Waitlist & pre-sales

Not every buyer arrives when tickets are on sale. Some come too early, some want first pick, and some come after you've sold out. BooTickets has a different way to keep each of them, so interest turns into sales instead of a closed tab.

Your buyer arrives…	They can…	What they get
Before tickets go on sale	Ask to be reminded	An email the moment tickets go on sale
Before a pre-sale opens	Register for the pre-sale	A personal link to buy before everyone else
After a ticket type has sold out	Join the waitlist	First refusal, in turn, on any tickets that come back

You'll find everyone in all three lists on your event's Waitlist & reminders page.

"Remind me when tickets go on sale"

For buyers who find your event before tickets are on sale.

If your event is live but tickets don't go on sale until a later date, your event page shows a Remind me button where you'd normally see the ticket options. Buyers leave their email address (their name is optional), and when tickets go on sale we email them straight away with a link to buy.

Nothing to set up. It appears by itself whenever your tickets have a sale start date in the future. To use it, set a sale start date on your ticket types.
Change of plans? If you move the on-sale date, the reminder moves with it.
No head start. Reminders go out when general sale opens, so these buyers are on the same footing as everyone else. If you'd like your keenest fans to get in first, run a pre-sale instead (see below). When an event has a pre-sale, buyers are offered that instead of a reminder.
Works for every event, including seated events.

Pre-sale registration

For your keenest fans, who'd like to buy before everyone else.

A pre-sale is a period before general sale when only people who registered can buy. It's a way to reward your mailing list, members or previous attendees, and to gauge demand before tickets go on general sale.

How it works for your buyers:

Before the pre-sale opens, your event page invites them to register for the pre-sale. They give their name, email and how many tickets they'd like.
When the pre-sale opens, everyone registered gets an email with a personal link.
With that link they can buy, up to the number of tickets they asked for, any time until general sale starts.

Good to know:

First come, first served. Registering doesn't hold tickets. Pre-sale buyers buy from the same stock as everyone else, so if a ticket type is popular, the quickest get them. We let buyers know this, in a friendly way, when they register.
Registration closes when the pre-sale opens. That way, nobody can skip the queue by signing up at the last minute.
Early bird prices apply if your early bird discount is running at the time.
If it sells out in the pre-sale, and your waitlist is on, anyone who didn't get all the tickets they asked for moves onto the waitlist automatically, so they don't have to sign up again.

To set one up: when editing a ticket type, open its sale dates and choose Add a pre-sale. Pick when the pre-sale opens. It needs to be before that ticket type's general sale start date. Each ticket type can have its own pre-sale, or none.

Pre-sales are for general admission tickets. They aren't available for seated events.

Waitlist when sold out

For buyers who arrive after you've sold out.

When a ticket type sells out, your event page offers a waitlist instead of just saying Sold out. Buyers give their name, email and how many tickets they'd like. We're upfront that a place on the waitlist isn't a promise of a ticket, and that we'll let them know if one comes up.

How it works for your buyers:

They join the waitlist, and we email them a confirmation.
If tickets come back, we offer them to people in the order they joined.
The person at the front gets an email: "Tickets are available for you". The tickets are held just for them while the offer is open. Nobody else can buy them.
If they buy, great. If they don't buy in time, the offer expires, we let them know, and the tickets are offered to the next person.

Where tickets come from:

Refunds and cancelled tickets. When you refund or cancel a ticket for a sold-out ticket type and people are waiting, it goes to the waitlist first, not back on general sale.
Adding more tickets. If you raise a ticket type's quantity (perhaps you've found more room), the new tickets are offered to the waitlist first.

Once nobody is left waiting, any tickets still free go back on general sale as normal.

How long an offer lasts depends on how soon the event is, so tickets keep moving down the list:

Time until sales close	Offer stays open for
More than a week	48 hours
One day to a week	24 hours
Less than a day	3 hours

Sales close when that ticket type's sales end date passes or the event starts, whichever comes first. An offer never runs past that point. When there isn't enough time left for a worthwhile offer, the waitlist closes and nobody new can join.

Good to know:

On by default. Every event has the waitlist on unless you turn it off. To turn it off, untick Let buyers join a waitlist when a ticket type sells out on the event's Waitlist & reminders page.
Each ticket type has its own list. If your Adult tickets sell out but Child tickets are still available, only Adult has a waitlist.
General admission only. Seated events don't have a waitlist.

Managing your lists

Open your event and choose Waitlist & reminders to see:

Event reminders: everyone waiting to hear that tickets are on sale.
Each ticket type's pre-sale registrations and waitlist: everyone in queue order, how many tickets they want, which list they're on, and where they've got to (waiting, has a live offer, bought, and so on).

From there you can:

Export a CSV of everyone on your lists.
Remove someone. Their details are deleted and they aren't emailed. If they had a live waitlist offer, the tickets held for them are offered to the next person.
Turn the sold-out waitlist on or off for the event.

Buyers can also take themselves off a list at any time, using the link in the emails we send them.

Limits: each person can be on a ticket type's list once (per email address), and can ask for up to 10 tickets.