Pre-fill

Pre-fill lets people enter their full registration details before tickets go on sale, so they can submit the instant sales open rather than racing to fill in a form. It is built for high-demand launches, where the difference between booking and missing out comes down to seconds.

How it works

With pre-fill turned on, a booking type offers a pre-fill option before its sales open. A person fills in their details, and close to launch they can also secure payment in advance. When sales open, they submit in one step, and their booking becomes a real order.

Payment holds, and why pre-fill is short-term

Pre-fill usually secures payment with a hold on the person’s card: the money is reserved, not taken, until they book. This is what lets payment go through instantly at launch.

Caution

A card hold only lasts a few days. Because of this, pre-fill is a short-term tool for the run-up to a launch, not something to open weeks ahead. If a hold lapses before sales open, the pre-fill is marked as expired and the person has to set up payment again.

A pre-fill entry shows one of three states:

• Saved: details are in, no payment hold yet.
• Authorised: a payment hold is in place, ready for launch.
• Expired: the hold lapsed and needs to be set up again.

Switching booking type

A pre-fill can be allowed to switch to other booking types, which is useful when someone pre-fills for a premium tier that might sell out. As long as the type they switch to is cheaper, their existing payment hold carries over, so they do not have to re-enter payment. You choose which switches are allowed on the booking type; see Allowed type changes.

Working with a pre-fill

Pre-fill is mostly self-service: people submit their own bookings when sales open, and you do not need to do anything. From an individual entry you can:

• Send an email, for example to remind people that sales open soon.
• Reset it back to the queue.
• Cancel it.