Guest lists and comps

A comp is a free ticket you give to a named person: an artist, a journalist, a sponsor, a friend. You manage them on the Guests tab of an event. It has four parts: the Guest list, Allocations, RSVPs and Imports.

Giving a comp

Choose Add a guest, give a name and an email, pick a tier and send. Each guest gets their own QR ticket with their name on it. A comp is free and Tikit takes no fee on it. It counts towards the tier's capacity, so it can sell out a tier, but it is left out of your sales figures and out of the check-in percentage used for your payouts.

You need to have published the event first. A tier you have not put on sale yet can still be given as a comp.

Guest lists and importing a list

Lists such as Press or Artist guests keep guests together, and you can filter the guest list by them. To bring in a spreadsheet, go to Imports, paste the rows or choose a CSV file, and choose Check the file.

• The columns are name (or first name and last name), email, and optionally phone, ticket type, quantity and note.
• A price column is the price of one ticket, not the order total.
• A file can have up to 1 000 rows and be up to 512 KB. Split anything bigger and import the parts one after the other.
• Every row is checked before anything is made. Rows with a problem are listed with the line number so you can fix them.
• Repeats are skipped: the same email on the same tier, or the same line imported before, is not given a second ticket.
• A guest you withdrew can be imported again.

You then match each ticket type in the file to one of your tiers, or skip those rows, and confirm. The import runs in the background and the page updates as it goes. You can leave and come back.

Messaging guests

Email always goes, because the ticket is something the guest needs. WhatsApp and SMS go only when you tick them and confirm that you have the guests' permission to message their phones. Without that, a phone number is kept with the ticket and never used.

RSVP invitations and partner guests are sent by email only.

Importing tickets sold elsewhere

If you sold tickets on another platform, choose Tickets sold elsewhere and upload its export, which needs a row of column names. Everyone gets a Tikit ticket, so they can be scanned at your door. Old barcodes from the other platform do not scan. Tikit charges nothing on these tickets and they do not pay out through Tikit. If a row was a mistake, use Void on it, with a reason.

Importing events

On the Events page, Import events creates draft events from a spreadsheet, with general-admission tiers. Use one row per ticket tier. Rows that share a title and start time are one event. Dates look like 2026-12-05 18:00, in South African time. Nothing goes on sale until you publish. Uploading the same file again does not duplicate anything: events that are already there are marked as such. If any row has a problem, nothing is created and you are shown the lines to fix.

RSVP invitations

An RSVP invitation emails a guest a link. They choose Accept and their free ticket is made at that moment, or I can't make it. Each invitation has a reply-by date, which is fourteen days away unless the event starts sooner. If it passes, choose Resend and give a new date to renew the invitation. Resending also gives a new link and switches off the old one. Withdraw cancels an invitation that has not been answered.

Holding tickets for partners

Under Allocations, Hold tickets takes tickets, or particular seats, off sale for a table, a sponsor, a venue, a promoter, an artist or the press. Give a reason and, if you like, a release date.

With no release date, the tickets are held until you release them or the event ends, and the hold moves if you change the event's end time. Release them any time and what has not been given out goes back on sale. Guests who already have tickets keep them.

If you give a partner's name and email, they get an invitation. They sign in at /partner with that address, using a six-digit code we email them, and name their own guests up to what you held. They see their guests' names and whether each has a ticket, and nothing else.

Going over capacity

A comp can exceed a general-admission tier's capacity when you say so. You need permission to change prices, you tick Go over capacity and you give a reason. The tier's capacity rises by the shortfall and the reason is recorded. If you withdraw those tickets later, the extra capacity is taken back. Seated tiers cannot go over: every ticket needs a seat.

Withdrawing a comp

Withdraw cancels a guest's tickets. They stop working as soon as scanners sync with the server. A ticket that was already scanned in stays admitted. The place goes back into the allocation it came from, or on sale.

Live QR

Comps follow the same rules as every other ticket. If you switched on live QR, the guest's email carries no QR image and shows only part of the order reference, and they open their ticket on the order page once it is revealed.

Last updated 5 October 2026. These pages describe Tikit as it is today.