Ticketing Troubleshooting FAQ

Short answers for common ticketing problems before sales, during checkout, at the gate, and after the event.

Article guidance

Most ticketing problems come from setup state, payment readiness, visibility, inventory, rules, access settings, or permissions. Work through the visible state before assuming the system is broken.

Why can buyers not buy tickets?

The ticketed event may still be Draft, Paused, Closed, Archived, or Hidden.
The event may be Invite-only and the buyer has not entered an accepted code, invited email, or allowed email domain.
Paid checkout may not be Stripe-ready.
Ticket types may be inactive, hidden, outside their sale window, sold out, or blocked by max-per-order or max-per-customer limits.
A required schedule choice, holder field, checkout question, terms acceptance, or rule condition may be missing.

Why did a promo code not work?

The code may be inactive, archived, outside its date window, over its redemption cap, or above a per-customer limit.
The basket may not meet a minimum spend rule.
The selected ticket type or session may not be in the promo scope.
The code may have been typed differently from the generated or published code.

Why is a ticket stopped at the gate?

It may belong to another event.
It may already be checked in.
It may be refunded, voided, cancelled, transferred, expired, or marked no-show.
The scan may be outside the entry window.
The scanner may be using the wrong workflow or event access.

Why do finance figures not match expectations?

Check the report date range first.
Compare order status and payment status, not just order count.
Complimentary issues do not count as paid revenue.
Manual, cash, card terminal, external payment, invoice, Stripe, refund, and failed-refund states are different finance paths.
Use accounting and promo CSV exports when reconciling detailed figures.

What should I tell SmartGig support?

Ticketed event name.
Order reference or ticket reference where relevant.
Buyer email if the issue is about a customer order.
The page you were using, such as Setup, Orders, Attendees, Refunds, Reports, Disputes, Audit, or the public checkout.
What changed immediately before the issue appeared.