10 September 2026 · 7 min · Wesley Veldeman
Organising a fundraising dinner with online registration: sittings, menu choice and portion counts
How do you set up a fundraising dinner in a ticketing system? Sittings as timeslots, one ticket type per dish with the number of portions, dietary needs via a form and drink tokens as add-ons. With a cost comparison for 500 guests.
A fundraising dinner isn't ticketing
Anyone organising a spaghetti night or mussel dinner doesn't think in tickets. They think in sittings, menus and portions: how many people at 17:00 and how many at 19:30, how many steaks on the grill and how many kids' chicken menus, how many drink tokens are already sold. The question for a ticketing system isn't "can I sell tickets?" but "will my kitchen know on Saturday afternoon exactly what to cook?".
That's also why a generic platform like Eventbrite rarely feels right for a dinner: you get a ticket, but no menu choice, no sittings and no kitchen list. Below we set up a typical association dinner step by step in ClearTix, and at the end we compare costs with two Belgian alternatives.
Our example: the football club's annual steak night.
- Saturday, two sittings: 17:00 and 19:30
- Steak €25, chicken €22, vegetarian €22, kids' menu €12
- Members €3 cheaper
- Drink tokens and dessert sold in advance
- Anyone who doesn't register online pays at the door
Step 1: sittings as timeslots
Create a single event and tick Timeslot booking. Add one timeslot per sitting: "Sitting 17:00" and "Sitting 19:30", each with its own capacity. When ordering, your guest picks the sitting first, then the menus. The chosen time appears on the ticket, in the confirmation email, in the wallet pass and in your attendee list.
At the door your scanner selects the active timeslot: someone turning up at 17:00 with a 19:30 ticket is refused, so the first sitting doesn't overflow.
Step 2: one ticket type per dish, portions as capacity
This is the core. Instead of a single "Adult" ticket type, create one ticket type per dish, with the number of portions the kitchen can serve as its capacity:
| Ticket type | Price | Portions |
|---|---|---|
| Adult, steak | €25 | 300 |
| Adult, chicken | €22 | 120 |
| Adult, vegetarian | €22 | 60 |
| Kids' menu, chicken | €12 | 80 |
Once the 300 steaks are sold, steak drops out of sale. Not just online, but at the point of sale at the door too. You never sell more than you can serve, and nobody has to keep a tally.
If you'd rather have one ticket type per person, that works as well: create "Adult" and "Child" and ask the menu choice as a choice question in the attendee form. Each option can carry a surcharge or discount (steak +€3). You do lose the separate stock per dish, which is why we recommend the first model for most dinners.
Step 3: member price behind an access code
Members pay €22 for their steak instead of €25. Create a "Member, steak" ticket type, set it to hidden and attach an access code that you only share in your members' newsletter. Whoever enters the code sees the member prices next to the regular ones; whoever doesn't, doesn't.
Step 4: dietary needs via the form
Attach a form to each ticket type, filled in per ticket, with a free-text field "Allergies or dietary needs". The kitchen then knows per guest whether to cook gluten-free or nut-free, and that information sits neatly next to the name and sitting in your attendee list.
Step 5: drink tokens and dessert as add-ons
At a dinner, a large share of the proceeds comes from drinks and dessert. Set up "Drink tokens (card of 10)" and "Dessert" as add-ons with a price and a stock. Guests add them at registration and receive a single QR voucher for all their extras. At the bar or dessert stand a volunteer ticks the voucher off with the same scanner used at the door.
The result: less cash on the night, shorter queues at the bar and a far better idea of what to buy in.
Step 6: the kitchen knows what to cook
On the day, the kitchen doesn't want names, it wants numbers:
- Per dish: the dashboard shows live how many have sold per ticket type, i.e. per dish.
- Per sitting: the attendee list shows each guest's sitting, dish and dietary needs. Filter by ticket type, or export the list and build a pivot table per sitting in a spreadsheet.
- Extras: the add-ons page shows how many drink cards and desserts have been sold and already handed out.
