Most advice on how to increase ticket sales starts with more promotion. But if people reach your event page and leave before they pay, more traffic just means more people walking away. Baymard Institute puts the average online cart abandonment rate at about 70%, based on 50 studies, and extra costs such as fees are the number one reason shoppers give for abandoning a checkout.
Ticketing has its own versions of these problems: booking fees that appear at the last step, ticket types nobody understands, early bird tiers that leave your page looking sold out, and door sales that don't match your online numbers. This guide covers seven common ticket booking problems, how to spot each one and how to fix it, so the buyers you already have actually get their tickets. If you're new to selling tickets online, start with our complete guide to selling tickets for events.
| Problem | How you spot it | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Fees appear at the last step | Buyers drop off on the payment page | Show the all-in price from the first click |
| Checkout takes too many steps | Mobile buyers start checkout but don't finish | Cut fields and offer express checkout |
| Ticket types confuse buyers | "What's included?" emails and slow decisions | Fewer tiers with clear names and descriptions |
| Overselling across channels | Door and online numbers don't match | One shared allocation for every channel |
| Tiers stall when they sell out | Your page looks sold out while tickets remain | Release the next tier automatically |
| Lost tickets and forgotten dates | "Where's my ticket?" emails and no-shows | Instant delivery, easy resends and reminders |
| No data on where buyers drop off | Traffic is up but sales are flat | Track sales by channel and act on it |
A buyer picks a £15 ticket, reaches the payment step and suddenly sees £17.50. Some of them leave right there. Extra costs are the most common reason shoppers abandon a checkout in Baymard's research, and a booking fee that only appears at the end feels like a bait and switch, even when the fee itself is fair.
In the UK, it's also a legal question. Since 6 April 2025, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act has banned drip pricing, and the CMA's price transparency guidance says the headline price should normally include unavoidable charges such as booking fees. Truly optional extras can still be shown separately. If you're unsure how the rules apply to your event, read the guidance or get independent advice.
The fix: decide how you'll handle fees before tickets go on sale, and make sure the first price a buyer sees is the price they pay. Even if you only sell outside the UK, it's good practice: fewer surprises means fewer abandoned checkouts. Our guide to what you should pay for ticketing services explains how ticketing fees usually work.
Tip: On Billetto, the booking fee is added to the ticket price as standard, or you can absorb it so buyers see one all-in price. You'll find the current rates on the pricing page.
If lots of people start checkout but few finish, especially on mobile, the checkout itself is usually the problem. Being asked to create an account and a long, complicated checkout are both among the top reasons shoppers give for abandoning a purchase. Every extra field, pop-up or redirect is another reason to stop.
The fix: buy a ticket to your own event on your phone and count the steps. Remove any field you don't need to issue the ticket, and collect everything else after the purchase. Offer the payment methods your buyers already use, including card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and the local methods that are common in their country.
Tip: Billetto Checkout supports express checkouts such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, 1-click ordering with saved cards, auto-complete and local payment methods. If you need details like dietary needs, booking questions can be asked during checkout or afterwards.
"Standard", "Standard Plus", "Premium" and "VIP Lite" might make sense to you, but buyers who can't tell the difference often leave rather than risk picking the wrong one. You'll notice it as a stream of "what's included?" emails, or buyers who sit on the ticket selection without choosing.
The fix: keep it to three or four ticket types and name them after what the buyer gets, such as "Early bird", "Standard" and "VIP with drinks reception". Add one line under each saying exactly what's included. Use offers for group discounts instead of creating yet another ticket type.
Tip: On Billetto, every ticket type has its own price, capacity and sales window, so you can see what's sold and what's left at a glance. Offers let you add promo codes for partners and group deals without cluttering the ticket list.
Overselling is one of the most damaging problems an organiser can face. Turning away someone who has a valid ticket is hard to recover from, both on the night and in your reviews. The warning signs are a door list that doesn't match your online sales, or a spreadsheet someone updates between shifts.
The fix: sell every ticket from one shared allocation, whether it's sold on your event page, through the ticket widget on your own website or at the box office. When one channel sells a ticket, every other channel should update instantly.
