Contents — 20 sections
Before you start
Have these five things ready and the rest of setup takes about 20 minutes. You can save a draft at any point and come back.
A free Booking Simple account with an email you check often — approval updates and booking notifications go there.
Example: you@yourcompany.com.au
A PDF, JPG or PNG of your venue hire agreement, receipt or approval email. Our team reviews it before your event goes live. It is stored privately and never shown publicly.
Example: Athenaeum_Theatre_hire_agreement.pdf
Write down each ticket type, its price and how many you will sell. Decide early whether you need family packages or group discounts.
Example: General admission $25 × 100 · Front row $40 × 30
A portrait poster at roughly 800 × 1200 px (2:3). This is what people see on event cards and the event page.
Example: diwali-poster-800x1200.jpg
Needed only if you are charging for tickets. Stripe pays your ticket sales directly into your bank account.
Example: Connect during setup — see step 03
Running a free, registration-only event? You do not need Stripe, ticket pricing or fee settings. Choose Free Event in the Ticketing section and you are ready to submit.
Create your organiser account
One account manages all of your events, orders, refunds and payouts.
- 1Open the organiser sign-up
Go to Organiser sign-up and enter your email and a password.
- 2Verify your email
Enter the 6-digit code we email you. Check your spam folder if it has not arrived within a minute.
- 3Complete your profile
Add your display name — this is what appears on your organiser page and in buyer emails.
- 4You land on your dashboard
From here you can create events, view orders and manage everything for the events you run.
Sign in as usual, then open Get started to begin listing events — no second account needed.
Connect Stripe to get paid
Stripe is how ticket money reaches your bank account. You only do this once — every paid event you run afterwards uses the same connection.
When a customer buys a ticket, the payment goes straight into your Stripe account. Booking Simple never holds your money and never sees your bank details or card numbers.
- 1Open your payment settings
Sign in and go to your dashboard, then the Payments tab. You can also reach it from Organiser settings → Payments & payouts.
- 2Click “Connect Stripe Account”
You are taken to Stripe, a regulated payment provider, to create or link an account.
- 3Tell Stripe about your business
Business type (sole trader, company, charity), ABN, registered address, bank account for payouts, and photo ID for the account holder. Have these on hand.
- 4Finish and return to Booking Simple
Stripe sends you back automatically. The status card should read Connected, with Payments: Enabled and Payouts: Enabled.
- 5Check the status card before publishing
If it still says anything other than Connected, finish the outstanding items first — paid events cannot go live until Stripe is ready.
If your event is paid and Stripe is not connected, the event cannot go live. This protects you from selling tickets you cannot be paid for. Connect Stripe first, then submit the event for approval.
The status card shows a badge telling you which mode the platform is in. In Test mode no real money moves — use it to rehearse your whole checkout before your real launch. In Live mode every sale is a real payment.
A customer pays $25.00. Stripe takes its card fee, Booking Simple takes its platform fee, and the remainder is paid out to your bank on Stripe's normal payout schedule. You can change your bank account at any time from Manage Stripe Account — it never passes through Booking Simple.
Let AI fill the form for you
The very first panel on the “List your event” form. Give it your event details and it fills every field it can, then tells you what is still missing.
You do not have to type your event out field by field. The teal panel at the top of the form — Let AI fill the form for you — reads what you give it and populates the title, description, date, venue, prices and more. You then check the form, add your images, and submit.
| Option | What to give it |
|---|---|
| Paste text | Copy the text from your flyer, an email, a Word doc or your own notes and paste it into the box. More detail gives a better result. |
| Upload file | Upload the flyer, poster or document itself — PDF, JPG or PNG, up to 10 MB. It reads the text inside the file. |
- 1Choose paste or upload
Pick whichever is quicker for you. A poster PDF usually beats typing.
- 2Press “Fill my event form”
It reads your details for a few seconds, then fills the fields below.
- 3Read the “Still needed” list
Anything it could not find is listed with a question — answer those in the form.
- 4Add your images
The AI reads text only, so your poster and hero image are always added by you. Sizes are below.
