Whether it's COVID-19 or the weather, life can throw a lot of curveballs that can potentially impact your event. Brown Paper Tickets is here to support you and your attendees. Preparation and communication are key to effectively handling major changes for events.
Preparation
While it's impossible to predict everything that might come up, having plans in place for common issues can be helpful. As each season presents its own challenges, whether your event is indoors or outdoors, it's good to be prepared.
Spring/Summer - Spring and summer might bring weather-related difficulties, especially for outdoor events, such as rain, heat or wildfire smoke.
Advising your attendees on what's best to wear and what they're allowed to bring can help them be ready for the conditions at your outdoor event. Is your event happening rain or shine? Provide preparation details on your event page, along with any messaging sent to your ticket buyers.
Autumn/Winter - In addition to difficult weather such as snowstorms, autumn and winter can bring other challenges, like increased cold, flu and even COVID cases.
If you have any COVID-related precautions in practice at your venue, communicate this to your attendees prior to the event date. Informing your attendees about their options if they're feeling sick when the event rolls around can help protect the safety of your customers and staff.
Refunds and Exchanges
Our Event Support team is happy to facilitate refunds and/or date exchanges for your customers up until the online sales have ended for your event. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about how refunds or exchanges are handled.
You can communicate ahead of time with your attendees about any health and safety measures you may have in place for your event. You can add this information to the event's Full Description or Notes for Attendees, as well as send it in an Event Notification.
Messaging
Let your attendees know you care about their well-being and be sure to keep them in the loop when event changes occur. As soon as plans change, update your patrons by sending an Event Notification using our Email Your Attendees tool.
While event changes can be disappointing, attendees will appreciate your communication. Before sending a notification to your attendees, determine if you will be changing, postponing, or canceling the event. Once you've decided how to proceed, information regarding refunds and new dates can be shared with your attendees.
Postponements
Want to reschedule your event and avoid automatically refunding tickets? You can postpone your event and share a new date later with your attendees. You’ll have a 90-day grace period to set a new date.
See our Help Center article: When You Need to Postpone an Event
Cancellations
If your event cannot be rescheduled and it’s not appropriate to proceed as originally planned, we suggest canceling the event.
To do so, please follow our standard cancellation procedures.
In the case of a cancelled event, the full cost of tickets will be refunded to ticket buyers. If you would like to offer your patrons the opportunity to donate to your organization, you can:
- Add a donation option to your event page for non-canceled events
- Create a donations-only page for your organization
- Include an external donation link in your cancellation notification
Brown Paper Tickets Credit Card Processor Refunds
Please allow Brown Paper Tickets to handle refunds for cancelled or postponed events. We will issue full refunds to buyers, including service fees. Refunding buyers independently can lead to duplicate refunds as well as reduced or delayed event payments.
Event Insurance
You may consider looking into Event Cancellation/Contingency and Nonappearance Insurance or reviewing your policy before making any major event decisions.