Organizing events on Tenseats

Every ticketed experience on Tenseats starts as a draft and only goes live when you say so.

Start from Create. Give it a title, pick a real category (not "Other," categories are how people actually find your event on Explore), set the date and time, and write the description that gets someone to say yes. Add at least one photo. If you're adding a video, add a cover photo too, that photo becomes the video's thumbnail everywhere the event shows up, so a video without one won't publish.

Set up your ticket types. Under the event, add one or more ticket types, each with its own name, price, and quantity. A tasting menu with a wine pairing add-on and one without are two different ticket types, not one ticket with a note.

Connect Stripe if you haven't already. A paid event needs an active Stripe Connect account before it can go live, that's how you actually get paid out. If you haven't connected one, the publish step will stop you and point you at it rather than letting the event go live with nowhere for the money to land.

Publish. Once the title, category, future date, and (for a video) cover photo are all set, and Stripe is connected, publish sends it live. From that point it's real: guests can find it, buy tickets, and show up expecting exactly what the listing says.

A few things worth knowing before you hit publish:

• Publishing a ticketed event carries one small listing fee, and the exact current amount shows in the app before you confirm. Guests pay their own service fee at checkout; you keep every dollar of the ticket price.
• An active Insider membership waives the listing fee entirely. If that's you, publishing shows a waived fee, not a charge.
• Free events (RSVP, or a link to tickets somewhere else) skip the Stripe requirement entirely. They publish immediately since no payment ever touches Tenseats for those.

A Chef cooks. A Creator puts the night together. Creators don't usually run the kitchen themselves: they design experiences, pick venues, and bring guests together. The connective tissue between great food, great spaces, and the people who care about both. Either way, you switch your active role, complete Stripe Connect, and publish under your account.

Every dollar a guest pays for your experience runs through Stripe, and Stripe is also how it gets to you.

Connect first. Before you can publish a paid event, you connect a Stripe account from your creator dashboard. That connection has three real states: not connected (nothing set up yet), pending (connected, but Stripe hasn't finished verifying you, usually a quick identity or bank-details step still open on their end), and active (verified, cleared to both charge guests and receive payouts). Your dashboard shows which one you're in.

What "Available" and "Pending" mean on your dashboard. These aren't split by which specific sale is old enough to pay out yet. They're gated on one thing: whether your Stripe account currently has payouts enabled. Active account, and everything you've earned shows as Available. Still pending on Stripe's side, and everything shows as Pending, all of it. Finishing your Stripe setup is what moves the whole number from one column to the other.

The guest service fee. Ticket sales carry a small service fee that the guest pays on top of your ticket price, captured automatically at checkout. You keep the ticket price; the fee is not taken out of your payout. The exact figures for any sale show on the transaction itself under Settings > Transactions.

When the money actually moves. Once your account is active, payouts follow Stripe's own standard payout schedule to your connected bank account. Stripe's own dashboard for your connected account is the source of truth for the exact interval.

If something looks wrong. A sale that isn't showing up, or a payout that seems short, usually traces back to one of two places: your Stripe account isn't fully active yet (check the indicator on your dashboard), or the transaction had a refund or a dispute against it (check Settings > Transactions for that specific sale).

No. To sell tickets you connect a Stripe account, and you can open one as an individual. Stripe decides what it needs from you, not Tenseats. Free events (RSVP, or a link to tickets somewhere else) skip Stripe entirely. Local food safety, licensing and insurance rules are separate, and they are yours to handle.

Up to you. We don't set or recommend prices. Look at comparable events in your city, factor in food and venue, and price for the night you're putting on.

For the full bottom-up math, a worked example, and a fillable worksheet, see Pricing a pop-up dinner.

There are two different things people mean by "refund policy" on Tenseats, and it matters which one you're asking about.

The part you don't set, because it isn't yours to set. A guest gets an automatic, full refund if you cancel the event or Tenseats confirms you as a no-show. That refund goes straight back to their original payment method through Stripe, and no policy you set on your listing can block or shrink it. That's a platform-wide floor, not a setting on your event. Full detail in The refund guarantee.

The part that is yours: the refund window. Outside of a cancellation or a confirmed no-show, refunds on a ticket are governed by a window measured in hours before your event starts. Tenseats sets a platform-wide default, and your account's effective window shows in the refund tool on Settings > Transactions whenever you open it against a real sale.

What happens outside the guarantee. If a guest has a problem that isn't a cancellation or a no-show, they open a case from their ticket or order. You'll see it land in your refund inbox (below), where you decide whether to refund it or close it with an explanation, inside whatever window applies to your account.

Email [email protected] as soon as you know. We process the cancellation, every guest is refunded in full automatically, and we send the cancellation notice on your behalf. Reschedules go the same route: tell us, and we'll let your guests choose between the new date and a refund.

Getting there. Tap "Check in guests" on your creator dashboard, or Check-In in the menu. You'll see every published or completed event you've created. Pick tonight's.

Scanning. The Scanner tab opens your camera. Point it at a guest's ticket QR code, the same code they see on their own ticket page. A valid, unused ticket checks in instantly, you'll see the attendee's name and ticket type confirm on screen. If that exact code has already been scanned, you'll see "Already checked in" instead, along with when. A refunded ticket shows as invalid, on purpose, that guest's ticket was refunded and shouldn't be scanned in.

