A ticket looks like a small piece of printed advertising and often gets treated as one, yet it is something else entirely: a document on the strength of which somebody either walks in or does not. That single difference settles several decisions an organiser usually remembers the day before sending the file off.
Tickets with individual printing are produced for concerts, events, parties and prize draws, but the same form also serves as an entry pass, a coupon, a voucher or a control ticket. All of those uses have one thing in common: the ticket is meant to confirm something, and somebody is going to check it.
What follows is a practical run through the decisions, written for somebody organising a ticketed event for the first time.
- The compulsory set - the name of the event, the date, the time, the venue and the type of admission. Everything else is optional.
- Numbering serves head counts, settling up and prize draws; not every event needs it.
- The control stub is the best compromise: one part stays with the staff, the other with the guest as a keepsake.
- In the calculator you choose the size, paper, printing, film, quantity and the option of gluing into pads.
- Printing the reverse turns a ticket into a keepsake somebody will actually want to keep.
What has to appear on a ticket
The compulsory set is shorter than you might expect, and that is exactly why it deserves to be taken seriously. These are the details people telephone the organiser about when they cannot find them on the ticket.
- The name of the event - in full, the same as on the poster and in every other message. The team knows the shorthand; the guest does not.
- The date and the time - together with the day of the week, since that is the detail people misread most often.
- The venue - the name of the place and the address. The name alone is enough only in a small town.
- The type of admission - full price, concession, festival pass, single day entry. The staff have to recognise it in a second.
Optional extras include the block or seat number, the time the doors open, a short note about house rules, a partner logo and the address of the terms. It is tempting to add all of them at once, and that is the moment a ticket stops being readable at a badly lit entrance.
Test the design in the conditions where the ticket will be read. Print it at full size, pick it up in the evening and try to find the time and the type of admission within three seconds. If you have to hunt, the details are too small or there are too many of them.
Numbering, or what the numbers are for
Numbering is neither decoration nor a default. It is a tool that earns its place when you intend to use it.
When it is genuinely needed
Numbers help in four situations: when you control admissions and want to know how many people really came in; when you settle up with somebody on the basis of tickets sold; when you run a prize draw and pick a number; and when you have numbered seats. If none of those describes your event, numbering is unnecessary.
What it gives you when settling up
After every ticketed event the same question arrives: how many people were there. Numbering turns it into simple subtraction: you know the range of the series, the highest number used and the returns. Without numbers you are left counting torn scraps of paper in a bucket. It can be done, but nobody enjoys it at one in the morning.
Numbering is also the simplest safeguard available. A unique number, one piece of artwork per event and control over the range of the series are enough at small and medium gatherings, because a repeated number stands out immediately at the door.
The control stub
The control stub is the part of the ticket separated by a line of perforation, which the staff tear off at the entrance. The ticket then exists on both sides: a fragment with the organiser, the rest with the guest.
This is the best compromise a paper ticket can offer. A ticket taken whole gives you control, but the guest walks away empty handed. A ticket never torn at all gives a keepsake, but opens the door to being used twice. The stub solves both problems at once.
When designing, remember two things: the number should be printed on both sides of the perforation so the halves can be paired, and the most important details must not sit on the tear line. We wrote about the way shape and perforation change an ordinary printed piece in our post on unusual leaflet formats.
Paper, film and gluing into pads
In the calculator on the event tickets page you choose the size, paper, printing, film, quantity and the option of gluing into pads. Every one of those decisions follows from what is going to happen to the ticket. Numbering and perforation are not on that list - those are things the organiser plans on their own side.
The size deserves practical thought. A ticket has to fit a pocket and sit comfortably in a member of staff's hand, while still holding every compulsory detail in legible type. An elongated rectangle works better than a square, because it leaves room for the stub without squeezing the rest. Printing can be one or two-sided, and that too is a design decision.
A ticket for a one-evening concert lives a few hours in a pocket. A festival pass spends three days there, gets damp, gets crumpled and is pulled out a dozen times. There a heavier paper and film pay for themselves, because the ticket has to survive in a readable state. Film also gives a smoother surface, across which staff can run a finger while looking for a number.
Gluing into pads is an option in the calculator and makes sense wherever you sell by hand: at the till, at the door, at a stand. A pad keeps tickets in one fixed order, does not scatter inside a bag and quietly keeps them going out one after another rather than at random. Where everything is sold in advance from a list, loose tickets are often more convenient.
The ticket as a keepsake
Some tickets end up in a bin by the exit, others on a pinboard above a desk. The difference usually comes down to a small thing: the second side.
The reverse of a ticket is most often blank, and that is a wasted surface. A photograph, the graphic motif of the event, one sentence from the organiser or a short thank you turn a scrap of paper into something worth holding on to. You can also announce the next edition there, and for a recurring event that is the cheapest advertising you have.
Personalisation by name works even more strongly at private events; we wrote about its limits in our piece on personalised printing. At a small gathering the ticket in turn joins the rest of the stationery, as in our set for an intimate party in a restaurant.
The order of planning
Tickets are best planned backwards, starting from what is going to happen at the door:
- Settle how admission will be checked - whether somebody stands at the door and tears, or scans, or only counts. That decides the stub and the numbering.
- Count the types of admission - full price, concession, pass, staff entry. Each type is a separate and clearly distinct version.
- Decide on numbering and on the range of the series, separately for each type of admission.
- Match the paper and finish to how long the ticket has to live: a few hours or three days of a festival.
- Set the quantity with a reserve for damaged tickets, staff tickets and those handed out by mistake.
- Artwork last - the design arranges itself around the information, not the other way round.
That order looks obvious, and in practice almost everybody begins at point six.
A ticket is the first object a guest receives from your event and the last one left over from it. It is worth making it work in both roles: readable in half a second at the door, and worth keeping once it gets home. The rest of our small printed items live in the pads and blocks section, and for events with a guest list it is worth looking at the invitations category too.