- 5Check and submit
Anything you had already typed is kept. Nothing is created until you press Submit for approval.
| Filled from your details | Always done by you |
|---|---|
| Event name, organising group, genre, languages | Poster image and hero image (both required) |
| Description and cast & crew | Gallery images and brand colour |
| Date, start time, city, venue name and address | Seating map or interactive seat layout |
| Contact email and phone | Venue confirmation document |
| Ticket tiers with prices and capacities, and family packages | Stripe connection (paid events) |
| Event FAQs, where your copy answers them | Fee settings and discounts |
Event name · the group running it · date and start time · venue name and full address · city · what the event is (genre and language) · a paragraph describing it · each ticket type with its price and how many you are selling · any family package · cast or performers.
Missing prices or a missing venue are the two things that most often come back as “still needed”.
The AI works from text, so artwork is never imported automatically. Both required images must be uploaded by you:
| Image | Required | Dimensions | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poster (portrait) | Yes | 800 × 1200 px (2:3). Minimum 600 × 900 px | JPG, PNG or WebP · max 3 MB |
| Hero image (banner) | Yes | 1600 × 400 px (4:1). Minimum 1200 × 300 px | JPG, PNG or WebP · max 3 MB |
| Gallery images | Optional, up to 4 | 1200 × 900 px (4:3). Minimum 800 × 600 px | JPG, PNG or WebP · max 3 MB |
| Seating map | Optional | 1600 × 1000 px landscape | PNG, JPG or PDF · max 10 MB |
Your poster must be portrait and your hero must be a wide 4:1 banner — the uploader rejects anything else and tells you the ratio it found, so it is worth exporting them at these sizes before you start.
An uploaded flyer or document is stored privately and used only to read your event details. It is never shown on your event page or shared with buyers.
The event details
This is the top half of the “List your event” form. Everything here appears on your public event page.
The headline of your event page and the title used in emails and tickets. Keep it short and recognisable.
Example: Diwali Sandhya 2026
Who is running the event. Shown to buyers so they know who they are buying from.
Example: Melbourne Indian Arts Collective
Pick one of the eight emojis. It appears on event cards and as a fallback if your image is missing.
Example: 🪔
Theatre, Music & Concerts, Comedy, Dance, Cultural & Community, or Other. This decides which category page your event appears on.
Example: Cultural & Community
Optional, and you can pick several. Used by buyers filtering for events in their language.
Example: Hindi · English · Multilingual
What to expect: the story, running time, language, interval and whether there are subtitles. This is the biggest block on your page, so make it inviting.
Example: An evening of classical and contemporary performances celebrating Diwali, with a live four-piece band. Runs 2 hours 20 minutes including interval.
Optional credits — director, performers, musicians. Shown below the description.
Example: Director: Priya Deshpande · Music: Aarav Kulkarni
The first two lines of your description are what people read before they scroll. Lead with the experience, not the logistics — the date and venue are already printed above it.
Date, time and venue
These four fields drive your event page, the ticket email, calendar invites and how buyers filter by city.
The performance date. Format is day/month/year in the picker.
Example: 07/11/2026
The time the event starts — not doors. Doors time is worked out automatically from the start time.
Example: 16:30
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra or Other. This decides which city page your event appears on.
Example: Melbourne
The venue as audiences know it. Shown on the page and on every ticket.
Example: Chai 'N' Chilli Clayton
Full street address including suburb and postcode. Used for the map link, the ticket email and search engines.
Example: 125 Carinish Road, Clayton VIC 3168
Once your event is published and you have sold tickets, changing the date, time, venue or city automatically emails every ticket holder to tell them what changed. That is the right thing to do — but it is much better to get it right first time.
Prove the venue booking
A short section that reviewers use to confirm the venue is genuinely booked in your name. It is never shown to the public.
Yes — confirmed, Pending, or No. Answer honestly: Pending is fine, it simply means our team may ask for the confirmation later.
Example: Yes — confirmed
Optional booking or contract number from the venue, if you have one.
Example: VEN-2026-00482
PDF, JPG or PNG up to 10 MB — hire agreement, invoice, receipt or the venue's approval email.
Example: Athenaeum_hire_agreement.pdf
Anything the reviewer should know, such as an agreement still to be signed.
Example: Final signed agreement to follow by 1 September.
Events with a confirmation document attached are usually reviewed and approved the same business day. Without one, our team may come back to you asking for it before the event can go live.
