Independence during the crisis thanks to direct payments

‘Health is the highest good in life’ - easy to say when it doesn’t mean your whole existence will also be hanging by a thread. We aren’t going to lecture you because by now, you hopefully know how to wash your hands, sneeze and cough in order to minimise risk of infection.

Instead we want to reassure you of your financial safety and explain how payment processing works when working with pretix.

Unlike most of our competitors, we do not resell your tickets to customers. We are responsible for the technology running in the background nigh-invisibly – but sales and your finances are completely up to you. This means that the money for a ticket moves directly into your account (bank, PayPal, credit card, and so on) without any detours.

Admittedly, this may be a bit more complicated in some cases as it means that you need an additional account depending on payment method (for example a PayPal or Stripe account) and invoicing may get a bit more cumbersome. In practice, everything works automatically with most integrated payment providers and you only need to manually enter payments with manual payment methods such as bank transfer.

If we acted as an intermediary or payment provider ourselves, we would collect the money from your guests and then distribute it to you according to our specifications after working with it ourselves. You’d receive your money on the first of the month – or maybe even after your event. Of course this would be justified as we would carry liability.

Most platforms usually show goodwill with payouts before the event – and this goodwill can be revoked in emergency situations as it doesn't carry contractual obligation. This is currently happening with the global COVID19 pandemic.

This is devastating as the event sector – and especially artists, small theatres, organisers of seminars, workshops or small trade fairs – is being hit very hard and we all have to fight for our survival.

With pretix, at least there is no need to worry about payouts since we do not control your finances and therefore cannot hold back any payouts. This method also often allows for lower fees.

The backend option to cancel entire events, which we introduced a few weeks ago, refunds tickets almost automatically. Your guests are notified immediately and you are able to attend to even more important matters. We explained this option and how we handle our fees in this case in an earlier blog post.

We are always available for questions. Our team telecommutes most of the time already, so we will be able to provide you with the full range of our service.

On that note: stay healthy.