Festival schedule and lineup, stage by stage Three stages. One pass.
A festival is not a list of dates. It is a grid: stages across, hours down, and a crowd trying to work out what is on everywhere at nine. Put every set on the grid, give every stage its own link, and let one pass open all of it.
Saturday
Riverside Weekender
14:00 to 23:00
3
Sub-schedules
12
Sets
1
Weekend pass
Every block is an event. Every column is a link you can hand out.
Stages
Every stage gets its own link.
A stage, a tent, a screen or a kids' field is a sub-schedule. The festival page shows all of them together, colour-coded, and each one also stands on its own. The acoustic tent can post its own link, and the family field can print a QR code that opens only the family field.
- One page for the whole weekend - Fans who want everything see every stage on one schedule, day by day.
- A link per stage - Hand each stage manager or programmer the link to their own corner of it.
- A set is an event - Each set has its own time, description, image and page to share, so a headliner announcement is a link, not a screenshot.
- Or a day with a running order - Prefer one event per day? Put the sets inside it as agenda parts, each with a start and end time, in the order they play.
Free plan Sub-schedules, events and agenda parts typed in by hand are all free. Reading a running order off a photo is Enterprise.
The links you hand out
4 linksMove a set from the tent to the main stage and every link that shows it updates at once.
Laying it out
Pick the shape before the first set.
A festival schedule can be published three ways, and the choice decides how fans browse it, how acts are credited and where the tickets live. Here is each one for a three-day weekend with three stages and ten sets a stage each day.
A set is an event
90 eventsEach set has its own page, its own entry in a fan's calendar and its act named on it, offered the date for their own page. Fans can share one set, and a moved set moves alone. Pick it when people come for particular acts. It is the most to type: Clone Event starts each set from the last.
Free plan
A stage-day is an event
9 eventsOne event for each stage on each day, with the sets inside it as agenda parts, each with a start and an end time, in running order. The acts are named as the event's participants. Pick it when sets are short or the running order changes late. A part has no page of its own and is not a separate calendar entry.
Free plan
A day is an event
3 eventsFriday, Saturday and Sunday, each with the whole day's running order as agenda parts. Pick it for a one-stage festival or a day of talks, where the day is what people come to and the order is detail.
Free plan
Whichever shape, the gate needs one event a day
Entry is sold and scanned on an event. With a day per event that is done already. With sets or stage-days, add a plain event for each festival day, say Friday entry, Saturday entry and Sunday entry, give each its day tickets, and point the weekend pass at those three. The sets carry no tickets, so nobody needs one per set.
What it costs
Stages, events, agenda parts and free registration are on the free plan. A price on a day ticket, and the weekend pass, are Pro. Reading a running order off a photo of the printed lineup is Enterprise; typing it in is free.
Three layouts that go wrong at the gate
A day with no end time
Check-in for a date closes at its start plus its length, or two hours after the start when no length is set. Give each day event the hour the gates really close, or a noon opening stops scanning at two.
The weekend as one long ticket
An ordinary ticket admits once. Sold on a single Friday-to-Sunday event, it reads Already checked in on Saturday morning. Sell the weekend as a festival pass over the three day events: one QR code, one visit each day, and a second scan on the same day uses nothing.
A sub-schedule for each day
Dates already split the calendar by day. Sub-schedules are for the thing a fan filters by, the stage, and an event sits in one sub-schedule per schedule, so spending them on days leaves no way to show one stage on its own.
Agenda parts are explained in the events guide , and the pass types, a festival pass among them, in the passes guide .
The lineup
Your acts announce you back.
Name an act on a set and the listing does not stop at your page. It reaches the act's own page too, which is where their fans already look.
Already on Event Schedule
The act is offered the date for their own schedule. Once they accept, your festival shows on the page their followers watch, with a link back to you.
Free plan
Not on it yet
They get a page with their name on it that lists your dates and credits your festival. It stays out of search engines until they claim it by signing in with the email you entered.
Free plan
Booked through someone else
List a venue or a promoter as a source, and every event they publish is linked onto your schedule automatically, past and upcoming. Useful for a festival spread across other people's rooms.
Free plan
Passes and tickets
Friday to Sunday on one QR code.
Some fans come for a day, some for the whole weekend, and some only for the Saturday headliner. Sell each of those as what it is, and keep all the money apart from your payment provider's own fee.
Free-entry days
Free planFor the street party, the family day and the fringe show that passes a hat.
- Registration with a capacity, so the field does not overfill.
- A QR code for everyone who registers, checked at the gate from the same scanner. To count arrivals, sell zero-priced tickets instead.
- The count kept for each date on its own, closing when the places run out.
