The Eventbrite Tickets add-on extends the core functionality of The Events Calendar and Events Calendar PRO by allowing you to sell tickets directly in your event listings. All of the ticket sales themselves are handled through Eventbrite — so along with The Events Calendar, you will also need an Eventbrite account.
If you’re new to The Events Calendar, stop right there…you’ll want to check out our new user primer for that plugin before going any further with this one. From here forward this primer will expect that you have a basic knowledge of how to set up events and administer The Events Calendar plugin, and as a result will be focusing our efforts entirely on the ticketing aspect.
Lastly: for the Eventbrite Tickets add-on to work correctly, you’ll need to deactivate/remove the old Eventbrite add-on that was formerly available in the open source WordPress.org repo. Failure to do so will cause conflicts that can impact your effective use of the calendar…so just double check that the old release is gone before getting started.
Here’s what you can expect in this primer:
- Installing & verifying your Eventbrite Tickets license key
- Reviewing the Eventbrite options & setting up my first ticket
- Importing events from Eventbrite
- Publishing your event & displaying tickets on the frontend
After this, you’ll be setting up ticketed events in no time…so let’s jump into it.
I. Installing & verifying your Eventbrite Tickets license key
Before beginning the installation process: The Events Calendar should be installed, and you should have registered an Eventbrite account and ideally logged into it.
All set? As the screencast above shows, installing & activating Eventbrite Tickets is a straightforward process:
- Log into the backend of your site and navigate to Plugins –> Add New from the sidebar admin menu.
- Elect to upload a new plugin (ZIP) folder.
- Following the instructions on the screen, select the still zipped up Eventbrite Tickets plugin. Hit the “Upload” button and wait for confirmation that the process is complete.
- When prompted, activate the plugin. You’ll notice that if you try to do so without The Events Calendar activated, you’ll get a warning message across the top of the page and will not be able to use the Eventbrite add-on until you’ve activated the core plugin accordingly.
- Head back to the tri.be website — where you first bought the plugin — and login with the credentials you set up during the checkout process.
- The license key can found under Account Central –> License Keys. Find your unused key for the Eventbrite Tickets add-on from the list.
- Copy the key, then return to the backend of your site.
- Navigate to Settings –> The Events Calendar, then hit the “Licenses” tab.
- In the appropriate field, paste in your key. Wait for it to validate and for the green expiration date to appear. If a red warning appears the key is not validated and will not be until the green expiration date shows. Make sure to save after the key finishes its verification process!
- Before using Eventbrite Tickets, we also need to enter our Eventbrite API user key. This is how the system knows to link your WordPress site with your Eventbrite account. It can be found by logging into Eventbrite and navigating to Account –> API User Key.
- Copy the key to your clipboard and return to the backend of your site.
- When logged up, click the link to “Edit My Profile” that appears at the top of the page.
- Towards the bottom of the profile screen, you’ll see there is a field for your Eventbrite API key that appeared up activating the add-on. Plug the key in and save.
- Have every user who will be able to create & edit tickets enter the proper Eventbrite API User key into their account settings (or have an admin do it).
You’re all set now: the plugin is activated, the license key is verified and your Eventbrite API user key has made your site is linked to your Eventbrite account. Let’s checkout what we can do on the ticketing side by going to Events –> Add New and creating a ticketed event.
II. Reviewing the Eventbrite options & setting up my first ticket
Once on the event creation screen, input your event details as you always would: add a title, throw in a description, set the date the event occurs — and, if you’re a PRO user, configure you’re recurrence details.
It is important to note that Eventbrite’s API does not currently handle recurring events! So even if you set up an event as recurring on the WP side, there is no support for it on the Eventbrite Tickets side at this time. If this is an important feature to you, send them an email to make your voice heard.
Below the Event Organizer Details, you’ll see an “Eventbrite Information” subhead followed by a radio button asking whether you want to sell tickets with Eventbrite. Hitting “Yes” will reveal a wealth of new configuration options.
You’ll see two subheads: “Set up your first ticket” and “Save this post to create the event with Eventbrite.com.” While we covered them in the video above, let’s quickly review the options for setting up our first ticket:
- Name: The name of your first ticket. For example, if you have a senior discount, call it “Seniors.” This will be shown to the public.
- Description: A description for the ticket you’re creating; if it’s a seniors ticket, note the minimum age required and how much a discount they’ll get.
- Date to Start/End Ticket Sales: When ticket sales will begin and end. These need to both be before the event itself begins, and must both both sometime in the future.
- Type: A “Set Price” is one where you determine the cost; “Donation Based” means people can decide how much they want to pay, if anything; and “Free” means nobody pays at all. Notice that if you select “Free” the payment options below disappear.
- Cost: How much will your event cost?
- Quantity: How many tickets are available?
- Include Fee In Price: There is a service fee associated with all cost-based Eventbrite ticket sales. Here’s where you decide if you want that baked into the ticket price or added on top of it.
- Accepted Payment Methods: Both online and offline options appear, though you must have at least one online option present for the system to recognize and save your ticket. Additional fields will appear for providing payment instructions if you decide to accept any offline methods.
There’s another dropdown that appears in the “Save this post to create the event with Eventbrite.com” area, where you need to decide whether — upon saving here at WordPress — you want the corresponding Eventbrite listing to stay in draft form or go live. Whatever you select, it can always be changed down the road.
Want to sell multiple tickets to the same event? For the current release of our plugin, additional tickets can be set up on the Eventbrite admin after the event is created.
III. Importing events from Eventbrite
If you’ve created an event on your Eventbrite account that you’d like to import to WordPress, have we got an import tool for you! As you can see, the process is simple:
- On the WordPress backend, navigate to Events -> Import Events in the left-hand admin menu.
- Following the instructions on the screen, find the Eventbrite ID for the event you want to import. It is in the URL bar for the event whether you’re viewing on the frontend or backend, and once found should be copied to your clipboard.
- Once copied, paste it into the field on the Import Events screen.
- Hit “Go” and let the system work its magic.
Assuming the event ID you entered was for a valid event, you’ll be taken to the backend of your new event’s listing. If the import was not successful you will be asked to correct your error and try again.
IV. Publishing your event & displaying tickets on the frontend
At this point — whether you created your event on the WordPress side and saved it as a draft on Eventbrite, or created on Eventbrite and imported to WordPress — you’ve got an event with tickets ready to go live. You might consider playing with the styling if you are comfortable with CSS or template overrides. That, however, is a tutorial for another day.
Remember that you will have to “publish” in two spots on the WordPress backend: the dropdown that appears with the individual entry (live on Eventbrite), and the standard “Publish” button that exists for the WordPress post. It’s possible to have your WordPress entry published but the tickets not available since the event isn’t published on Eventbrite. Likewise, you could publish your Eventbrite listing with hopes to promote it on your WordPress site but had inadvertently forgotten to publish the event entry itself! Either way, just make sure you’re careful to watch out for both.
One more point on this: once both are published, you’ll need to hit the radio button that appears on the backend admin page electing to display tickets on the frontend. If you don’t enable display of tickets on the frontend — even if the event is published at Eventbrite — your readers will never know they can buy tickets here.
But once you’ve published the Eventbrite listing, published the WordPress post and turned on the frontend ticket display…you’ll be ready to go and your event will be ready to accept it’s first ticket buyer.
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Thanks for reading this far and for using Eventbrite Tickets. We hope it helps as you schedule events no what you’re planning. If after reading the above you have any lingering questions, check out the FAQ, hit us up in the forums, or in last resort drop us a note.
