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Events & Inventory

How events, ticket types, seating, allocations and availability are set up and kept accurate.

Ticket inventory is the stock of admissions an event can sell, together with the rules that decide who can sell it, when and to whom. Inventory can be counted as general-admission quantities, as individual reserved seats, as timed entry slots or as a mix of these. Managing it well means every seller sees an accurate picture of what can still be sold, and no ticket is sold twice.

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What is ticket inventory?

Understand ticket inventory, capacity versus availability, held and sold tickets, seat maps, timed entry and how inventory changes during an onsale.

What is a ticket allocation?

Understand ticket allocations, how promoters and sales channels use them, and the difference between allocations, basket holds and reservations.

How do ticket basket holds and reservations work?

How ticketing baskets temporarily reserve seats or stock, why holds expire, what happens during payment, and how basket reservations differ from other ticket holds.

How do ticketing platforms prevent tickets being sold twice?

How ticketing systems prevent overselling with authoritative inventory, atomic reservations, order confirmation, payment recovery and multi-channel reconciliation.

Key ideas in this subject

Capacity is not the same as availability

Capacity is fixed; availability changes constantly as sales, basket holds, reservations, complimentary tickets and withheld seats reduce it, depending on each platform’s definitions.

Allocations divide inventory between sellers

An organiser can give a promoter a block, set aside a presale quantity and sell the rest directly. An allocation is not a sale.

Holds and reservations are different commitments

A hold briefly stops others buying a ticket during checkout; a reservation sets stock aside for longer. Systems use the words inconsistently.

Viewing, selling and administering are separate permissions

A partner may sell from its allocation and see its sales without being able to change or release the tickets it was given.

Reading paths

All 17 explanations in Events & Inventory, in 4 reading paths.

1 · Event and ticket setup
2 · Inventory and availability
3 · Allocations and holds
4 · Seating and entry formats

How this subject connects to others

APIs & Integrations

Inventory is usually shown and reserved through software interfaces, and an availability result is not a guarantee.

Distribution & Access

Allocations decide what each sales channel and partner can sell.