- A waitlist on a full date, offering a returned place to the next person in line.
- Several events in one checkout, so a fan picks up free tickets for three workshops at once.
Paid days and the weekend pass
Pro planWhen there is a price on the pass.
- Day tickets as ticket types, and a weekend pass redeemed across every day it covers.
- An early-bird type with its own sales window, and group rates as volume discounts.
- Promo codes for partners, and add-ons like parking or a camping pitch with their own stock.
- Installments on an expensive pass, charged monthly to the buyer's card through Stripe.
- A waitlist on sold-out tickets, and paid through your own Stripe or PayPal account, Invoice Ninja, a payment link or cash.
Capacity
Passes and day tickets share one field.
The licence says how many people may be on site at once, not how many tickets you may sell. A weekend pass is a person on site every day, so every pass sold is a day ticket you cannot sell three times over. Decide how the two share the field before either goes on sale.
The simple way: subtract the passes
worked exampleA pass holds no place in a day's count before the day, so a day ticket's quantity can sell in full on top of every pass. Cap the passes, and set each day's tickets to what is left.
The pass quantity is one pool for the whole run: 1,200 means 1,200 passes in all. This assumes every holder comes every day. One catch on the day itself: each pass scanned at the gate is counted against that day's tickets too, so a day that has not sold out in advance stops selling on the gate before the field is full. The next way counts the field more closely.
The exact way: holders book their days
Pro planSwitch on "Let holders book seats in advance" on the pass. Holders pick their days on their own pass page, and those bookings and the day tickets draw from the same count, so bookings can never oversell the day. A holder who comes without booking is still let in, so ask holders to book, or keep a margin below the licence.
- Set the day tickets close to the licence, 3,000, and the bookings come out of it. Leave a margin for holders who will turn up without booking.
- Max advance seats per date keeps some of each day for people who buy on the gate.
- On a festival pass, booking a day spends that day's one visit.
- A cancellation deadline, from 12 hours to a week before, stops a booking being dropped the morning of the day. After it, a cancel can free the place and keep the visit spent.
Two prices, one field
An early-bird and a standard day ticket are the same people on the same grass. Give both the same quantity and choose Combined Total, and they draw on one pool however the sales split.
Free plan
When Saturday is full
On Pro, a waitlist opens on the sold-out day. A returned ticket goes to the first person on it by email, with 24 hours before the next person is told, and the place is not held: whoever buys first has it.
Pro plan
Before a day goes on sale
Switch on the "Notify me" card and fans leave an address on the day's event, and hear by email soon after its tickets go on sale on Event Schedule. Selling a priced day ticket is Pro.
Free switch, Pro to sell
How advance booking and its cancellation rules work, step by step, is in the passes guide .
Who can do what at the gate
by planA viewer on the team can scan tickets and cannot see a single sale.
The gate
No scanners to hire, no printout.
The person on the gate opens the scanner in a phone browser and points it at the code. A ticket admits once, a pass counts down, and anything unpaid, refunded or cancelled is refused with the reason on screen.
Every gate, the same codes
Tickets, passes and free registrations are all checked from the same scanner, so the family gate and the main gate need no separate lists. Only tickets and passes record an arrival; a free registration is checked and not counted.
Watch the field fill
On Pro, the check-in dashboard keeps a running count per ticket type, so you know the Sunday crowd is bigger than Saturday's before the bar does.
Sponsors where people look
On Pro, partner logos sit on the festival page in tiers, headline partner first.
Applications
Acts and traders apply on the page.
Every open call ends up as three hundred emails with attachments. Take them through the festival page instead, where each one arrives as a request you accept or decline, and nothing goes public until you say so.
Paste the pitch or drop the poster
Free planThe form your page starts with.
- An act pastes their pitch or uploads a poster, and it is read into a request for you.
- Up to 50 applications are read a day on the free plan and on Pro, and 100 on Enterprise.
- Or switch to the booking form, where every application brings a date, a time and a description.
Ask traders what you need to know
Pro planYour own questions, on either form.
- Custom fields for a pitch size, a power requirement or a hygiene rating.
- A validation pattern on a field, so a link has to look like a link.
- Answers shown beside each request, so you decide without opening an inbox.
The crowd
From the first announcement to the last photo.
A festival is sold months before it happens and remembered for months after. The same page carries it through all of that.
Before tickets go on sale
Switch on the "Notify me" card and fans leave an email address on an announced event. They hear if the date is cancelled and once shortly before it starts, and, when the tickets carry a price on Pro, the moment they go on sale.
Free plan
Every new date, on its own
People who confirm their email on your page get a short digest when you add events, at most one every three days, and it does not touch your newsletter allowance.