Step 7: at the door
Not everyone registers online. With the point of sale you keep selling at the door: pick the sitting and the menus, take cash or use your own card terminal and mark the order as paid. Portions come off the same stock as online sales.
Companies or sponsors who want a table of ten book as a group with a proper invoice.
What does it cost for 500 guests?
For an association, what ultimately matters is what's left of the proceeds. We compare ClearTix with two Belgian platforms that explicitly target associations, for a dinner of 500 paying guests at €25 on average, sold in roughly 200 orders.
| ClearTix (Free) | ClearTix (Studio) | Tixora | PlanToParty | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platform fee per ticket | €0.39 | €0.25 + €29/month | €0.50 | €0.65 + 1% |
| Who pays | organiser | organiser | organiser (can be passed on) | the guest, on top of the ticket price |
| Platform fee for 500 guests | €195 | €154 | €250 | €450 (paid by your guests) |
| Payment fees | your own Mollie/Stripe, ± €0.29 per Bancontact transaction | same | Mollie, per transaction | Stripe, included |
| Money in your own account | yes, immediately (own Mollie/Stripe) | yes | yes (own Mollie) | via Stripe Connect, within 5 working days after the event |
| Point of sale at the door | from Studio | yes | yes, cash free | not mentioned |
| Sittings / menus | timeslots + ticket type per dish | same | categories per sitting | sitting time and dish at purchase |
| Drink tokens with QR voucher | from Studio | yes | not mentioned | not mentioned |
Two things stand out. With PlanToParty the association pays nothing, but your guests pay €25.90 instead of €25; that's a choice you make deliberately. And ClearTix's Studio plan, which you only take for the month of your dinner, is already cheaper than the free plan from about 200 tickets and gives you the point of sale and add-ons on top.
With ClearTix the fee is invoiced monthly to the association and is not added to the ticket price; Mollie's or Stripe's payment fees are paid directly to them. Free events and €0 tickets never cost anything.
In short
A fundraising dinner is set up as sittings, menus and portions, not as tickets. In ClearTix you do that with timeslots, a ticket type per dish with portions as capacity, a form for dietary needs and add-ons for drink tokens. The kitchen sees live what has sold, the point of sale sells at the door from the same stock and the money lands directly in the association's account.
Want to know more? See the ticketing software for fundraising dinners page or the step-by-step guide Setting up a fundraising dinner in the help centre.
Read also
- Ticketing for clubs and associations: dinners, parties and quiz nights
- Selling tickets at the door with a point of sale
- Collecting attendee details and dietary needs with forms
Information about third parties (Tixora, PlanToParty, Mollie, Stripe) is indicative, may change, and is based on their public pricing pages as checked in September 2026. Always verify current pricing and terms at the source: Tixora, PlanToParty, Mollie, Stripe.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I offer several sittings for one dinner in ClearTix?
- Yes. Enable timeslot booking and create one timeslot per sitting, for example 17:00 and 19:30, each with its own capacity. The guest picks the sitting first, then the menus. The sitting appears on the ticket, in the confirmation email and in the attendee list.
- How do I count portions per dish?
- Create one ticket type per dish and set the number of portions the kitchen can serve as its capacity. The dashboard shows live how many have sold per dish, and a sold-out dish drops out of sale automatically, at the point of sale too.
- What does a ticketing system cost for a 500-guest dinner?
- With ClearTix, €195 on the free plan (€0.39 per ticket) or €154 on Studio (€29 + €0.25 per ticket), plus the transaction fees of your own Mollie or Stripe account. There is no percentage on takings and the fee is not added to the price your guests pay.
- Can I sell drink tokens in advance?
- Yes, as an add-on. Guests add drink tokens or dessert to their registration and receive a single QR voucher that your volunteers tick off at the bar with the scanner. Add-ons are available from the Studio plan.
- What about people who don't register online?
- With the point of sale you keep selling at the door, in cash or with your own card terminal. You pick the sitting and the menus, and portions come off the same stock as online sales, so you never sell more than the kitchen can serve.