Tip: With Billetto POS, you pair your own phone, tablet or PC with an Adyen card terminal. Door sales and online sales draw on the same allocation for each ticket type, so sold out online means sold out at the door.
Your early bird tier sells out at 11pm on a Tuesday. Until someone opens the standard tier by hand, your event page has nothing to buy, and people who arrive in that gap often assume the event is over. The same thing happens when the next release hasn't been announced and buyers don't know more tickets are coming.
The fix: set the order your tiers release in before you go on sale, so the next one opens on its own the moment the previous one sells out. Tell buyers when more tickets are coming, so a sold-out tier builds demand instead of ending it.
Tip: Billetto's Drop Sales feature releases your ticket tiers in order automatically: when one sells out, the next opens. "Coming soon" labels let you warm up demand before a release goes live, and dynamic pricing can adjust prices based on rules you set.
Some booking problems only show up after the sale. Buyers can't find their ticket, forget the date or stop at the door to search their inbox. That means support emails, queues at the entrance and empty seats from people who paid but didn't come.
The fix: make sure buyers get their tickets and booking details straight after purchase, send a reminder a few days before the event, and send a message on the day with directions and entry instructions. Make it easy to resend a ticket or pass it on to a friend, so a place doesn't go to waste.
Tip: With Billetto's automations, you schedule emails and SMS once, including reminders before the event and follow-ups afterwards. From the back office, you can refund, resend or reassign a ticket, and check-in tools keep the queue moving on the day.
If you're spending more on promotion but sales stay flat, you need to know where buyers leave. Compare how many people visit your event page with how many complete a purchase, and break your sales down by channel: event page, website widget, door sales and each campaign or partner.
The fix: check your numbers during the sales period, not just after the event. A channel with lots of traffic but few sales may need a better landing page or a simpler path to checkout. A channel with fewer visitors but strong sales might deserve more of your budget. Giving each partner their own promo code makes it easier to see who actually sells tickets.
Tip: Billetto's sales dashboard tracks ticket sales across every event, channel and campaign in one view, and audience tools help you understand your buyers, from demographics to purchasing patterns.
Most of the problems above can be caught before they cost you a single sale. Before tickets go live, run through this checklist:
Once buyers can get from your event page to their ticket without friction, every extra visitor is worth more. That's the moment to put money into promotion. Plan your campaigns with our event marketing timeline, and use early bird pricing and promo codes to give people a reason to buy now rather than later.
Tip: With Billetto Advertising, your event is promoted on Google, Meta, Billetto and in email newsletters, and you only pay for the tickets those ads sell. On average, organisers who use it sell around 20% more tickets than they would have without it.
Billetto brings your event pages, checkout, door sales, reminders and reporting into one platform, so the problems in this guide don't fall between separate tools. More than 160,000 organisers use Billetto, the platform runs at 99.99% uptime, and it's free for organisers to get started.
Create your event for free and run your first booking audit today. Prefer to talk it through first? Book a meeting with our team. If you're still comparing platforms, here's what to watch out for when choosing a ticketing platform.
Start by fixing the booking problems that turn interested buyers away: late fees, a long checkout, confusing ticket types and tiers that stall when they sell out. Once your checkout converts well, put more into promotion, use early bird pricing to create urgency and give partners their own promo codes so you can see what works.
The most common reasons are extra costs that appear late, being asked to create an account, a long or complicated checkout, a declined card and too few payment methods. Buy a ticket to your own event on your phone to see which of these your buyers run into.
Since 6 April 2025, drip pricing has been banned in the UK, and the CMA's guidance says the headline price should normally include unavoidable charges such as booking fees. Truly optional extras can be shown separately. This isn't legal advice, so check the CMA guidance if you're unsure how it applies to your event.
Sell every ticket from one shared allocation, so your event page, website widget and box office all update the moment a ticket sells. With Billetto POS, door sales and online sales draw on the same allocation for each ticket type.
The next tier should open straight away, without anyone switching it on by hand. On Billetto, Drop Sales releases your tiers in order automatically, so buyers always have a tier to buy while tickets remain.
Send a reminder a few days before the event and a message on the day with directions and entry instructions. Make it easy for buyers to pass their ticket to a friend if they can't come. On Billetto, you can schedule reminders by email and SMS and reassign tickets from the back office.