How your move to Opendate works

Everything we need goes through your protected vault, never email, text or chat. Sign in with your Opendate email and password and your team's vault is created automatically.

Passwords go straight into encrypted storage and are never shown again, even to you. Only the Opendate migration team can open them.

• Give view or export access, not your personal login, where the old system allows it. A dedicated user is easy to switch off when we're done.
• Tell us who handles two-step codes. If a system texts a code at sign-in, add that person under More options on the login.
• Ask your old platform about redirects now. Many will redirect your old event links to Opendate if you ask their account manager, and it can take weeks. See old links and redirects.
• Pick a cutover date early. Anything created in your old system after we copy it has to be added again, so we schedule the final pass for a quiet day.
• Don't delete anything in the old system until you've signed off on the migration.
• Name one point person who can answer quick questions about your setup.

Your calendar comes over first, because offers, tickets and buyers all attach to it. Future holds keep their place in line, and every confirmed show, past and future, becomes an Opendate event.

Holds

A hold reserves a date without committing. The first hold has first right of refusal, and later holds move up if it falls through.

• One artist or show becomes one hold with all its dates, and each date keeps the hold level it has today (1st, 2nd, 3rd…). If two holds claim the same slot, Opendate moves the later one to the next free level.
• Challenger holds (2A, 2B) and note holds (TOLD, DARK) aren't standard in Opendate. We park them at the back of the line and list them for you to review.
• Only future holds come over. A past date that happened is built as a confirmed show instead.
• Holds with no date (wish lists) can't be placed on a calendar. We list them for you rather than guess.

Confirms

A confirmed show becomes an Opendate event with venue, room, artists, show time, door time and end time.

• Times are set in your venue's time zone, including daylight-saving changes.
• If your old system has dates but no times, we agree defaults with you per room (for example 7 PM doors, 8 PM show) and flag every show that used them.
• Shows already in Opendate are matched by date and name, so nothing is doubled.
• Nothing goes public during migration. Events arrive unpublished and unannounced, so no fan gets an email or sees a show before you say so.

What we need from you

• Your rooms or stages, added in Opendate
• What your calendar labels mean, such as which prefixes mean released, held or confirmed
• How far back to bring past shows
• Default show and door times, if your system doesn't store them

Every deal with real terms becomes a draft offer in Opendate, attached to its show, and we check each one's payout math against your old system to the dollar. An offer is Opendate's deal memo: artist, date, guarantee, deal type, expenses and billing, moving from Draft to Sent, Accepted and Settled.

• Offers arrive as drafts, linked to the show on the same date. Deals for holds, undated or cancelled shows stay as standalone drafts.
• We run Opendate's own settlement math on every offer and compare the payout to your old system's numbers.
• Door deals that switch percentage at a threshold, deals that include bar sales, and terms written only as free text are flagged for you. We bring the guarantee and paste your exact terms into the offer notes, so nothing is silently guessed.
• Each offer uses your team's default deal basis (net gross or net revenue). Tell us if some deals use the other one.
• Shows with no deal terms in your old system get no offer. We don't create empty $0 offers.

After the show, settlement pulls actual ticket sales into the offer, applies bonuses, expenses and adjustments, and produces a PDF.

Tickets people already bought keep working: we bring every sold ticket over with its original barcode, so it scans at your door in Opendate exactly as it would have in your old system.

Ticket types

Each show gets its tiers (GA, VIP, Early Bird, table and so on) with price, quantity, per-order limits, visibility and sales channel: everywhere, online only, or door only.

Past and current buyers

• Every ticket sold in your old system comes over as an order on the right show and tier.
• Imported tickets show as cash orders marked “External ticket import”. That's expected: the money was already collected by your old platform, so these orders don't create a new payout from Opendate. They count toward each show's sold tickets and check-ins like any other ticket.
• Price, discount, fees and tax are carried per ticket and must add up to the cent.
• Buyers don't get any emails from the import, and each buyer becomes a fan with their purchase history.
• Refunded or cancelled tickets are left out.
• You choose how imported prices show: face value only, or with fees and tax broken out.

