How to Price Event Tickets: Tiers, Early Bird and Waves

What is the difference between tiers, early bird and waves?

They answer two different questions. A tier is about what the buyer gets: general admission, VIP, a table, a balcony seat. Early bird and waves are about when the buyer commits: the same ticket costs less for the people who decide first.

Most events use both. You might sell two tiers, each released in three waves. Keep the two ideas apart when you plan and the price list stays readable for the buyer.

How many ticket tiers should an event have?

As few as you can explain in one line each. A buyer on a phone should understand the difference between two tickets without opening anything. If two tiers differ only by name, merge them.

Start from what the venue really offers: a standing floor, a raised area, tables, seats with a view. Each of those is a tier. On Blend each tier is a ticket type with its own name, description, price and quantity, and a seated room can be sold from a seat map instead. See concert ticketing for seat maps and conference registration for passes.

How do you set an early bird price?

Start from the price you need, not the price you hope for. Add up what the event costs, divide by the tickets you expect to sell, and that is your floor. The early bird price sits at or just above it, the regular price above that, and the final release at what the night is worth to someone who decides late.

Then limit it twice: a quantity and an end date. An early bird release that never runs out teaches buyers to wait. When it ends, let it end. Extending a deadline once costs you every deadline after it.

How do ticket waves work on Blend?

There are two ways to run them, and both change on the dates you set.

• Separate ticket types. Add early release, second release and final release as three ticket types, each with its own price, quantity and sales period.
• Price waves inside one ticket type. Turn on price waves and split the ticket's sales period into timed phases, each with a name, a price, an opening and closing time and an optional cap. Outside every wave, buyers pay the base price.
• Wave windows cannot overlap, and times are set in the event's timezone, so a release that ends at midnight ends at midnight where the event is.

See ticket waves for concerts

Should the price rise with demand?

It can, if you say so up front. Demand-based pricing on Blend raises the price in steps as the ticket sells: you set the share sold at which each step starts and the price from then on. It needs a set quantity, because an unlimited ticket never reaches a threshold.

Use it when you cannot predict how fast a release will go. Whichever rule you choose, the buyer always pays the live price at checkout, never an old one from a page they opened earlier.

How should you price groups and tables?

Groups fill rooms, so give them a reason to book together. A quantity discount takes a share off when a buyer books a set number of tickets or more. You can build several steps, and only the best one the order qualifies for is applied: they never stack.

For a table or a booth, sell one ticket that admits several people instead of asking the host of the table to buy seat by seat. The same passes and bundles tab covers multi day passes for a festival weekend. See festival ticketing.

When should you use a discount code instead of a lower price?

Lower the public price when you want everyone to pay less. Use a code when you want one group to pay less: a community, a sponsor's guests, a promoter's audience. A code keeps the list price intact and tells you who used it.

On Blend a discount code takes a share or a fixed amount off, and you can cap its total uses, cap uses per customer, set a minimum purchase, give it a valid period and limit it to certain ticket types. A promoter's code does the same job while crediting the sale to that promoter.

See the promoter dashboard

What does the buyer actually pay?

Your ticket price plus a processing fee, which is added at checkout and shown as its own line before the buyer pays. You receive the ticket price. Free tickets carry no fee for you or your guests.

That matters when you choose a number: the price you publish is the price you earn, and the total the buyer sees is a little above it. Rates depend on volume, so contact us for yours.

See how pricing works

Which currency should you price in?

In Lebanon, price in US dollars. It is how buyers already pay for events, and it is what puts Whish next to card, Apple Pay and Google Pay at checkout. Events in the UAE are priced in dirhams and use card checkout. Read more about ticketing in Lebanon and Whish payments.