Box Office Software
What a UK event box office needs, from advance sales and door lists to phone check-in, walk-ups, refunds and reconciliation
A box office sells tickets before an event and manages the door on the night. Box office software is the tool that does both jobs in one place, so the seller is not juggling a spreadsheet, a card reader and a printed list.
For a small event, the same person runs advance sales and the door. For a venue, the two jobs sit with different people, and the software is how they share one record of what was sold and who came in.
What the job needs
- Advance sales with a capacity limit on each date, and money paid to the organiser's own payment account
- A door list the staff on the night can work from, on paper or a screen
- A way to add walk-up sales at the door and record cash taken
- Check-in that flags duplicate tickets
- Refunds that reach the payment record as well as the attendance list
- Reports that record ticket income, door money and the costs of an event in one place, for the treasurer or accountant
How Chobble Tickets covers it
Online ticket sales run the advance side, with per-date capacity and money paid straight to the organiser's Stripe, Square or SumUp account.
At the door, staff can check tickets in with a phone camera or a name search, and duplicate scans are flagged. Walk-ups can be added as manual attendees, so the door list stays complete.
The ledger records door income beside online sales and the costs of the event, and everything exports as CSV for accounting. Refunds can be issued for one booking or in bulk, including on the night.
What it costs in the UK
Chobble Tickets charges £50 a year or £5 a month for managed hosting, whatever the number of tickets. Charities, community groups, artists and musicians pay £25 a year.
There is no per-ticket platform fee, so the cost of running the box office does not rise with the number of tickets sold. Payment processing is charged by the card provider at its own rate.
The cheapest ticket sales system compares the annual cost of every provider reviewed on this site, and where ticketing money goes separates platform fees from card processing.
What Chobble Tickets does not do
It has no card terminal of its own. A card payment at the door is taken through the online checkout, and cash is recorded as an offline payment, rather than by a till integration.
It has no reserved seating or venue seat maps, so a performance with assigned seats cannot be seated in the software. The provider directory lists the reviewed platforms that offer seating plans.
Paid checkout does not reserve capacity. Capacity is used only when payment confirmation arrives.