How to sell event tickets in WooCommerce

Use a simple product if every admission ticket has the same price and availability. Use a variable product if you need ticket types such as General admission, VIP and Student. WooCommerce variations can have their own prices, SKUs and stock levels.

Decide whether one order may contain several tickets, whether tickets have separate capacity limits, and whether you need attendee names. WooCommerce can take the payment, but it does not by itself create a unique ticket for each attendee or provide an event check-in system.

Go to Products > Add New, enter the event name and description, then choose Simple product or Variable product. For a variable product, add an attribute such as Ticket type, create the variations, and enter each variation's price and availability.

Tick Virtual because admission does not require shipping. Add the event date, venue, entry instructions and refund terms to the product description. A virtual product does not trigger shipping calculations at checkout.

Open the product's Inventory section and enable stock management. Enter the available quantity, leave backorders disabled, and set a low-stock threshold if you want warnings. For ticket types with separate capacities, manage stock on each variation rather than only on the parent product. WooCommerce can automatically mark an item out of stock when its tracked quantity reaches zero.

The common Friday-night failure is enabling stock on the parent product while leaving variations configured incorrectly. Check each ticket type in a private checkout and confirm that the remaining quantity falls for the correct variation.

Check that your payment gateway is enabled and that the checkout collects the information you actually need. Keep the form short unless you have a clear reason to request an attendee's name, phone number or organisation.

WooCommerce's normal order emails confirm the purchase, but they are not automatically unique admission tickets. A downloadable product can send a file link after a successful purchase, although the same attached file is normally supplied to every buyer.

Publish the product, then place a real or test order from an incognito browser on a phone and a desktop. Check the ticket type, quantity limits, tax, payment result, confirmation email and order status. Try buying the final available ticket, then confirm that another customer cannot buy it.

Also test an abandoned checkout and a failed payment. Inventory and email behaviour can differ according to the gateway and order status, so do not wait until the event is announced before checking these cases.

Use a ticketing extension when customers need a unique PDF ticket, QR code, attendee list, multiple sessions, or staff check-in. A dedicated WooCommerce event-ticketing system can issue ticket emails and QR codes and provide a check-in page instead of making staff verify orders manually.

Fast way: use WooCommerce Box Office. It is suited to selling tickets directly through WooCommerce with event inventory, PDF tickets and email confirmations, so you do not have to assemble separate products, file delivery and check-in processes yourself.