Payment gateway for event ticketing
Accept payments for your events, concerts, festivals and venue tickets.
- 70% Acceptance Rate
- First response within 48h
- Mass Refund Tools
No commitment · €0 setup fee · 10-minute application
- 10,000+ merchants trust us
- PCI DSS
- Payouts in 3 business days
- First response within 24-48h
- European live events market
- €30bn
- Annual growth
- +7%
- BP acceptance rate
- 70%
- First response
- 24-48h
Why mainstream processors refuse event ticketing
Selling a July event in January means six months of risk exposure that banks no longer want to carry
The problem
If an event is cancelled, the processor has to refund thousands of buyers while the funds have already been spent on artists and suppliers. Since the chain cancellations of 2020-2021, Stripe and PayPal respond with preventive fund freezes or outright refusals.
- Money collected months before the service is delivered
- Cascading chargebacks if an event is cancelled or postponed
- Friendly fraud: disputes raised after the event took place
- Stolen cards used to buy tickets for resale
- Sudden volume spikes during on-sales
- Organiser insolvency risk
Our solution
We assess your event calendar, your cancellation history and your refund terms. A decreasing reserve, contractually defined for each event, replaces arbitrary freezes: your cash remains available and the risk stays covered.
- Decreasing reserve agreed per event: no surprise freezes
- Refund terms structured to absorb cancellations and postponements
- Your e-tickets and entry scans make friendly fraud contestable
- Anti-fraud scoring tuned against resellers' stolen cards
- Infrastructure sized for on-sale traffic spikes
Before and after Bridge Pay
See the difference with traditional payment processors
Funds frozen as the event date approaches
Decreasing reserve negotiated when the account opens
Account closed after a cancellation or postponement
Mass refund tools and dedicated support
'I never attended' disputes lost by default
QR entry scans submitted as proof of attendance
Automatic blocks during flash on-sales
Announced sale spikes absorbed without friction
Payouts held for 30 to 90 days
Payouts within 3 business days
Ticketing collects money months before delivering. To a generic processor, that is unacceptable risk. To us, it is a business we know how to manage.
- European live events market
- €30bn
- Bridge Pay acceptance rate
- 70%
- First response
- 24-48h
Concerts, festivals, theatre, trade shows: event ticketing now collects most of its sales online, often months before the date. That advance selling is exactly what generic processors cannot handle: until the event has taken place, every ticket sold remains a potential refund.
The cascading cancellations of 2020-2021 left scars. Stripe and PayPal now freeze ticketing funds without notice, sometimes weeks before a date, at the precise moment you need to pay artists, crews and suppliers. Add friendly fraud after the event and stolen-card purchases intended for resale.
Bridge Pay treats ticketing as a business in its own right: we analyse your event calendar, agree on a decreasing reserve when the account is opened, provide mass refund tools for postponements, and use proof of attendance (QR code scans) to defend disputes. Your cash stays available when you need it most.
- Decreasing reserve agreed upfront, no surprise freezes
- Mass refunds for cancellations and postponements
- QR scans usable as evidence against friendly fraud
- Payouts within 3 business days to fund your events
Why Bridge Pay?
- 01
Decreasing reserve matched to your calendar, never an arbitrary freeze
- 02
Mass refund tools for cancellations and postponements
- 03
Ticket scans (QR codes) usable as evidence against friendly fraud
- 04
Fraud screening calibrated for flash sales: velocity, device fingerprint, caps
- 05
70% acceptance for ticketing businesses with clear refund terms
- 06
Payouts within 3 business days, even during peak sales
Key features
Online box office
Checkout that plugs into your box office and seat-selection flow.
Multi-event payments
Payments tracked per event and date for clean reconciliation.
Scan-based evidence
Your QR entry scans become proof of attendance in disputes.
Refund management
Easy refunds for cancelled or rescheduled events.
How it works
- 0115 min
Present your ticketing business
Form covering your event calendar, capacities, estimated volumes and refund terms. Entertainment licence if your activity requires one.
