoff are offered.
The schedule runs from the purchase. Each buyer pays at the weekly or monthly spacing you set, so two buyers who bought in different months are on different dates. The final-payment cutoff and cancellation cutoff are both counted back from the event, which is what stops an unfinished plan carrying on into show week.
How Ticket Fairy handles it
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A deposit that holds the ticket
The buyer pays part now and the order is theirs. You are selling the decision rather than the full amount, which is the difference between a sale in January and a maybe in May.
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Only the tickets you choose
A plan is turned on for the event and can then be limited to the ticket types you want it on, so a festival pass can be paid off over months while a day ticket is paid in one go.
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Collection without chasing
Each payment is taken from the card the buyer used at the checkout, and a failed one is retried on a schedule before anybody has to look at it. You are not sending payment reminders by hand.
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Terms that do not move under the buyer
An order keeps the plan it was bought under. Change the deposit or the schedule later and the change applies to new orders, so nobody who already bought finds their payments rearranged.
How to set it up
What you need before you start
- You're an owner or an admin on the event.
- Your event uses the card payment method that supports plans. The dashboard refuses the save on any other payment method.
- You know how long before the event you need every plan finished. Leave room: the plan has to complete that far ahead, and a failed payment needs its retries to fit inside the gap as well.
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Turn a payment plan on for the event
Open your event's payment settings and switch Payment Plan on. It applies to the event you are on rather than to your whole brand, so a club night beside it is unaffected.
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Choose what the deposit is
The First installment can be a share of the order, an amount you name, or an amount that matches one of the payments that follow it. Naming an amount asks one more question, whether it applies once to the order or to each ticket in it, and the plan does not save until you answer it. A deposit large enough to mean something reduces the people who drift away halfway through.
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Set the payments, cadence and deadline
Choose the Number of installments and whether the payments are weekly or monthly. Then set how many weeks before the event the final instalment must be charged. That last figure is a deadline for the whole plan rather than a date for one buyer.
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Set when an unfinished order is cancelled
Set how many weeks before the event an unfinished order is cancelled. This number must be smaller than the final-payment cutoff, because it gives the buyer time after the last instalment date to catch up. Pick a point you are comfortable using if they never do.
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Limit the plan to the tickets that need it
Name the ticket types the plan applies to. A weekend pass earns a plan; a twelve pound day ticket does not, and offering one on a small order gets it refused at the checkout anyway.
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Say the schedule on your event page
Write the deposit, the number of payments and whether they run weekly or monthly. Name the final-payment cutoff and the cancellation cutoff too, because those are the dates buyers need if a card fails.
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Watch the plans as they collect
Filter your orders to the plans and look a few days after each collection. A card that expires mid-plan is the common failure, and it is easy to fix while the buyer still wants to come. Once plan orders exist, the dashboard can refuse later edits to the plan.
Or have it done for you
Fai, the assistant inside your dashboard, can set up or turn off the payment plan for the event, and asks you to approve it before it saves because it changes how buyers are charged. Give it the event, weekly or monthly cadence, the total number of instalments, the final-payment cutoff, the unpaid-order cancellation cutoff and the deposit. Ask your brand to turn the payment-plan tool on first, because Fai does not carry it by default.
In your dashboard, with Fai
Set up a payment plan on this event with 4 monthly instalments, the final payment 2 weeks before the event, unfinished orders cancelled 1 week before the event, and a fixed 50 deposit per order. Show me the settings before you save.
Questions you might have
- Which ticketing tools support payment installments?
- Ticket Fairy does, set per event. You choose the deposit, the number of payments, the weekly or monthly cadence, the final-payment cutoff, and when an unfinished order is cancelled.
- When exactly is each payment taken?
- Each buyer pays at the weekly or monthly spacing you set, counted from the day they bought. The final-payment cutoff decides how close to the event a new plan can still fit.
- Can I run a plan on some tickets and not others?
- Yes. Turn the plan on for the event, then limit it to the ticket types you want it on.
- Does a discount code work with a plan?
- It applies, and it can also take the order below what a plan needs. A deposit that would meet or exceed the discounted total, or payments that would fall below the smallest amount a card can be charged, removes the plan option at the checkout.
- What happens if a payment fails?
- It is retried on a schedule before anybody has to act. Check your plan orders a few days after each collection date, because an expired card is the usual cause and the buyer normally still wants to come.
- If I change the plan later, what happens to people who already bought?
- An order keeps the terms it was bought under, so a change reaches new orders only. If plan orders already exist, the dashboard can refuse the edit rather than move live buyers onto different terms.
Where to go from here
Do this on your own event
Create your account, build your event, and follow these steps in your own dashboard. No sales call first.