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I need to cancel and/or refund my event
I need to cancel and/or refund my event
Updated over 3 months ago

We're really sorry to hear your event can't go ahead this time. Cancelling an event is never an easy decision, but we are here to help make the process as smooth as possible.

We recommend providing clear and timely communication and information to your buyers about the cancellation and refund process and respond quickly to any queries.


Stop further sales for your event

If your event cannot go ahead the first thing you may want to do is prevent any further ticket sales. To stop ticket sales for an entire event

  1. Manage your event via the events tab

  2. Click the "..." menu button in the top right

  3. Select stop sales

You can also remove an event from appearing on the Humanitix website or your host profile etc by marking the event as private

Navigate to event information > basics


Notify your ticket holders of the cancellation

We recommend contacting buyers with an email campaign as soon as possible with the details of the cancellation including the reasons why and any further information about refunds, replacement events, or alternative compensation etc.

To send an email campaign navigate to email campaigns on the top menu bar > new campaign

You cannot use the email campaign tool to email cancelled ticket holders. We recommend providing as much information to guests before you cancel their tickets.

While you do not necessarily need to process refunds at the same time you announce a cancellation you should be very clear to buyers about when they can expect a refund.

For example:

Hi John, we're sorry to announce that tomorrow's show cannot go ahead because of an artists sickness and is therefore cancelled.

You will receive a 100% refund of your ticket price. Your refund will be actioned within the next 7 days. You will receive a confirmation email when this has been processed...


Include details of the cancellation to your event page

While optional, providing further information about the cancellation on your public event page is a great way to communicate to non-ticket holders looking to a buy a ticket, or existing ticket holders who may have missed your communications.

Navigate to the event information page of your event to:

  • Add "CANCELLED" to your event title

  • Add text to your event description


How to refund and cancel all tickets

If the event can’t go ahead and is unlikely to be postponed, you likely want to cancel and offer buyers refunds.

Mass refund/cancel a large number of tickets

If your event has 10+ attendees, please contact the Humanitix support team. The Humanitix team can action a mass refund/cancellation on your behalf. All buyers will receive a refund confirmation email.

Please have ready:

  • Your event details including URL link and event date(s) to be refunded

  • The details of the refund

  • Any optional message you would like to include on the refund confirmation email

To contact the Humanitix team, use the messenger in the bottom right > messages > contact support and select "I have to cancel my event"

Your mass refund/cancellation request will be actioned within 1 business day.

Refund/cancel a small number of tickets

If you only have a handful of attendees - less than 10 - you can process the cancellation and refunds yourself at any time. This is often quicker than waiting for the Humanitix support team.

To refund and cancel a ticket:

  1. Navigate to orders/refunds > orders

  2. Select actions > refund/cancel... to the right of an order

  3. Follow the prompts

Cancel a FREE event

If your event was entirely free cancelling tickets may not be necessary and you can simply notify attendees the event could not go ahead via an email campaign.

As mentioned above, you can stop sales and mark the event as private to prevent any further sales or traffic to the event page

If you're still unsure you can still contact the Humanitix support team to request a mass cancellation.


How to postpone the event to a new date

While an event may not be able to go ahead on the scheduled date, that does not mean it needs to be cancelled. If you intend to run the same event on another date in the future you can postpone the event by updating the event date.

Postponing an event to a new date will move all existing ticket holders and allow you to continue sales for the new date

To postpone an event:

  1. Navigate to the event information

  2. Amend your event start/end date

  3. Click save

Buyers will not be notified of any date change to the event.

You must notify them via an email campaign and/or other communication method.


Transfer attendees to a different event or event date

If you have a different date for a recurring event or another event your attendees would be happy to attend then you can 'transfer' them by generating a new ticket.

Bulk upload ticket holders into a new event

  1. Export the manage attendees > attendees report as a CSV

  2. Navigate to bulk upload

  3. Copy and paste your attendee data in the template CSV file

  4. Upload your file

  5. New (complimentary) tickets will be generated for the new event with the same

  6. Using our bulk upload tool you can generate new tickets for your current attendees to a new event.

Swap individual tickets/orders to a new event

  1. Navigate to orders/refunds > orders

  2. Click on an Order ID

  3. Select actions > swap

  4. Follow the prompts to swap an existing ticket to a new event or event date

  5. The original ticket will be cancelled (no refund) and a new complimentary ticket will be generated

Note: Cancelled tickets cannot be 'swapped', if you have already cancelled a ticket you will need to create a new manual order on the new event event

Any funds from ticket sales on the original event will not be transferred to the new event.
These funds will be paid out with the cancelled event as per normal.

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