- 0224-48h
Event risk review
Review of your cancellation history, track record and confirmed venues. Definition of the decreasing reserve matched to your calendar.
- 032-4h
Payment integration
API, plugins or hosted payment page, depending on whether you run an in-house ticketing system or a market platform.
- 04Immediate
Sell and monitor
Collect payments from the moment tickets go on sale, traffic spike monitoring, payouts within 3 business days.
Typical use cases
Illustrative examples of merchant profiles accepted in this sector.
Music festival - 15,000 admissions/year
- Situation
- A music festival experienced a 25% freeze on its takings by a previous provider, impacting artist deposits.
- Setup
- Bridge Pay implemented an 8% reserve, released after the event.
- Outcome
- Cash available at D-90
Theatre venue - 1,200 seats
- Situation
- A theatre venue faced frequent 'no-show' disputes.
- Setup
- Using Bridge Pay's representment kit, submitting entry QR scans as evidence allowed them to validate transactions.
- Outcome
- -45% chargebacks in 6 months
B2B trade shows
- Situation
- A B2B trade show organizer encountered systematic blocks for card payments up to €8,000.
- Setup
- Bridge Pay adjusted per-transaction limits to match their B2B operational reality.
- Outcome
- +30% card payment share
Accepted sectors
- Concerts
- Festivals
- Sports events
- Theater
- Conferences
- Workshops
- Private events
- Venue rentals
Competitive pricing
Volume-based pricing. The reserve is tailored to your event calendar and your track record.
- No hidden fees
- €0 setup fee
- First response within 24-48h
Starting rate, high risk
2.7%+ €0.30
- QR scans as dispute evidence
- Mass refund tools included
- Flash sale fraud screening
- Payouts within 3 business days
Why do Stripe and PayPal freeze ticketing accounts?
Because ticketing collects money long before delivering: if an event is cancelled, the processor must refund every buyer. Since the chain cancellations of 2020-2021, generic PSPs apply preventive freezes of up to 100% of funds, without notice. Bridge Pay replaces that mechanism with a decreasing reserve contractually defined when the account opens, so it stays predictable for your cash flow.
How do you handle an event cancellation or postponement?
You trigger a mass refund from the dashboard: every transaction for the event is refunded to the original cards, with no manual re-entry. Refunding proactively avoids the far more expensive chargeback wave. If your terms allow a credit voucher or a ticket transfer, we document the customer's agreement to defend later disputes.
What acceptance rate can a ticketing application expect?
Around 70% of ticketing applications are accepted. The deciding criteria: a company registered in the EU or the UK, clear refund terms, confirmed venues and dates, and a track record of events actually held. Refusals mostly involve unauthorised ticket resale and events with no venue secured at the time tickets go on sale.
What documents do I need to open an account?
A recent certificate of incorporation, the director's ID, bank details, your event calendar with venues and capacities, and your terms including the refund policy. An entertainment licence is requested where your activity requires one. An analyst replies within 48h once the file is complete.
Do you apply a reserve on takings?
Yes, it is the counterpart of advance selling: a 5 to 10% reserve is held until the event takes place, then released. Its level depends on how close the date is and on your track record: it decreases as events are held without incident. Unlike a freeze, it is contractual and predictable.
How do you limit fraud on ticket sales?
Scoring analyses velocity (multiple purchases from the same card or device), browser fingerprint and geographic consistency. 3D Secure is triggered only on risky transactions, to protect conversion during flash sales. Per-card caps limit bulk buying intended for resale.
Can ticket scans be used as evidence in a dispute?
Yes. A QR code scanned at the entrance is a timestamped proof of attendance, admissible in a representment file. Combined with the confirmation email and the purchase IP address, this evidence wins most 'I never attended the event' disputes, the sector's top chargeback reason.
Can your infrastructure handle on-sale spikes?
Yes. The infrastructure is sized for flash sales with a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and a volume spike announced in advance never triggers an automatic block. Simply flag your big on-sales to your account manager: caps are adjusted upfront to absorb several thousand transactions per hour.
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