Glossary
Live event ticketing glossary
15 plain definitions of the words promoters, venues and booking agents use for counts, tickets and deals. Each term has a worked example, and a formula where there is one.
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Counts and inventory
- Ticket counts
- Ticket counts are the number of tickets sold for a show at a point in time, shared by the promoter or venue with the artist team, agents and partners.
- Capacity (cap)
- Capacity, or cap, is the maximum number of tickets that can be issued for a show, set by the room, the layout and the license.
- Sellable capacity = gross capacity − kills − holds
- Sell-through
- Sell-through is the share of available tickets that have sold, usually shown as a percentage of capacity.
- Sell-through % = tickets sold ÷ capacity × 100
- Comps
- Comps are complimentary tickets issued at no charge, for example to the artist, press, sponsors or staff.
- Holds
- Holds are tickets kept off general sale for the artist, production, the promoter or sponsors, and released later if not used.
- Available to sell = capacity − sold − comps − holds − kills
- Manifest
- A manifest is the official record of every ticket for a show by type and price level, used to reconcile sales at settlement.
- Tickets on the manifest = sold + comps + holds + kills + unsold
Sales and timing
- On-sale
- The on-sale is the moment tickets become available to the public, often after one or more presales.
- Sales pace
- Sales pace is how fast tickets are selling, measured as tickets sold per day over a period.
- Pace = (tickets sold now − tickets sold at the start of the period) ÷ days in the period
Money and deals
- GBOR (gross box office receipts)
- GBOR, gross box office receipts, is the total face value of tickets sold for a show before any deductions.
- GBOR = Σ (tickets sold at each price × face price)
- NBOR (net box office receipts)
- NBOR, net box office receipts, is the gross box office after taxes and agreed ticket fees are deducted; artist percentages are usually calculated on it.
- NBOR = GBOR − taxes − agreed fees
- Guarantee
- A guarantee is the fixed fee the promoter pays the artist regardless of ticket sales.
- Promoter result = NBOR − show expenses − guarantee
- Versus deal
- In a versus deal the artist is paid the greater of a guarantee or a percentage of the net, usually NBOR after show expenses.
- Artist payment = max(guarantee, percentage × (NBOR − show expenses))
- 80/20 deal
- An 80/20 deal splits the money left after costs 80% to the artist and 20% to the promoter; exact terms vary by contract.
- Artist bonus = 80% × (NBOR − guarantee − expenses − promoter profit)
- Door deal
- In a door deal the artist is paid a percentage of the door, the ticket and walk-up money, instead of a fixed guarantee.
- Artist payment = percentage × (door receipts − agreed costs)
- Settlement
- Settlement is the accounting after a show that turns ticket revenue, expenses and the deal terms into what the artist and promoter are each paid.
- Show net = NBOR − agreed show expenses
Work the numbers
The free tools use these definitions: sell-through and pace in the sales pace calculator, GBOR, NBOR and the deal types in the promoter deal calculator.
Ticket sales pace calculatorPromoter deal calculatorBreak-even calculatorAll free tools
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