As an event organizer, you're responsible for setting a refund policy and responding to any refund requests within five business days. In certain situations, Eventbrite requires you to approve refund requests regardless of your refund policy. Check out Eventbrite's refund policy requirements to understand what's expected.
In this article
- Setting a refund policy
- How buyers request refunds
- Issuing refunds
- Declining refund requests
- If you cancel or postpone an event
Setting a refund policy
Choose a refund policy that best fits your event. You can decide to issue refunds that are outside of your policy and requested before or after your event.
After you publish your event, you can only change the policy to be a more flexible one.
EXAMPLE: If your event has a "No refunds" policy, you can change it to any other policy. However, you wouldn’t be able to change it back to a "No refunds" policy once you’ve allowed refunds.
How buyers request refunds
Ticket buyers use their Eventbrite account to manage their tickets. Based on the refund policy you choose, they can:
- Request a refund: When a ticket buyer requests a refund, Eventbrite sends you an email notification.You can also view the refund request from your event dashboard.
- Contact the organizer: Eventbrite sends you an email with a message from the attendee. You can then find their ticket in Orders.
Issuing refunds
When you issue a refund, it goes to the ticket buyer’s original payment method. You can issue a full or partial refund or refund multiple orders at once.
Declining refund requests
To decline a refund request, follow these steps:
- Select View in the refund request notification on your event dashboard.
- Go to the Actions dropdown menu and select Decline refund request.
- Choose a reason and add a note for the buyer.
When you decline a request, the buyer receives an email confirmation with your note.
If you cancel or postpone an event
If you cancel an event or it doesn’t take place, Eventbrite’s Cancelled Event Policy requires organizers to refund all attendees.
If you postpone your event and do not announce a new date within 90 days, organizers are required under Eventbrite’s Postponed Event Policy to provide a refund upon attendee request for the following 45 days and until a new date is announced.
If you don’t approve refund requests in these circumstances, attendees can submit an escalated refund request directly to Eventbrite . Eventbrite has sole discretion to decide whether to issue a refund on behalf of an organizer and collect the funds directly from that organizer.