The Events Calendar – Community Tickets

When others sell on your site, the refund lands on you too

Opening your calendar so each organizer can sell tickets looks like easy income: they bring the event and you keep a share. The change comes after the sale, when an event is canceled and someone wants their money back. Depending on how you set up payments, that money may already be in the organizer's account.

The Events Calendar Community Tickets lets organizers add tickets to the events they submit to your site, and lets you charge a fee on those sales. The important decision is who receives the money and when.

Two ways to split what is sold

Manual split. This is the default. All sales go through your payment system, with WooCommerce or Tickets Commerce, and paying each organizer is your responsibility, by the method you prefer.

PayPal Payouts. Each sale is divided according to your fees, and both you and the organizer get your share through PayPal. It only works if you sell with WooCommerce as the default provider, it calls for a PayPal developer account, and each organizer must provide a PayPal address.

The automatic split has a cost: the payout is created and queued when the order reaches completed, and a later refund does not recover what was sent and comes out of your share. That is why it pays not to complete orders until the event has taken place.

How your fee is calculated

You can charge nothing, set an amount, apply a percentage or combine both. The flat fee applies per event within an order or per ticket, depending on the type chosen, and the percentage can be charged per event, transaction or ticket.

• Subtract: the fee comes out of the price of paid tickets. Watch low prices: a 1 dollar ticket with a 1 dollar flat fee leaves the organizer 0.
• Add: the fee is added to the price. It does not support the flat fee per event, flat fee plus percentage per event or percentage per transaction.
• Display: the fee appears in the cart apart from the subtotal, on both paid and free tickets.

A separate option decides whether flat fees apply to free tickets. With the split enabled, each organizer can adjust how the fee is shown on their events from their payment options.

Reports and settings worth reviewing

• The organizer: checks their sales under "Reports: Sales" in My Events, and has shortcodes to follow their sales and manage attendee registration.
• The administrator: opens each event's order report, with tickets sold, revenue and site fees.
• Payouts: the Payouts screen lists what was sent per event.
• Who creates tickets: "Allow any user to create tickets" comes checked, so any subscriber can create events with tickets. That permission, on its own, does not grant attendee management.
• Coupons: they do not work and are not supported on payouts based on the PayPal API.
• Missing reports: if you enable the split without finishing the PayPal setup, report links do not appear in My Events.

Launching sales between organizers

You need The Events Calendar, Community and Event Tickets. Tickets Commerce is the default provider; selling with WooCommerce also takes Event Tickets Plus.

1. Activate those plugins along with this add-on.
2. Under Events > Settings > Community > Community Tickets, check "Enable Community Tickets" and save.
3. Set up Tickets Commerce or WooCommerce as the payment system.
4. Define the fee type and the split mode.

Community Tickets next to its neighboring products

Community Events opens event submissions and you approve each one, and it is the base these tickets work on. Event Tickets Plus fits if you only sell your own events, with price tiers and no outside organizers. Eventbrite Tickets shows the purchase form on your site, but attendees and tickets are managed on Eventbrite.

Collecting and paying organizers

Can the organizer get paid directly?

With PayPal Payouts they get automatic payments for their share once the order is completed. With the manual split you pay them.

Can I charge for free tickets?

Yes, with a flat fee and the option to apply it to free tickets, using Display mode.

When does the money go out to the organizer?

Payouts are created when the order reaches completed status and are queued for PayPal.