Ticketing: paid or free
Decide whether you are selling tickets or taking free registrations, then set the ticket types and how many of each you can sell.
Leave this on for anything people attend. Turn it off only for a listing with no tickets at all — the event then acts as a notice on your page, with no booking button.
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Paid event | You set a price per ticket. Checkout runs through Stripe, so you need Stripe connected. A Booking Simple fee applies and you choose who pays it; the card processing fee is always yours. |
| Free event | Free registration tickets with capacity limits. No payment, no Stripe, no fees. Guests still receive a QR ticket by email. |
What the buyer sees when choosing. Use plain, descriptive names rather than internal codes.
Example: General admission
Price per ticket in Australian dollars. For a free event this field is hidden and every ticket is $0.
Example: 25
The maximum number of tickets of this type you will sell. Sales for that tier stop once the limit is reached.
Example: 100
Under the tier list the form adds up the capacities you entered and shows the total. That number is your sales ceiling — make sure it matches what the venue can actually hold.
General admission — $25 × 100 seats.
Premium / front row — $40 × 30 seats.
Total capacity 130. Both tiers appear side by side on the event page with their prices.
When a buyer selects tickets, those seats are reserved for 10 minutes so two people cannot buy the same seat. A countdown is shown at the top of checkout. If it expires, the tickets return to sale and the buyer simply picks again.
Family packages and group discounts
Two optional extras that lift average order value: bundle tickets at a set price, or discount automatically once someone buys a group.
A package sells several tickets as one product at a single price. On the event page it shows its composition, for example 2A + 2C for two adults and two children.
What the buyer sees. Keep the group size obvious in the name.
Example: Family of 4
One price for the whole package, usually below the sum of its individual tickets.
Example: 80
How many adult tickets are included in one package.
Example: 2
How many child tickets are included in one package.
Example: 2
How many packages you will sell — not how many people. A capacity of 20 sells 80 seats.
Example: 20
These trigger automatically at checkout when someone's basket meets a condition — no promo code needed. Turn the feature on, then add one rule per offer.
- 1Name the rule
Something you will recognise later, ideally including the trigger.
- 2Choose AND or OR
AND means every quantity threshold must be met. OR means any single one is enough.
- 3Set quantity thresholds
Pick a tier and the minimum quantity of it that triggers the discount.
- 4Set the discounted prices
The new per-ticket price applied to every qualifying ticket of that tier.
- 5Exclude tiers if needed
Optional — keep premium or already-discounted tiers out of the offer.
Rule name: Family bundle 2+2
Condition: AND
Thresholds: Adult — at least 2 · Child — at least 2
Discounted prices: Adult $25 (was $30) · Child $12 (was $15)
Two adults and two children would normally cost $90 and now costs $74 at checkout, shown as a group discount line.
If several rules match, the first one in the list wins — discounts never stack. Order your rules from the most specific offer to the most general.
Fees: decide who pays
Two fees apply to paid tickets. You do not set the rates — you choose whether your customer pays them or they come out of your payout.
| Fee | What it covers | Who pays |
|---|---|---|
| Booking Simple processing fee | Listing, ticketing, check-in and support | You choose — add it to the ticket price, or deduct it from your payout |
| Card processing fee | Charged by Stripe for each card transaction | Always you — Australian rules do not allow card fees to be added to a customer's price |
Booking fee: 0.5% + $0.25 per ticket, capped at $2.50 — about $0.38 on this ticket.
Card fee: 2.5% + $0.30 per transaction — about $0.93 on a single-ticket order, always paid by you.
Booking fee added to the customer: they pay $25.38, and you receive $25.00 less the $0.93 card fee — about $24.07.
Booking fee absorbed by you: they pay $25.00 and you receive about $23.69.
Figures are illustrative. The calculator inside the fee section of your event form uses your live rates and updates as you change the tickets number.
Adding both fees to the customer keeps your listed ticket price as your actual income, and buyers see the full cost before paying. Absorbing them makes the ticket price look cheaper but reduces what you receive.
Whatever you choose, the order summary at checkout and the confirmation email list the ticket value, the fees and the final total separately. There are no hidden charges.
Seating (optional)
Choose nothing for general admission, upload a picture of your seating plan, or build a real seat map that people click.
