Glossary
On-sale window
An on-sale window is the time range during which tickets for a given event or tier are available to buy. It has a start time (the on-sale) and an end time (the off-sale). The window can be set for the whole event or for individual tiers, so an early bird can close before a general admission tier opens.
What it is good for
- Scarcity that is real. A scheduled off-sale time on an early bird tier makes the deadline a fact, not a pressure tactic. Buyers who care about the price move before it ends.
- Presale exclusivity. A presale tier with a short on-sale window for a specific audience (mailing list, fan club, supporters) before the general public on-sale rewards your most engaged buyers without devaluing the main price.
- Closing sales before doors. Setting the general tier to go off-sale at doors-open time stops walk-ups from buying on their phone while in line and creating a scanner backup.
- Avoiding the day-of pricing problem. A higher day-of tier that opens automatically when the advance tier closes captures last-minute buyers without you having to manually flip prices.
Common ways promoters break it
- Overlapping windows. Two tiers on-sale at the same price at the same time confuses buyers and is usually a sign the tier structure needs simplification.
- Tiny presale windows. A 30-minute presale window when your audience is at work does not reward the audience, it rewards bots. Make presales last at least a day.
- Forgetting to set an off-sale. A tier with no off-sale time keeps selling through doors, into the show, and after the show is over. That generally is not what you wanted.
- Timezone errors. Set the timezone correctly when you create the event. Doors at 8 PM Mountain looks like 7 PM Pacific to someone in Los Angeles, and the on-sale will surprise you.
On DIY Stubs
Every tier has independent on-sale and off-sale fields. You can set them when creating the event or edit them later from Edit event. Buyers see a "starts in" countdown when a tier is pre-on-sale and a "sale ended" state after off-sale. Timezones are auto-detected when you create the event; double-check them for late-night shows that cross midnight.