Manual check-in. Switch to the Guest List tab and you'll see every ticket holder for this event, alphabetically, with their ticket type and check-in status. If someone's scanner isn't cooperating, or their phone died, find their name and tap Check In right on their row. It does exactly what a scan does.

Allergy notes. If a guest left an allergy note when they bought their ticket, it shows directly under their name on the guest list, in amber, impossible to scroll past without seeing it. This is the one place in the app that note surfaces before service.

Live counts. The top of the screen shows checked-in against total the whole time, updating as scans and manual check-ins come in, across every device your team is using at the door simultaneously.

You shouldn't have to leave check-in to reach someone on your guest list, so you don't. Open your event's guest list (Check-In > your event > Guest List tab) and you'll see a message icon next to each attendee, right alongside their check-in status. Tap it and it opens a direct conversation, the same inbox as any other Tenseats message. If you've already messaged this person before, it reopens that same thread instead of starting a new one.

This is for the real, practical things that come up before and during an event: a gate change, running behind, confirming a dietary swap, letting someone know where to actually park. It works whether the guest has checked in yet or not.

The organizer who owns the listing is the only one who can respond to a review left on it. One response per review. It posts publicly, underneath the review, where anyone browsing the listing can read it. You can edit that response later, and the edit replaces the old text in place rather than adding a second entry.

How it works in practice. Open any review left on one of your events. If it's yours to answer, you'll see a "Respond" button underneath it. Write your response and post it, it appears immediately, right under the review. Changed your mind about the wording? Tap it again, now labeled "Edit response," and whatever you write replaces what was there.

A few things worth knowing:

• You can respond to any review on your events, not just the critical ones. A short thank-you under a great review is as legitimate a use of this as addressing a complaint.
• Only you (or another account with access to this event) can respond. A guest can't respond to their own review, and no other creator can respond on your behalf.
• Your response is public the moment you post it. There's no draft or preview step, write it the way you'd want a future guest reading it to see it.

When something about an order goes wrong that isn't covered by the automatic refund guarantee (an event you canceled, or a confirmed no-show, both of which resolve on their own), the guest can open a case instead. Those land here.

Where to look. Settings > Transactions has a refund-requests section above your regular transaction table. Anything open shows up there: the reason the guest picked, what they actually wrote, and when they filed it.

Acting on one. Two options per request:

• Refund opens the same refund tool you already use for any transaction, pre-filled with this guest's purchase. Confirm it (full or partial, with a reason) and it does two things at once: issues the actual refund through Stripe, and closes the case. The guest sees both.
• Decline closes the request without moving any money. Add a short note explaining why, the guest sees that note as the outcome of their case. Use this when the request doesn't hold up, not as a way to avoid dealing with one you agree with.

There's no "ignore" option on purpose. Every open request gets a real answer, refunded or declined with a reason, so a guest waiting on a response never gets left with nothing.

A chargeback (Stripe calls it a dispute) is different from a refund request. It means the guest went to their bank or card company directly instead of coming to Tenseats first.

Tenseats manages the dispute process with Stripe. If one lands on a sale of yours, we'll reach out for anything we need from you, your record of the sale, the listing as it read at the time, and any message history with the guest, so it helps to keep those handy the same day rather than when it's convenient. The response deadlines Stripe sets are short, days rather than weeks.

If the guest already attended the experience and disputed instead of asking you or Tenseats for a refund first, that's chargeback abuse under the Community Guidelines. It only becomes a strike if someone on the Tenseats team reviews and confirms it, the same review-and-confirm path in Understanding strikes and account holds. If you think it applies, flag it to [email protected].

Tenseats measures conduct on a rolling 90-day window. Three confirmed violations of the Community Guidelines inside that window trigger an automatic 14-day pause. Once the pause ends, the window resets and your account returns with a clean count.

A report isn't a strike. Someone reporting you, or a message, or a review, starts a review on Tenseats' side. A strike only lands after a person on the Tenseats team looks at the report and confirms it's a real violation. A report that gets looked at and dismissed costs you nothing.

What a pause actually stops. A pause blocks publishing new events. It doesn't cancel events you've already got live, and it doesn't touch money you've already earned. It lifts on its own the moment the 14 days are up, no request needed. Full detail in account strikes and pauses.

Either works. You can run events out of your own kitchen, a partner restaurant, or a Tenseats Venue Host listing. Use the Venues tab when you want one. Pricing and availability are visible upfront.

Right now an event lists one organizer on Tenseats. If you're partnering with someone, one of you publishes the event and you split revenue offline. Events with two organizers and on-platform splits are on the roadmap, not built yet.

The way reputations get built anywhere: by consistently putting together things people remember. Post regularly. Write descriptive listings. Follow up with guests. Active organizers show up earlier in city feeds and discovery.

Depends on your city and the kind of event. Local food safety and licensing laws are on you. Tenseats doesn't license your operation. When in doubt, your city's health department is the right phone call.

Local liquor laws are on you. Tenseats doesn't hold or extend a license.

• Licensed venues: the venue's license usually covers service.
• Private or unlicensed spaces: you may need a special-event permit, BYOB allowance, or temporary license.

Carry general and host liquor liability insurance for any ticketed event involving alcohol.