9 June 2026 · 4 min · Wesley Veldeman
Selling theatre tickets online: dates, ticket types and waitlists
A run of performances, several ticket prices and a waitlist — theatre ticketing has its own quirks. Here's how to sell it online without the spreadsheet gymnastics.
Why theatre ticketing is its own thing
Selling theatre tickets is rarely one event with one price. A production runs across several evenings, sometimes with a matinee, and each performance has its own capacity to track. On top of that you have adult, student and member prices to juggle. That combination trips up generic ticketing tools that assume one date and one ticket type.
Done well, online sales should handle all of this and still feel simple — for the box office and for the person buying two seats for Saturday's show.
Multiple performance dates
A run of shows means the same production playing on, say, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and a Sunday matinee. Each date sells independently: Saturday might sell out while Thursday still has room.
Set up each performance as its own date under the production, so buyers pick the night they want and you get separate sales figures and a separate capacity for each. When Friday fills up, only Friday closes — the rest stay open. That also gives you a clear picture of which nights need a marketing push and which are taking care of themselves.
Ticket types: adult, student, member
Theatre audiences expect tiered pricing. A typical setup looks like this:
- Adult — the standard price
- Student — a reduced rate, often with ID checked at the door
- Member — the supporter or subscriber rate
- Child — where relevant
Each type has its own price and can have its own limit — handy if you want to cap the number of discounted student tickets per performance. Every ticket still produces the same QR code, so check-in does not care which price someone paid; your front-of-house crew just scans and lets people in.
You can see how this maps to a real venue setup on the theatre ticketing page.
General admission and capacity
ClearTix sells general admission rather than reserved seating. You set a capacity per performance and per ticket type, and once a date or a type hits its cap the sale stops automatically — so you never oversell the house or double-book a night, without counting heads yourself.
Be clear on the limit, though: there is no seat map or seat-by-seat selection, so buyers are not picking row D from a chart. For most amateur companies and small-to-mid venues running open seating, that is exactly right. If your venue strictly needs assigned seats per chair, a specialised box-office system will suit you better.
Waitlists for sold-out nights
A popular production sells out, and then the cancellations start trickling in. Without a waitlist, those returned seats either go to whoever happens to refresh the page or stay empty.
A waitlist captures interested buyers once a performance is full. When a seat frees up — a refund, a release of held seats — you have a ready list of people to offer it to, instead of starting from scratch. For a small theatre, filling those last few returned seats can be the difference between a comfortable night and a great one.
What it costs and where the money goes
Pricing is a fixed fee per ticket, never a percentage of the ticket price — which matters when your top-price seats cost more:
| Plan | Monthly fee | Per ticket |
|---|---|---|
| Free | €0 | €0.39 |
| Studio | €29 | €0.25 |
| Pro | €79 | — |
Payment runs through your own Mollie or Stripe account, so box-office income goes straight to the company's account, usually within 24 to 72 hours. ClearTix never holds your takings. Audiences pay with iDEAL, Bancontact, Visa or Mastercard. Compare the plans on the pricing page.
On the night
Check-in is done in the browser with the ClearTix Scanner — no app, no dedicated scanner to buy. Front-of-house staff scan tickets from a phone or tablet, and if you have a busy foyer you can run several scanners at once without double-admitting anyone. Because everything is hosted in the EU and GDPR-compliant with no tracking cookies, you are not bolting a cookie banner onto your booking page either.
Less spreadsheet, more theatre
The administrative weight of a theatre run — juggling dates, prices, capacity and a waiting list — is exactly the part that should be automated. Set the production up once, let patrons choose their night and ticket type, and spend the evening watching the show instead of reconciling a spreadsheet.
Related reading
- A waitlist for sold-out events — fill the seats that free up after a night sells out
- QR tickets without an app — front-of-house check-in straight from a browser
Information about third parties (Mollie, Stripe) is indicative, may change, and is based on their public information as checked in June 2026. Always verify current pricing and terms at the source: Mollie, Stripe.