At the door

Your staff scan with the free Opendate Organizer app on iPhone or iPad. Green means valid, red means already scanned or invalid, and you can look anyone up by name or email. Several staff can scan at once, and the app also sells tickets at the door.

• Old barcodes and new Opendate QR codes both scan. A ticket transferred to someone else gets a new code, and the old one stops working.
• New tickets arrive by email with a unique QR code and can be added to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.

Cutover

Your old system keeps selling until the day you switch. On cutover day we import every sale made since our main copy, matched by barcode, and re-check the totals.

• Export the actual sales report, not projected revenue, with the widest date range and every status
• Turn off sales in the old system the moment you go live in Opendate
• Do a test scan with a migrated ticket before your first show
• Seated rooms: send your floor plan early; Opendate builds seating charts in about 3–5 days

Your giving history comes over as real donation records, each dated when it was given, and new giving is switched on in Opendate for checkout and memberships.

• Past donations are imported with their original dates, campaigns and funds, linked to each donor as a fan or an organization, and checked against your donation report to the penny. Pledges can come over too. Opendate doesn't yet store recognition names, tributes or an anonymous flag, so we put those in each donation's notes.
• New donations are taken right in ticket checkout. Fans add any amount and can cover the card fee. Opendate turns this on for you, and the money goes to a separate donation payout account.
• Memberships are monthly or annual products with a price and a cap. Benefits can include ticket discounts, presale access, free tickets and a per-show member limit.
• Active memberships and recurring gifts: we confirm with you, per platform, whether members re-join in Opendate or billing can move over. Gift card balances move through a separate process so they aren't counted as new revenue.

Opendate keeps two address books, and we fill both: Fans are the people who buy tickets, and Contacts are the agents, managers, promoters and vendors you book with.

• Send us your opt-in status. Only fans who agreed to marketing should get broadcasts. Text messages also need SMS consent, and every text includes STOP to opt out.
• Tell us which tags matter (members, VIPs, past donors, genre lists) so we tag them during import.
• We run a small test import first and show you the created, updated and skipped counts before the full list goes in.
• Past email open and click statistics from your old email tool don't move over.

Many ticketing platforms will redirect your old event pages to your new Opendate pages, but usually only when you ask their customer success team or account manager. Ask them at the very start of your migration, because these requests can take weeks.

At the start of your migration

• Email your old platform's account manager or support team and ask whether they can redirect your event pages and ticket links to new URLs after you move
• Ask how long they need, what they need from you (usually a list of old and new links), and whether they keep old pages live for people who already bought
• Tell us their answer so we can prepare the list of old and new links before go-live

On go-live day, in this order

1. Turn off sales in the old system for every show that moved, then we import the last sales.
2. Point your website at Opendate. Swap each ticket button to the show's Opendate page, or use the Opendate events widget so new shows appear automatically. Linking and embed options
3. Redirect old links on your own domain. If your site has ticket pages or short links (for example yourvenue.com/tickets), set a permanent 301 redirect to the new page. Google on 301 redirects
4. Turn on your old platform's redirects if they agreed to them. If they can't redirect, close, don't delete, the old event pages: mark them off sale or sold out and, where the platform allows, add "Tickets are now at …" with the new link. Old pages keep working for people who already bought, and most platforms block deleting events that have orders.
5. Update Google. Your website's event listing data and your Google Business Profile ticket links should point to Opendate. Event listings on Google
6. Ask artists and agents to update their links. Bandsintown, Songkick and Spotify ticket links are set on the artist side. Bandsintown ticket links
7. Update everything else: link in bio, pinned posts, scheduled emails and running ads.

What each platform can do with old links

Moving one show at a time? For a show still selling elsewhere, Opendate can list it as an externally ticketed event that links out, so your Opendate calendar stays complete. Externally ticketed events

Nothing is called done until it ties out: every show, ticket and dollar in your old system is matched in Opendate, and you approve the numbers before anything goes live.

Every check reads the data back out of Opendate rather than trusting that an import said “success”. You get a short report with the results and a list of anything we parked for your decision.