Leave both options off and buyers simply choose a quantity. This is the fastest setup and suits most general admission events.
A floor plan or chart shown so attendees understand the room. Recommended 1600 × 1000 px landscape, PNG or JPG, up to 10 MB. PDF is also accepted.
Example: athenaeum-seating-plan.png
Turn on Enable interactive seat selection and define sections. Customers pick their exact seat on a live map during checkout, and a seat cannot be sold twice.
A region of the room, such as Stalls or Balcony.
Example: Stalls
How many rows are in that section. Rows are lettered automatically.
Example: 5
How many seats sit in each row.
Example: 20
Optional per-seat price for that section.
Example: 35
A stage preview updates as you add sections so you can see the shape of the room, and the form totals the seats across all sections. After sales begin you can block individual seats or assign a specific seat to a booking from the Seating tab of your dashboard.
Use interactive seating when the seat matters to the buyer (theatre, allocated cabaret, reserved rows). Use a map image when it does not — it keeps checkout two clicks shorter.
Event FAQs
Answer the questions you keep getting asked, once. They appear as a tidy expandable list on your event page.
Is there parking nearby? · What time do doors open? · Is the venue wheelchair accessible? · Can I bring children? · Are refunds available? · Will there be food and drinks?
Five well-written questions beat fifteen one-liners. If the same question keeps arriving by email, that is the one to add next.
Promotion studio: your artwork
The images that sell your event. Good artwork does more for ticket sales than any other field on the form — and the hero image and poster are both required before you can submit.
The wide banner across the top of your event page. Required — the event cannot be submitted for approval without one. It is a 4:1 strip, so export it wide.
Example: 1600 × 400 px (4:1) · minimum 1200 × 300 px · max 3 MB
Your portrait poster, used on event cards and in shared links. Required, and it must be portrait — the uploader rejects anything that is not roughly 2:3.
Example: 800 × 1200 px (2:3) · minimum 600 × 900 px · max 3 MB
Extra photos shown further down the page — past performances, cast, the venue. Two to six works well.
Example: Three production stills
Used for accents on your page so it feels like yours.
Example: #16A6A1
Where you plan to promote — useful for your own planning and reporting.
Example: Instagram · WhatsApp · Email
Ask to be considered for the featured spot on the home page. Our team selects featured events from these requests.
Example: Tick for season launches
The form will not submit without a hero image and a poster. Accepted formats are JPG, PNG and WebP up to 3 MB each. If your file is rejected, the uploader tells you the ratio it found — re-export at 1600 × 400 px for the hero and 800 × 1200 px for the poster.
Export your poster once at 800 × 1200 px, then reuse it everywhere: the event page, your Instagram story and the marketing kit. Consistency makes an event look established. The AI import reads text only, so artwork is always uploaded by you here.
Search settings (optional)
Everything here is generated automatically from your event details. Only fill these in if you want to override what we produce.
The last part of your event's web address. Auto-built from event name, city and year.
Example: diwali-sandhya-melbourne-2026
The blue headline in Google results. Around 60 characters is ideal.
Example: Diwali Sandhya 2026 | Melbourne | Booking Simple
The two grey lines under the title in search results. Around 155 characters.
Example: An evening of classical and contemporary performances at Chai 'N' Chilli Clayton, Melbourne.
The headline when your link is shared on Facebook, WhatsApp or Instagram.
Example: Diwali Sandhya 2026 — Melbourne
The line under the headline in a shared link preview.
Example: Join us for a night of music, dance and light.
Your event's address is what you put on posters, in Instagram bios and in every message you send. If you change the slug after publishing, any link you already shared will stop working. Set it once, before launch.
Structured event data, canonical links, sitemap entries and city and category pages are generated automatically. You do not need to do anything for your event to be indexable — it will appear in search results and in our Explore pages as soon as it is published.
Contact details and submitting for review
The last section of the form, and the two buttons that end setup.
Shown on tickets and in buyer emails so attendees can reach you. Use an address you actually monitor.
Example: hello@yourcollective.com.au
Optional. Appears alongside your email on tickets and organiser page.
Example: +61 400 000 000
- 1Save as draft
Stores the event privately on your dashboard. Nothing is public and nothing goes to review — perfect for building the page across a few sittings.
