Feature - ticket branding
Branded tickets and confirmation emails for Shopify events
Short answer
How do you brand the ticket and the email?
Design the confirmation email
Edit the confirmation email with a visual editor, or drop into raw HTML for full control. Add your logo, colours and wording so it looks like it came from your brand, not a generic app.
If it does not work
In the raw HTML editor it is easy to restyle the template and take the ticket details or the QR code out with the old markup. The first you hear of it is a buyer asking where their ticket went. Place a cheap test order on your own store after any HTML edit and read what arrives.
How to undo it
The design is a template setting rather than a one-way change, so you can put the previous version back. Emails already sent keep the design they went out with.
Pick a PDF ticket layout
Choose a PDF ticket preset. Every ticket includes the event details and a unique QR code that staff scan at the door.
If it does not work
You switch preset halfway through selling and end up with two different-looking tickets in the same queue, because the PDF someone already has is the file that was attached to their email and it does not change afterwards.
How to undo it
Switch back to the other preset whenever you like. It applies to tickets issued from that point on.
Set a reminder email
Schedule a reminder before the event so attendees have their ticket to hand on the day, which cuts down on lost-ticket questions at the door.
If it does not work
Scheduled too close to the start, it arrives while people are already travelling, which is exactly when it cannot help. A day ahead is the one that clears the "I cannot find my ticket" queue at the entrance.
How to undo it
Turn the reminder off and nothing further goes out. Reminders already sent cannot be recalled, so change it before the send window rather than after.
Every order sends automatically
On purchase, the branded confirmation email and PDF ticket go out automatically. There is nothing to send by hand.
If it does not work
A buyer insists nothing arrived. Check spam first, and remember the from-address is a fixed sending address rather than your own domain, which is what makes some corporate filters suspicious. Resending from the admin is the fix while they are standing in front of you.
What you get
- Branded confirmation emails, edited visually or in raw HTML
- PDF tickets with event details and a unique QR code
- Reminder emails scheduled before the event
- Your logo, colours and wording throughout
- Automatic delivery on every order
What does the confirmation email actually contain?
It goes out the moment the order is paid, and it carries the event name, date, venue, the ticket type they bought, and the PDF ticket as an attachment. The QR code appears both in the email body and on the PDF, so an attendee who never opens the attachment can still get through the door from their inbox.
That last detail matters more than it sounds. A meaningful share of attendees never download the PDF, and a ticket that only exists as an attachment is a ticket half your queue will be hunting for at the entrance.
Can you edit the email design, or is it a fixed template?
Editable, at two levels. A visual editor covers logo, colours, wording and layout without touching code, which is enough for most events. If you want exact control, you can drop into the raw HTML and write the template yourself.
The reason to bother: the confirmation is often the last thing an attendee sees before the event and the first thing they show at the door. An unbranded email from an app they have never heard of reads as a mis-sent receipt at best and a scam at worst, and that lands in your inbox as "is this real?" the week of the event.
What do the PDF tickets look like?
There are two presets to choose from, both carrying the event details and a unique QR code per attendee. Pick whichever suits the event and it applies to every ticket that event issues.
One ticket per attendee rather than one per order, so a buyer taking four places gets four codes. That is what lets you check people in individually when the group arrives at different times, which at most events they do.
Can you send a reminder before the event?
Yes, scheduled ahead of the event date. The reminder brings the ticket back to the top of an inbox that has had three weeks of other mail land on top of it.
This is the cheapest reduction in door friction available. Most "I cannot find my ticket" conversations at check-in are people scrolling for a confirmation from a month ago, and a reminder sent the day before removes a good share of them before anyone reaches the entrance.
Will the emails actually reach the inbox?
Delivery runs through a managed sending service rather than your own mail server, so you do not set up a sending domain, configure DNS records, or pay for a separate email tool. For most merchants that is the whole story and it simply works.
The honest trade-off: the sender name is yours to set, and the from-address is not. Emails go out from a fixed address rather than from your own domain. If sending from your own domain is a requirement, for a large conference or anything where procurement checks the header, this is the limitation to weigh before you commit.
What if an attendee loses their ticket?
Resend it from the admin. Find the attendee by name or email, resend, and it arrives at the address on the order. You can do this while they are standing in front of you at the door, which is usually faster than working out which of their three email addresses they used.
If they turn up with nothing at all, staff can also search the attendee list and check them in without a code, so a lost email is never a blocked entry. That flow is covered in selling and scanning tickets with Shopify POS.
Does this work for online events too?
Yes, and the email does more work there because there is no door to fall back on. For an online event the join link and passcode sit in the confirmation alongside the ticket, so the email is the entry.
See how to sell webinar tickets on Shopify for that setup, and how to sell event tickets on Shopify for the full flow from creating an event to checking attendees in.