Selling Admissions?

[HistoryLover]

Hello,

I'm at a small institution where people are able to purchase a ticket and then come in and views the displays/grounds. When they're on-site, it's easy enough to sell them a ticket at the front desk.

However, I would like to give people the option to pre-purchase a ticket for their day of choice online. (We have a website through Wordpress, not Weebly, BTW).

I can create a purchase link that I can embed on our website to let people buy a ticket, but I can't figure out if there's a way to let people select a date for a ticket. I don't want to make a million item variations that I have to keep updating, as that's the only way I've figured out so far. Does anyone know if this is possible?

NOTE: I posted this query before, and was told to use an event payment link, but my response to that 'answer' has been ignored. An event payment link does NOT work, as it requires you to set a start date/end date and a start time/end time. It does not function for admissions to a site that is open multiple days a week throughout the year. 

I would have to set up an individual link for every single day the site is open, which is what I am trying to avoid. 

[Summer2024 · Accepted solution]

Hi, @HistoryLover !

Thank you for giving such a detailed description of what you are looking for. 

Right now, Square’s built-in tools for online selling don’t offer true ticketing or date-picker functionality for open-ended daily admission like a museum or garden that’s open year-round. The event payment link is really designed for one-time or fixed-date events, so you’re right in being frustrated as using it for year round events isn't practical. 

A lot of institutions in your position solve this by using a third-party booking or ticketing platform that does handle date selection and timed entries, then connect that to Square for payment processing. Some popular options that work well with WordPress and Square are Eventbrite, FareHarbor, or Checkfront. These tools let you create a ticket or booking product with a calendar that your visitors can pick a date from, and then they can pay online. Many of them have either direct Square integrations or use Square via a payment gateway.

If you prefer to keep it simple and stick with Square only, the best workaround inside Square is unfortunately still to make separate items or variations for each day (or create “Anytime Admission” tickets without a specific date and just manage the capacity manually at the door).

But for anything automated with date selection, an external booking or ticketing plug-in will save you a ton of manual work in the back end. 

Sorry I can't give you a better answer, but I wanted to provide some third-party options as a potential workaround for now. 

[Pintuna]

@HistoryLover this is Ashwin from Pintuna, a trusted Square partner. Pintuna Event and Ticketing app supports daily admission tickets. The app is tightly integrated with the Square POS System and all payments will be processed through your Square account.

Happy to demo the solution. You can reach us at [email protected] or schedule a demo using the following link - https://calendly.com/pintuna/30min