Ticket requests

Some rooms are not first-come, first-served. A members-only listening party, a press allocation, a workshop where you want to read what people wrote before you let them in: for all of those, selling a ticket the instant someone clicks is the wrong behaviour.

Turn on Requires approval for a ticket tier and buying it becomes requesting it. The attendee goes through checkout exactly as normal and enters their card, but nothing is taken. We place a temporary hold on the card, the seat is held for them, and the charge only goes through when you approve. Decline it, or let the deadline pass, and the hold is released and the seat goes back on sale.

Turning approval on for a tier

Approval is set per ticket tier, so one event can have an open general-admission tier selling normally alongside a VIP tier you vet by hand.

1. Go to Events then My Events and open the event.
2. In the Tickets card, click Create Ticket, or open the three-dot More menu on an existing ticket and click Edit.
3. Scroll past Availability & access to the approval panel.
4. Turn on Requires approval.
5. Set Decide within (days): how long you get to make up your mind. Whole days, from 1 to 7. It starts at 3.
6. Click Create Ticket or Update Ticket.

That is the whole setup. Everything else, the hold, the queue, the emails, the deadline, happens on its own.

What the attendee sees

On your event page the tier carries an Approval required badge with a ? beside it explaining, in your own voice, that you review who gets this ticket, that their card is held rather than charged, and that the hold is released if you decline or the request expires.

When they pick that tier, the button reads Request tickets rather than the usual checkout wording.

Paid tiers

They reach a step headed Authorize your card with the line "Your request reaches us once your card is authorized", and a button reading Authorize with the amount on it. Underneath they are told that their card is only charged if you approve the request, and that a temporary hold will show on their statement until then.

Once they finish, they land on a Request received page: "Your request is in", with the amount shown as Total if approved and a reminder that nothing is charged unless you approve. No deadline appears on that page, deliberately: the date is in their email, where they can find it again.

Free tiers

There is no card step at all. The request goes straight into your queue, and they are told they will get the tickets as soon as you approve.

Their emails

They get "Your ticket request for your event is in" straight away. It repeats the event, the tickets and the amount, tells them exactly what the hold on their card is (and that it is not a charge), and gives the date the request expires if nobody has decided by then.

Later they get exactly one more email, depending on how it ends: their tickets with the usual QR codes and calendar file if you approve, a not-approved message carrying any note you wrote, an expiry message if the deadline passed, or, if the card failed at the moment you approved, a message saying so with the seats released.

Their account

A signed-in attendee sees the request in their My Tickets area, marked Request pending, with "We'll decide by" and the date, and "Nothing is charged until we approve your request." Once you decide, the same entry updates to Request approved, Not approved (with your note if you left one), or Request expired.

Where requests land

There are two ways in, and they show the same queue.

Every event at once

In the sidebar, go to Events then Requests. This is the workspace-wide queue, and every card names the event it belongs to, so three shows on sale do not mean three screens to check.

A small count sits beside Requests in the menu whenever there is something pending. It disappears when the queue is empty, so a quiet sidebar means there is no work.

One event

Open the event, click the three-dot More menu, and choose Requests. Same queue, pinned to that show.

Reading the queue

Across the top are four figures, each with a ? if you want the longer explanation:

• Pending: requests you have not decided on yet.
• Seats held: tickets reserved by those pending requests. They count against the tier's capacity and go back on sale when a request is declined or lapses.
• Awaiting settlement: what would be charged if you approved everything pending. Nothing has been taken yet.
• Expiring within 24h: turns amber when it is above zero.

Below that, tabs for Pending, Approved, Declined, Expired and Failed, each with its own count. Pending is first, because pending is the work.

Each request is a card showing:

• The attendee's name and email, with a View contact link into your contacts.
• The event and its date, on the workspace-wide queue.
• Every ticket line with quantity and price, and the total.
• Their answers to any questions you set on the event, which is usually the thing you are actually reading before you decide.
• Decide by with the deadline, counted down in plain language ("in 2 days"). It turns amber inside the final 24 hours.

Approving a request

1. Click Approve on the card.
2. Read the confirmation, which states the exact amount that will be charged and how many passes will be issued.
3. Click Approve.

The card is charged there and then, the passes are issued, and the attendee gets the ordinary ticket email with their QR codes, calendar file and add-to-calendar links, opened with a line saying their request was approved and what was charged. From that point it is an ordinary paid order: it appears in ticket orders, it scans at the door, and it counts in your takings.

Approving several at once

On the Pending tab, tick the box on each request you want, or use Select all on this page, then click Approve selected. The confirmation adds up the total and the number of passes before you commit.

Each one is settled on its own, so a single card that fails does not block the rest. You get a result like "18 approved, 2 failed" when it finishes.

When a card fails at approval

Sometimes a hold cannot be turned into a charge: the card has expired, the bank refuses it, the money is no longer there. When that happens the request moves to the Failed tab with the reason shown, the seats are released back on sale, and the attendee is emailed to say they were approved but the payment did not go through and there may still be tickets.

You are notified too, so it does not sit unnoticed.

Declining a request

1. Click Decline on the card.
2. Optionally write a Message to the attendee. It goes into the email telling them, in place of the standard wording. Something like "This show is members only. Join and request again" is far kinder than silence.
3. Leave Email them about this decision ticked unless you have a reason not to.
4. Click Decline.

The hold on their card is released, nothing is charged, and the seat goes straight back on sale. The request moves to the Declined tab with your note recorded against it.

If you never decide

A request does not sit open forever. At the deadline you set with Decide within (days), TribeNest expires it for you: the hold on the card is released, the seats go back on sale, anyone on the waitlist for that tier is offered them, and the attendee is emailed to say the request expired and there may still be tickets.

A day before that happens, you get a reminder naming how many requests are about to lapse, so the deadline is never the first you hear of it.

Seats, capacity and the waitlist

A pending request holds its seats. They are counted against the tier's quantity from the moment the request arrives, so the same seat can never be promised to two people while you think about it. The Seats held figure on the queue is exactly that number.

Those seats come back the moment a request is declined, expires, or fails to settle, and the waitlist for that tier is offered them automatically.

What is not a request

Approval applies to people buying from your event page. It does not get in the way of you:

• Selling at the box office on the night. You are the one approving, so a door sale is simply a sale.
• Issuing a complimentary ticket. A comp is a decision you have already made.

Cancelling an event with requests open

If you cancel the event, every pending request on it is declined as part of the cancellation. Nobody is charged and every hold is released, alongside the refunds going out to people who did pay.

Where to next

• Setting up the tiers themselves? See managing tickets.
• Want to see approved requests alongside every other sale? Open ticket orders.
• Filling seats that came back? See the waitlist.