Online ticketing: do you have a right of withdrawal to manage?

If you sell event tickets online, you are surely wondering whether the new withdrawal button obligation concerns you. Good news to begin with: in most cases, a dated ticket gives no right of withdrawal. But the story does not end there, because everything you sell alongside it is not necessarily in the same boat. Let us look precisely at where you are safe and where you are not.

A dated ticket is not refundable on withdrawal grounds

It is the law itself that provides for this. The right of withdrawal is harmonised across the EU by Directive 2011/83/EU, whose Article 16 lists these exceptions: it excludes the right of withdrawal for the provision of "services related to leisure activities that must be supplied on a specific date or during a specific period". A concert on 14 March, a match next weekend, a festival ticket for the summer: these are dated services.

The logic is easy to understand. A seat left unsold at the last minute is a dead loss for the organiser, who cannot put it back on the shelf like a returned parcel. The legislator took this into account. In concrete terms, your customer does not have fourteen days to cancel a dated ticket "without a reason" and demand a refund.

The exception only applies to what is dated

Be careful not to over-interpret this good news. The exemption hangs on one precise point: the date. As soon as the product sold is not attached to a specific date, the fourteen-day right of withdrawal returns, and the button becomes mandatory.

Two cases come up often. The first is gift vouchers and "open" tickets, valid for several months with no fixed date: here there is no dated service, so withdrawal is possible. The second is merchandise sold through your ticketing, such as t-shirts, vinyl records or posters. These are ordinary goods, subject to withdrawal as in any online shop.

The classic trap is to conclude "I do ticketing, so I am not concerned". A single non-exempt sale on your site, a gift voucher or a piece of merchandise, is enough to make the button mandatory, and it must then be visible on all your pages, not just in the merchandise funnel.

Even when exempt, you must warn your customer

Being exempt does not mean doing nothing. When the right of withdrawal does not apply, the law still requires you to inform the buyer before they confirm their purchase. This is the pre-contractual information duty (Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU, art. 6). In practice, a clear statement at the point of payment is enough, for example "Dated ticket: no right of withdrawal". Not saying it exposes you to a penalty even though the exemption is real, which would be a shame.

What I advise a ticketing business

If you sell only dated tickets, put the inapplicability statement at checkout and you are in order. If you also sell undated vouchers or merchandise, do not try to walk a tightrope sale by sale: put the button in place permanently. It does not hinder your dated ticket sales in any way, and it automatically covers the rest. It is simpler, and safer.

For the detail of exempt cases, see our page on the exceptions to the right of withdrawal, and to check your situation in two minutes, the "am I concerned" diagnostic.