How to run a Christmas light event at a garden without breaking the day operation

Should the light event be its own event?

Yes, in almost every case. A separate event gives the evenings their own capacity per arrival slot, their own ticket tiers and their own public page, and stops a quiet Tuesday in the day operation being confused with a sold-out Friday evening in any report.

It also isolates the money. Payouts settle per event once its last session has ended, so a six-week light season is paid two days after the final night rather than being tangled up with the daily admission you are still selling in January.

How do I price and slot the evenings?

Generate an arrival grid across the run — every night you are open, at whatever intervals your path can absorb — and set capacity per slot rather than per night. A light trail's constraint is the entrance rate, not the total.

Price with tiers: an adult, a child, a family, whatever your admission structure is. Note two absences before you plan around them: there is no early-bird price ladder for this vertical and no group rate, so a discounted opening week is a separate tier or a promo code you publish and then stop publishing.

Does the annual pass get in?

No, unless you sold the pass against this event. A season pass admits at the sessions of its own event and nowhere else, so a pass bought for daily admission resolves to nothing at the light-event gate — the scanner reads it as unknown rather than as a refusal with an explanation.

This is one of the most common questions visitors ask an attraction's own assistant, so say it on the event page in your own words. Nothing bundles two events into one entitlement, and there is no mechanism that adds pass holders to a second event's door list.

How do members get a discount on a separate event?

Through the member price on the tier, which works across events because it is a roster check rather than a ticket property. Set a member price on the evening tiers and members claim it by typing their membership number at checkout, exactly as they do for daytime admission.

If you would rather give members a fixed number of free evenings, comps from the back office are the honest mechanism: they consume real inventory and issue a credential that scans, so your capacity stays correct, and they are separated from revenue in every report.

What can we sell on the night?

Add-ons at checkout and the till on site. Add-ons are catalogue items with their own stock per option — parking, a hot chocolate voucher, a wreath from the shop — and their stock moves under a row lock inside the confirm, so the last parking space cannot be sold twice.

On the night itself, the food and drink till and the merchandise till record what you sold. Neither takes the card through bindro: the money is yours already, and the till is the auditable record rather than the payment rail.

When does the money from a December event arrive?

Two days after the last night of the run, in one payout for the whole event, with no reserve withheld for this vertical. If that float is uncomfortable — and for a seasonal event with real production costs it often is — split the run into two events, an early and a late half, and be paid twice.

The rule underneath is the same one that protects your visitors: no payout runs before delivery, and an event is delivered when its last session has ended.

What is not built for this?

The seasonal-gate features some light trails expect are not enabled in this vertical: no RFID wristbands, no staff rota, no early-bird price ladder and no photo sales. Calling a night off and settling it does work here, the same as anywhere else.

• No wristbands: the credential is a QR code on a phone.
• Closing a night settles every booking on it at once and emails them if you ask.
• No general broadcast: anything other than that mail goes out from your own channels.
• No transfers: a visitor who cannot come on the Friday is refunded, then rebooks.
• No group rate: a coach party is a quantity of ordinary entries on one payment.