Free plan
The lineup in their calendar
Fans subscribe to the festival's live calendar feed, so a set moved from 18:00 to 19:30 moves in their own phone too.
Free plan
The letters you write
A newsletter for the headliner reveal: 10 emails a month on the free plan, 100 on Pro and 1,000 on Enterprise, counted per person it reaches.
All plans
Photos, videos, comments
With fan content on (the default), the crowd posts what they saw on each event, held in a queue until you approve it. 25 photos on the free plan, no cap on Pro.
Free plan
A lift to the site
On Pro, fans can offer and ask for seats in a car to the festival, with the driver approving who comes.
Pro plan
Festival week
A schedule is only right until the first delay.
The printed clash sheet is out of date by Saturday lunchtime. The festival page does not have to be. Three jobs decide whether fans trust it: how the lineup is announced, whether disabled fans can plan from it, and how fast a change on site reaches it.
Announcing the lineup
- Enter the whole lineup as Drafts while contracts are signed. Your team sees it and the public does not.
- Publish in waves at least three days apart. Confirmed subscribers get a digest of new events at most once every 72 hours, so the headliners on a Monday and the second wave on a Thursday arrive as two emails, not one.
- Keep a wave to 25 sets or fewer: a digest lists the soonest 25 of the new events.
- Sets added as agenda parts to an event already published are not news to the digest. Announce those with a newsletter.
Free plan
Publishing access information
- Make a Multi-select custom field called Access, with the choices you really offer: step-free, BSL interpreted, seated area, relaxed. Tick On event page and Show as filter, and untick On request form.
- Each set then shows its access row, and a fan can narrow the whole schedule to interpreted sets.
- Put the access plan in the schedule's description before tickets go on sale: routes and surfaces, viewing platforms, accessible toilets, a quiet space, strobe and smoke warnings, the companion ticket policy, and how to reach the access team.
Pro plan
Keeping it current on the day
- Move a set and its page, its stage link and the embed change at once. Subscribed calendars catch up on their own: the feed is cached for an hour, and Google Calendar can take several hours.
- So a same-day change also goes on the announcement bar (Pro): up to 500 characters with links, on the festival page and, if you choose, on every event page.
- A set that is called off is cancelled from the Actions menu. Its page says so, and it comes off the calendars your schedule syncs to. Restore it if the act turns up after all.
- Agree who edits. Free and Pro have one team member; a production office with several people changing times needs Enterprise.
Free and Pro
Custom fields are set up as described in the schedule guide . For what a cancellation sends and to whom, see notifying attendees .
Who it is for
Anything with more than one stage.
Music Festivals
Stages as sub-schedules, every act linked to its own page, and a weekend pass that scans at every gate on one QR code.
Learn moreArts & Fringe Festivals
Hundreds of short runs across borrowed venues, with each company offered its dates and a capacity counted per performance.
Learn moreFilm Festivals
Screenings by venue and strand, Q&As added as parts of the programme, and a festival pass that counts down as it is used.
Food & Street Festivals
Free entry with a timed demo stage, vendor applications through the page and one calendar feed for the whole weekend.
How it works
Built in a week, run for a weekend.
01
Add the stages
One sub-schedule per stage, tent or screen, each with its own link and colour on the festival page.
02
Put the sets on
Each set as an event on its stage with the act named, or each day as one event with the running order inside it.
03
Open the gates
Free registration with a capacity, or day tickets and a weekend pass on Pro, scanned at the gate from any phone.
Key features
Free forever. Upgrade when you're ready.
Free registration for as many people as you like. When you start charging, zero platform fees on every plan - the only deduction is your payment processor's own.
Everything you need to publish a schedule and fill the room, for as long as you like.
- Unlimited events, sub-schedules and recurring dates
- Two-way Google, Outlook and CalDAV sync
- Unlimited free registration and RSVPs, scanned at the door
No expiry, and no card asked for.
Start charging, and the rest of the selling kit arrives with it.
- Sell paid tickets, with the live check-in dashboard
- Promo codes, add-ons, passes and gift cards
- The REST API, webhooks, and no Event Schedule branding
7-day free trial, cancel any time.
For a room with a seating chart, a team, and a domain of its own.
- Reserved seating, drawn once and reused every date
- Your own domain, and up to five team members
- Internal and unlisted events, and 1,000 newsletter recipients
Included free on every selfhosted install.
Keep exploring
Passes & Subscriptions
One pass, many events, counted down on a single QR code.
Read moreFor Food Trucks
One link that always has today's stop.
Read moreFor Farmers Markets
Market days, vendor lineups, and seasonal events.
