Tickets for Attraction

[Katherine]

I understand that it is possible to use recurring tickets to sell admission tickets to an attraction – open every day for the same hours. However, is it possible to achieve this:

1. Sell admiddion tickets for an attraction, available every day between the same hours
2. Have the option to arbitrarily block days when the attraction is closed, or ideally to change the hours on certain days. Logic for this is that the attraction is sometimes hired out or booked privately for whole or partial days and tickets should not be available for these days/times.
3. Close certain days annually, like Christmas Day or the like. Am ok with doing this manually if 2 above is possible.

In each case, if possible, is it out of the box functionality or something for which hooks or filters can be used?

Another (probably unanswerable!) question. I’m on a very, very tight deadline on this project. How steep is the learning curve for someone with extensive experience of WP and Woo as well as good PHP etc skills?

Thanks

[Katherine]

Just so it’s clear to me – I am quite confused about what I actually need! I’ve installed the free version and am playing with that. However it appears

It appears the free version does not support ticket sales. So, Events Calendar Pro supports recurring events but does not actually allow selling tickets? For that I’ll need both it and the Events Tickets Plus addon? Or do I just need Event Tickets Plus (which however it appears does not handle recurring events)?

Or does this:
“Please note that at this time, Event Tickets Plus will NOT support tickets for recurring events. Please keep this in mind before making your purchase.”

mean that someone cannot buy a ticket for ‘every wednesday’ but can buy a ticket for a specific Wednesday of a recurring event?

I am going to stop reading now, just making my confusion worse!

[Geoff]

Hi Katherine, and thanks for getting in touch!

So sorry for the confusion — I realize it can be tough finding the right configuration of plugins so I’m happy to help you out here.

First things first: recurring events do not currently support tickets. In other words, if you have created a recurring event using Events Calendar PRO, then any tickets you create for that recurring series will be attached to the parent event in the series, rather than the individual events. So, in other words, the tickets you sell for the series will not be associated with all the other events in the series making them unusable for any event but the parent.

That said, the process for creating recurring events is completely flexible and can accommodate custom patterns. We have a lot more information on how to create custom recurrence patterns for events in this post but, in short, you can create events that happen on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis, add exclusions to those conditions and set that recurring events have either the same or different start and end times.

I’m on a very, very tight deadline on this project. How steep is the learning curve for someone with extensive experience of WP and Woo as well as good PHP etc skills?

I think it would be a low learning curve in that case. The plugins should work right out of the box, but all our code is documented and we have lots of other customizing examples available in our Knowledgebase.

So, Events Calendar Pro supports recurring events but does not actually allow selling tickets? For that I’ll need both it and the Events Tickets Plus addon? Or do I just need Event Tickets Plus (which however it appears does not handle recurring events)?

If you need recurring events, then you will certainly need Events Calendar PRO. If you need the ability to sell tickets, then you will need Event Tickets Plus, with the understanding that Events Calendar PRO and Event Tickets Plus do not currently support each other when it comes to selling tickets for recurring events. That is a feature we are working on for our next major release, though.

This would be the plugin combo for you:

• The Events Calendar (free)
• Events Calendar PRO (adds recurring events functionality)
• Event Tickets (free)
• Event Tickets Plus (adds integration for creating selling tickets)
• WooCommerce (free, the cart and checkout engine for payments)

I sure hope this helps clarify things! Please let me know and I’d be happy to answer any other questions you might have about purchasing the plugins. 🙂

Cheers!
Geoff

[Katherine]

Hi Geoff,

That’s very helpful, thanks for such a full reply.

I am still not entirely clear about selling recurring events. Particularly you slightly lose me when you say ‘parent event’ – I am not clear what you mean exactly by that. I am starting to wonder if I actually need recurring events – though I am happy that I need Pro and tickets plus for other features anyway.

I’ll explain the requirements a bit better.

There will be lots of standard events, one-off on specific dates, and they are fine. I can see how well they are handled.

The only recurring event will sell admission tickets to an attraction, so there will be exactly one recurring event, ever. Prices for admission will be the same (with different ticket options eg Adult, Child, Student etc), no matter the day this won’t change. We do not need (or want) the ‘event’ to actually show up as a separate event (or post) every day, just that there is a way for people to select the day they are buying tickets for, so that

1. We can know how many advance bookings there are for a date
2. We can block out days/partial days
3. We can send the user an email confirming their ticket(s) for the correct date

Setting ticket availability (ie ‘stock’) per day would be useful, but isn’t a deal breaker. Specifying time is a later ‘nice to have’ that can wait indefinitely.

I am thinking something like this. Which may be off the wall.

If a single ordinary event with no end date or a long duration was added with a date picker custom field, then I could build the client a separate interface to manage availability on the date picker, with a bit of jQuery to control display. Then write a function that picks up information from the purchase (including date picker) and updates availability in the calendar/ticket stock accordingly following completion of purchase. I use Gravity forms a lot, and am very comfortable writing functions based on that, so I am wondering if it might be possible to do this by integrating a GF form into the event?

Are there filters/hooks that would facilitate this sort of approach? Or am I duplicating existing functionality that will be available soon anyway? Or just making it too complicated.

I am pleased the ticket integration will be part of the next major release, but sadly don’t have the luxury of time.

Thanks again for your help,

[Geoff]

Hi Katherine, thanks for following up!

A recurring event is a single event post that duplicates itself intentionally a number of times that it is set to do. So, for example, an event that is set to recur on the first of every month for one year starting January 1, 2016 will duplicate itself 11 times until it;s last instance on December 1, 2016.

The first event in that series is what I’m referring to as the “parent”. In WordPress, editing that event will edit all of the others.

So, if a ticket is created for a recurring event, it will be attached to the “parent” in the recurring series rather than each individual instance. In other words, a ticket sold for the March 1, 2016 instance is actually a ticket sold for the January 1, 2016 parent. That is why recurring events and tickets are not currently compatible.

Regardless, it sounds like you would still need Events Calendar PRO and Event Tickets Plus for other features, even though they do not integrate together in that specific way. I just wanted you to have a good idea of that limitation before you make the purchase.

Are there filters/hooks that would facilitate this sort of approach? Or am I duplicating existing functionality that will be available soon anyway? Or just making it too complicated.

I think that would take a lot more custom development, to be honest. The work we’ve been putting into building a way for recurring events and tickets to work together has required a lot more complex work than it might seem is needed and I’m doubtful that Gravity Forms would be a viable workaround for it.

Cheers!
Geoff

[Geoff]

Hey Katherine, I see one of my last replies was marked as the correct answer. I’ll go ahead and close this thread but please feel free to let us know if any other questions pop up and we’d be happy to help. 🙂

Cheers and have a great day!
Geoff

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