- 2Submit for approval
Sends the event to the Booking Simple team. It stays off the public site until it is approved, then it publishes automatically.
Clear description and correct date, time and venue, working contact details, and a venue confirmation document. Paid events also need a connected Stripe account. Fix those and approval is usually quick.
After publishing: editing without breaking bookings
You can keep improving an event once it is live. Some changes are safe, some are limited, and some notify everyone who has already bought.
Ticket prices, capacities and new tiers apply to new bookings only. Anyone who has already paid keeps the price they paid and their ticket stays valid.
A tier that has bookings cannot be renamed or deleted — that would detach it from real tickets. You can disable it instead: it disappears from sale while every existing ticket is preserved.
1. Create the event and save as draft.
2. Upload poster and hero image, then check the preview.
3. Submit for approval and connect Stripe if it is a paid event.
4. On approval, copy the event link from Marketing kit and share it everywhere at once.
5. Create a promo code before launch, not after — an early-bird discount on day one works far better.
Add a ticket for an attendee
There are three ways to get a ticket into someone's hands. The first is by far the most common.
- 1Copy the event link
Open Marketing kit and copy the event link for the event.
- 2Send it to them
Text, WhatsApp, email or Instagram story. The link opens your event page — no account needed to book.
- 3They choose and pay
They pick a tier or seats, enter their name and email, and pay by card (or confirm free registration).
- 4They receive their ticket instantly
The confirmation email contains the QR code and a PDF ticket. It also appears under My Tickets for anyone signed in.
- 1Open your event page
Sign in as yourself, then open the public event page from Marketing kit.
- 2Select their tickets
Choose the tier, quantity or seat exactly as they would.
- 3Enter the attendee's name and email — not your own
On the “Your details” step put their full name and their email address. This is what the ticket is issued to.
- 4Pay and finish
The QR ticket and confirmation go straight to the attendee's inbox. You can see the order in your dashboard under Orders.
If you enter your own email, the ticket and QR code are issued to you. Always use the attendee's address so they receive their own ticket and can be checked in by name.
For a free event, add a $0 ticket type such as “Complimentary — invited guests” with a small capacity, book the guests under their details, then disable that type once your list is filled so nobody else claims it.
On a paid event, create a promo code and apply it at the guest's checkout instead. Whatever you choose, run one test booking yourself before announcing it.
Managing orders and checking people in
Everything that happens between the first sale and the last guest through the door.
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Resend ticket email | Sends the confirmation and QR code again to the attendee. |
| Download ticket | Downloads the QR ticket to your device. |
| Add note | Records an internal note against the booking — dietary needs, seating requests, phone bookings. |
| Cancel booking | Releases the booking without taking money back. Use for no-shows or mistakes. |
| Refund booking | Starts the refund process for that order. |
Filter by event, and search by attendee name, email or booking reference. The attendee list shows who is checked in and who is still expected.
- 1Open the Check-in tab
The scanner runs in your phone's browser — no app to install.
- 2Scan the guest's QR code
Point the camera at the ticket. Valid tickets turn green with the guest's name and ticket type; used or invalid tickets are refused immediately.
- 3Watch it live
Live attendance shows how many people are in against how many are still expected, updated as you scan.
The Reports tab shows tickets sold, revenue, checked-in counts and attendance by ticket type. It stays available after the event ends, so you can compare shows across a season.
Event-day checklist
Print this page and run through it before doors open.
Check Stripe is still Connected. Send a reminder to ticket holders from the Notifications tab if anything has changed.
Open Orders and confirm the attendee count. Add a note to any special requests so the team at the door can see them.
Charge your scanner phone, test one scan on your own ticket, and make sure your check-in team can sign in.
Open Live attendance on a second device so you can see the room filling up.
Leave the scanner open. Walk-ups can be booked on the spot from your event page.
Revoke door staff access, review the report, and settle any refund requests within your stated policy.
Frequently asked questions
The questions organisers ask most often, answered in plain language.
Send us the event name and what you are seeing through the contact page — we will get back to you with the fix, usually the same day.
Your event is ready to list
Start with a draft — you can take your time and submit it for review whenever you are ready.
Create your event