So You Had to Cancel Your Event. What Are Your Options?

Ticketed outdoor experiences have the potential to create special memories for people of all ages and interests. From music festivals to pumpkin picking to ski jumping, these events often make a meaningful impact on ticket holders. For these outdoor ticketed events to occur, however, a variety of elements need to cooperate. Perhaps the most crucial of these elements is the weather.

Bad weather can be an event organizer’s worst nightmare—cancellations mean refunds, and refunds mean lost revenue. For ticket holders, too, cancellations can be a huge disappointment. After all, they’ve arranged the details of their lives to attend these events. But SimpleTix can provide a positive customer service experience for these ticket holders despite event cancellations. Our event ticketing platform provides a variety of tools that allow organizers to retain much of the cost of previously purchased tickets while also ensuring flexibility for ticket holders.

As event organizers are well aware, in-person events are back! Outdoor venues large and small are welcoming visitors again after an extended hiatus due to COVID-19. Marquee events like SXSW and Coachella kicked off the concert season, and city orchestras and other arts organizations are bringing patrons back under new COVID-19 mitigation and safety guidelines.

Smaller scale, local tourist attractions, too, are open for in-person business. This includes one-off events and ongoing activities such as agritourism and outdoor recreation. SimpleTix offers bulk cancellation features that allow organizers to offer great customer service to those who bought high-dollar tickets to specific events and to people who purchased tickets to attend attractions such as parks and agritourism sites.

Organizers of events like these—at every scale—are familiar with the complicated logistics associated with holding outdoor events, from restroom rentals to providing shade, to ensuring access to emergency services. But the weather is perhaps the most unpredictable—and sometimes disastrous—element. On the day of your event, the weather can ensure success or failure; it’s a factor beyond your control that can make or break an event.

A hot air balloon festival cannot take place during a lightning storm, and outdoor ice skating becomes impossible in heavy rain. As an event organizer, you need the option of canceling events for weather-related (and other unforeseen) reasons without risking the loss of your entire profit for that event. SimpleTix’s event ticketing platform includes user-friendly tools that make canceling your event as painless and straightforward as possible, while also making the return or ticket changing process easy and convenient for ticket holders.

Bulk Cancellation Gives Organizers Options

Everyone hates event cancellations. Organizers often put in countless hours over months and even years to develop and organize many events. And ticket holders who decided to spend their money on a ticket are disappointed, no matter the cause of the cancellation. SimpleTix understands this reality. So we offer tools that ease the pain of these cancellations, both for you and your customers. SimpleTix’s event ticketing software enables event organizers to:

• Issue a standard refund.
• Allow ticket holders to change their ticket date.
• Offer returns in the form of Square gift cards.

Offer Instant Refunds

SimpleTix makes it easy to provide quick refunds to your ticket holders. A partnership with Square enables SimpleTix to refund ticket holders’ money instantly. Other event ticketing platforms may take weeks to process these refunds. But with SimpleTix’s quick turnaround, you can avoid this kind of delay—and the negative opinion of your event or organization that ticket holders might form as a result.

Ticket holders are more likely to purchase tickets for a new or rescheduled event when they know that the organizer promptly refunds the price of tickets in the event of a cancellation. Our software’s bulk cancellation feature makes it possible for you to offer this customer service feature by refunding ticket prices painlessly.

Allow Ticket Holders to Reschedule

Bad weather may force organizers to cancel an event on a particular date, but this doesn’t mean that ticket holders have lost interest in attending the event. SimpleTix allows them to change the date on which they can attend your event or attraction, and no refund is required. When this occurs, event organizers do not need to engage in the complex logistics of processing refunds and rescheduling an entire event. Rather, ticket holders are in charge of reevaluating their availability and can plan for a date that works best for them.

This feature is especially convenient for ticket holders to agritourism sites and events. This form of tourism is becoming increasingly popular. But agritourism, especially, is weather-dependent. Families with young children, for example, may enjoy a visit to a pumpkin patch…but not in an ice storm.

SimpleTix event ticketing software allows the farm owner the flexibility to honor the tickets originally purchased; attendees can simply change their ticket date and attend on a different day. The event organizer, therefore, does not forfeit the cost of the family’s ticket purchase, and the family can visit the pumpkin patch on a day with more pleasant weather. In this instance, a weather-related cancellation causes minimal inconvenience to both the event organizer and the ticket holder.

Offer Refunds via Square Gift Cards

SimpleTix has partnered with Square to make refunding ticket holders’ money quick and painless. Unlike other ticketing platforms, which often take weeks to refund the price of tickets, SimpleTix makes it possible for event organizers to issue refunds instantly via Square gift cards.

When you have no choice but to cancel your event, issuing returns in the form of Square gift cards allows you to hold onto the profits of event tickets and gives ticket holders choices about how and where to spend the amount of their refund. For ticket holders, this feature provides flexibility. Square is accepted as a form of payment almost anywhere. Opting for this form of return prevents event organizers from having to refund ticket purchases. It benefits ticket holders too by offering a flexible way to spend the cost of their tickets on other purchases.

Easy Cancellations for Events at Every Scale

SimpleTix makes it easy for event organizers to provide a customer-friendly experience in the event of a cancellation. SimpleTix offers ticketing software that is customized for both indoor and outdoor events of any scale. Our event ticketing software package for festival ticketing allows organizers to handle the logistics of canceling a large-scale event with a minimum of hassle for both organizers and ticket holders.

Similarly, we offer a software package designed specifically for use by parks and attractions that provides flexible options when weather conditions prevent an ongoing or one-off event from taking place. When your ticket holders can reschedule for a date of their choosing, get a quick refund, or receive a gift card in place of attending the event, their experience remains positive. SimpleTix makes it possible for your organization to provide excellent customer service even in an event organizer’s worst nightmare—a weather-related cancellation—occurs.

An event cancellation doesn’t have to spell disaster for your business. SimpleTix makes it possible to cancel in-person events, whether they are ongoing site visits or one-off larger scale events. Find out more about how SimpleTix’s bulk cancellation features can make it quick and easy for you to provide solutions to your ticket holders when your event must be canceled.

SimpleTix has offered an affordable, premium event ticketing platform that outperforms Eventbrite and similar apps for over 12 years. Compared to the competition, SimpleTix offers better options at a better price point. To learn more, call us at +1 (855) 550-3670 or email us here.