The short answer
Make the event with one free ticket type and the cap of the room. People book a ticket, which makes the number honest in a way an RSVP never is, and the reminder the day before halves the no-shows.
Invoice the sponsor directly from your own accounting; a sponsorship is not a ticket and should not look like one. Put their logo on the event page and their name in the description.
Afterwards, the report says how many came and how many were new. Whether the sponsor gets names is a privacy decision you make and say on the event page before anyone books.
Ready-made template
Sponsored Sundowner
Sponsored sundowner, already set up as an event you can open now. Pick a date and a venue, change what you like, and publish. Nothing is saved until you do, and you can start without an account.
- A free ticket capped at the venue
- Company and a sponsor opt-in, required
- Monthly, with the waitlist on
Which fits your event?
Start from the one requirement that decides it.
| Your main requirement | Start with |
|---|---|
| A sponsor paying and no cap on the room | A free ticket, for the count and the reminder |
| A sponsor paying, a cap, and a waitlist when it fills | Free tickets with a cap, on One Ticket |
| The sponsor's money | An invoice from you to them; it never goes through a ticket |
| A sponsor who wants the attendee list | Your call and your privacy policy; the export is yours to share or not |
Free tickets on One Ticket cost nobody anything, so the count is real and the reminder still goes.
How it works in practice
| What you set | What it does |
|---|---|
| One free ticket type | Booked, reminded, scanned; costs nobody anything |
| The cap | Closes when the room is full; a waitlist after |
| The sponsor | Invoiced by you; logo on the page |
| The report | How many came, how many were new |
| The list | Yours to share only as your privacy policy says |
One Ticket for a recurring room
Everything below follows from one decision: a series is one object, not a list of dates.
| Feature | What it does |
|---|---|
| Who came back | After every session: how many came, how many had been before, who is new and who has stopped coming, by name, with an address to write to |
| Subscriptions | One subscription covers every session in a series. Each night's ticket is minted ahead of time |
| Paid out | Every ticket is charged to your own Stripe account. A new account is paid out to your bank two days after each event, once guests have said how it went; after a first clean event it is paid out as it sells |
| Fees | No platform fee on the ticket price. The buyer pays a booking fee: a platform tier of 35c to $1.45 a ticket, then 1.5% of the price above $100, plus card processing. On a $25 ticket that is $1.45 all in, so the buyer pays $26.45. Free tickets cost nothing |
| Refund if it changes | Move the date, start time or place after people have booked and every one of them can refund in full, booking fee included, until it starts, whatever your refund policy says. You are warned before you save, and everyone booked is emailed the new details |
| Refund requests | On a case-by-case event the buyer asks from their ticket. You have 3 days to refund or decline; a request nobody answers goes to One Ticket support, and your payouts are held until it is settled |
| Guest ratings | After each event, ticket holders rate it: stars and a few words. From 5 ratings the average shows under your name on every event page, good or bad. Notes are for you alone, and never say who wrote them |
| Scam protection | Every page is read before it can send an email, and our emails carry none of an organiser's own links or phone numbers. A new organiser's money is held until after the event, and anyone can report an event from its page |
| Verified tick | Earned by selling here: 3 past events, 25 tickets, no chargebacks, no ignored refund requests, and an average of 4 stars once there are 10 ratings. A chargeback or an ignored request takes it away at once |
| Block a person | Block an address from a ticket type, for this event or every one after it. No public list, no conversation at the door |
| Your page | Your colours, your title font, your cover. Nobody else's event on it |
| Import | Paste an Eventbrite link and the title, description, date, venue and ticket types come across |
| Not included | A marketplace. There is no search page and no audience to sell into; the people are the ones you bring |
One Ticket
Sell tickets. Keep every dollar.