Read moreFor Curators
Run a festival or multi-artist bill across many schedules.
Read moreEvent Lineup
Every act on the bill is named on the event and linked to a page of its own.
Read moreSub-schedules
Keep each stage apart on one link.
Read moreQuestions
Asked at the production meeting.
Can one ticket cover the whole weekend?
Yes, as a pass. A weekend pass is sold once and redeemed across every event it covers, so Friday, Saturday and Sunday each scan the same QR code, and the pass keeps count of what has been used. A day ticket is simply a ticket type on one day's event. Passes, and putting a price on any ticket, are part of Pro at $5 a month, with zero platform fees on what fans pay you.
How do I make a festival schedule with several stages?
Make each stage a sub-schedule, then choose how fine to go. For a festival where people come for particular acts, make every set its own event on its stage, so each has a page and a calendar entry. Where sets are short or the order changes late, make one event per stage per day and list the sets inside it as agenda parts with start and end times. Either way, add one plain event for each festival day to carry the day tickets and the weekend pass, so the gate scans against the day and the sets carry no tickets of their own.
Should a festival sell day tickets, weekend passes or both?
Usually both, with the weekend pass priced below three day tickets so the people most likely to come every day commit early. What matters is that they share one field. A weekend pass holds no place in a day's count before the day, so either set each day's tickets to the licence minus the passes you will sell, or, on Pro, switch on advance booking so pass holders book their days from the same count as the day tickets, and bookings can never oversell the day. A holder who comes without booking is still let in, so ask holders to book, or keep a margin below the licence.
How do we show set times for each stage?
Give each set a start and end time. As separate events, the sets sit on their stage's sub-schedule, and the stage's own link shows only that stage. As agenda parts inside a stage-day event, each part has an optional start and end time and appears in running order on the event page. Typing them in is free; reading a running order off a photo of the printed lineup is Enterprise.
How do we update the festival schedule during the event?
Edit the set, and the festival page, the stage links and the embed show the change at once. Fans who subscribed to the calendar feed get it when their calendar next reads the feed, which is cached for an hour and can take Google Calendar several hours, so a same-day change belongs on the announcement bar too, which is Pro and can appear on every event page. A set that is called off is cancelled from the Actions menu, and can be restored if it goes ahead after all.
Can each stage have its own link?
Each stage is a sub-schedule, and every sub-schedule has its own link and colour. Share the main festival link and people see every stage together; share the tent's link and they see only the tent. Sub-schedules are on the free plan, with no limit on how many stages you add.
What happens when an act is not on Event Schedule?
Add them by name anyway. They get a page of their own that lists the dates you gave them, says your festival listed them and that they have not claimed it yet, and stays out of search engines until they do. Add their email address and they can claim it by signing in with it. An act that already has a schedule is offered the date instead, and once they accept it shows on their own page too, which is free promotion for your lineup.
How much does Event Schedule take from ticket sales?
Nothing. There is no platform fee on any plan. Once tickets carry a price, which is Pro, fans pay through your own Stripe or PayPal account, an Invoice Ninja invoice, a payment link or cash, and the only fee is your payment provider's own processing charge. Free-entry days with registration cost nothing at all.
Can volunteers scan tickets at several gates?
Scanning works from any phone browser, so there is no scanner hardware to hire, and scanning a ticket is free on every plan. Each ticket admits once and a second scan warns. To give volunteers their own logins you need more than one team member, which is Enterprise; a viewer can scan tickets without seeing any sales. The live check-in dashboard, with a running count per ticket type, is part of Pro.
Can I run early-bird pricing?
Yes. Each ticket type can have its own sales start and end dates, so an early-bird type closes on a date you choose and the standard price takes over. Group rates can be set as volume discounts on the same ticket. Promo codes for partners, add-ons such as parking or camping, and monthly installments on an expensive pass are also Pro features.
Our festival is free to enter. Can we still cap numbers?
Yes, and for nothing. Make the event free and give it a capacity. People register instead of paying, each gets a QR code to show at the gate, the count is kept separately for each date, and registration closes when the places are gone. Free registration has no monthly ceiling on any plan.
How do acts and traders apply?
Through the festival page. The default form takes a pasted pitch or an uploaded flyer and reads it into a request for you to review; switch to the booking form and every application arrives with a date, a time and a description. Nothing appears publicly until you accept it. On Pro you can add your own questions to either form, such as a pitch size, a power requirement or a link to a set.
Free forever
Put the grid up before the poster.
Stages, sets, act pages, applications and free-entry registration cost nothing. Putting a price on a day ticket or a weekend pass is the part that needs Pro.
No credit card required