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Switching ticketing platform without losing a season: a four-week plan

A week-by-week plan for moving events, contacts and money to a new supplier while sales keep running.

By NightHall · Published 2026-10-14 · 7 min read · switching, planning

Organizers stay with the wrong supplier because switching looks like it will eat the season. It does not have to. Four weeks, one event at a time, with the old system running until the new one has taken real money. This plan assumes a recurring promoter with a club night and a festival ahead.

Week one: read the contract and export everything

Start with the notice period. Every NightHall plan carries at most two months notice, and many incumbents ask for more. Read the current contract for three numbers: the notice period, the notice date, and any fee per refunded ticket or chargeback. Weeztix, for example, charges EUR 0.50 excluding VAT per refunded ticket and EUR 25 excluding VAT per chargeback. Those lines decide whether to move an event mid-sale or let it sell out first.

Then export everything while the account is in good standing. The list:

  1. Events with dates, venues, capacities and ticket types.
  2. Contacts with consent records per purpose.
  3. Orders with buyer, tickets, payments and refund state.
  4. Balances: credit, gift cards and loyalty points per holder.
  5. The money: payouts, fees, invoices and the tax report.

Full export stays open on NightHall with no switching charge, so leaving later costs nothing either. Whatever the current supplier charges for an export, pay it once rather than rebuild the history by hand.

Week two: rebuild one event, not the season

Rebuild exactly one event on the new platform: the smallest upcoming one with simple tickets. Recreate the venue with its published capacity, the ticket types with their prices, and the fees the buyer will read. NightHall plans hold the event, the venue, the budget, the tasks and the run sheet in one place. The rebuild is also the moment the run sheet stops living in a spreadsheet.

Set the money up before anything sells. Connect the organizer's own Stripe account through the hosted onboarding, and check the payout schedule on the Money page before the first sale. A platform fee of EUR 0.20 per paid ticket on Pay as you go, Stripe iDEAL at EUR 0.29 per order, and 21 percent VAT on the platform fee: write those three into the event budget now.

Do not move the season. One event proves the setup. The rest wait until that event has taken money and paid it out.

Week three: the shadow sale

Run the rebuilt event as a shadow beside the old system. Sell a bounded channel through the new platform: presale to followers, an access code for the mailing list, or the box office on the night. The old system keeps the main onsale. Both records are real, and the comparison is honest.

This is also the week for access. Invite the team with roles: the event manager builds, finance reads the money, the door lead gets the scanner. NightHall allows up to 5 team members on Pay as you go and unlimited team members on Flat rate. Train the door lead on the scanner before the night, not during it.

Check the buyer side on a phone. The first price must include every compulsory charge: admission, the organizer's own service fee and VAT. That has been the Dutch rule since 2017, and the ACM fined sellers who added fees late in the flow. Walk the checkout as Emma would, two tickets on iDEAL, and read every screen.

Week four: move the next event, keep the past

Once the shadow event has sold, paid out and scanned at the door, move the next event fully. Keep past events where they are until their refund period ends. Refunds reverse the buyer's original charge on the account that took it, so an event moved mid-sale splits its refund path across two systems. Let sold-out past events close out naturally.

Tell buyers once, in one place. The event page carries the organizer's name, address, phone and email before any purchase binds. A short notice on the event page and in the confirmation mail is enough. Tickets bought before the move stay valid. The door list holds both, and the contact address is unchanged.

What to check before signing

  1. Notice period and the exact notice date.
  2. Export format and any export charge.
  3. Who is merchant of record, and the payout schedule for new accounts.
  4. Refund and chargeback fees on the old platform.
  5. Whether the new platform holds a percentage until after the event.
  6. Consent records: per purpose, with proof, portable.

Ticket Tailor's event planning checklist works the same way, as a list the organizer completes rather than advice to admire. pretix publishes a short quick-start in the same spirit: a small set of steps that ends with a real sale. The form matters more than the brand. A plan the organizer can tick off beats guidance that reads well.

What NightHall carries over

Import events and contacts from Weeztix, Eventbrite, Tickable, WeTicket or a spreadsheet. The audience keeps one contact per fan with orders, attendance, consent and spend. Credit and loyalty points stay with the organizer that granted them. The switching guides show each source system step by step.

Sources

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