# An Eventbrite alternative for UK venues

> An Eventbrite alternative UK venues can weigh up: VenueOra and Eventbrite compared on UK fees, timed entry, payments, memberships, lockers and age checks.

Canonical page: https://venueora.com/compare/venueora-vs-eventbrite

Eventbrite is a global event marketplace with public UK fees. VenueOra is a UK Eventbrite alternative for venues that want tickets, memberships, on-site payments, lockers and age checks on one guest record. The rows below use what each public site showed in October 2026.

Eventbrite is a global event marketplace and ticketing platform. Its about page reports 4.7 million events in nearly 180 countries and 83 million paid tickets in 2024. Its UK fees are published: 6.95% plus £0.59 per sold ticket, no separate payment processing fee for UK payouts, no fees on free tickets, and at-the-door sales at £0.50 per paid ticket plus 1.6% per order (published prices at October 2026). Fees are paid by the buyer by default or absorbed by the organiser. Feature pages cover event pages, registration, payments, reserved seating, timed entry, Eventbrite Ads, email marketing, and a check-in app with QR scanning and Tap to Pay on a phone.

Eventbrite’s strength is discovery: attendees find events in its marketplace and app, and its industry pages cover music, nightlife, food and drink, performing arts, corporate events, health and fitness, concerts and festivals. VenueOra does not run a marketplace. It is a platform for venues that take admissions and payments every day: event and timed-entry ticketing, membership plans with applications and lifecycle emails, online, kiosk and terminal payments on one order record, ePOS and kitchen display through Posso UK, LockVault lockers and VenueGo, a verification platform designed for venues. We publish two platform plans, Free and Venue, and the VenueGo plans; bespoke pricing is on request.

Every Eventbrite statement below comes from eventbrite.co.uk and its help centre as they read in October 2026. Where their site does not describe something, we say so rather than assume it is missing.

Details about Eventbrite come from their public website (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/organizer/overview/) as reviewed in October 2026.

## Side by side

| Feature | VenueOra | Eventbrite |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Ticketing and timed entry | Events with multiple ticket types, each with its own price and capacity, and sessions with capacity by session and buffer time, from one branded checkout. Tickets by email with a unique QR code and Apple Wallet and Google Wallet passes. Live capacity and sales on each event. | Event pages, registration, custom ticket types such as VIP, early-bird and drink packages, reserved seating and QR-code tickets. Timed entry page describes multiple time slots in a day using the Recurring event type; capacity per slot is not described on that page. |
| Memberships and passes | Annual and monthly plans priced by the venue, applications with staff review, invite codes, guest day passes for selected events, renewal reminders and lifecycle emails for due, lapsed and win-back members, and member-only ticket types with discount codes for member offers. | Not shown on their organiser overview or features navigation at October 2026. |
| Payments and payouts | Apple Pay, Google Pay and card online, on kiosks and on card terminals, with refunds, reissues and payment on a terminal from the order. Payouts after merchant verification; reports for sales, VAT, year-on-year and daily capacity. Card data goes to a PCI DSS Level 1 acquiring partner and never touches your tills, kiosks or lockers. Card processing is quoted with your plan. | Eventbrite Payment Processing takes online and in-person payments with Apple Pay and Google Pay, scheduled payouts and instant payouts. UK service fee 6.95% plus £0.59 per sold ticket with no separate processing fee (published price at October 2026). |
| Door sales and scanning | QR check-in at the door that rejects a used ticket, reception mode with guestlist search by member, guest, order or ticket, and RFID scan on kiosks where the venue uses that hardware. Walk-in sales on a VenueOra kiosk or by taking payment on a card terminal from the order. | Organizer app scans QR codes and sells tickets and merchandise on site, with Tap to Pay on a phone described as removing the need for card readers. At-the-door fee £0.50 per paid ticket plus 1.6% per order (published price at October 2026). |
| ePOS, kiosks and kitchen display | ePOS tills, self-ordering kiosks, kitchen display systems, digital menu boards and card machines supplied, installed and supported by Posso UK, with VenueOra payment processing on the Posso platform. Software licences from £25 a month plus VAT; hardware quoted by Posso with the licence. | Not shown on their public site. In-person sales are described through the Organizer app. |
| Smart lockers | LockVault lockers at no upfront cost on revenue share: self-powered, Starlink-connected, in fitted banks of 24 to 240 or container hubs of up to 180. The venue receives a share of gross rental revenue agreed after a site survey, with a proposal within 48 hours of an enquiry. | Not shown on their public site. |
| Age verification | VenueGo checks the guest on their own phone when they sign up or buy a ticket: face, then document, then a photo holding it. Results are approved, declined or needs review. Plans from £0 for 25 checks. | Not shown on their public site. Their nightlife page covers guest lists, table reservations and QR scanning; it does not mention ID or age checks. |
| Marketing and discovery | Email campaigns with merge tags to audiences built from members, ticket buyers, events or saved segments, discount codes with campaign URLs, member-only ticket types and scheduled publishing. VenueOra does not run a public events marketplace. | Marketplace discovery with personalised recommendations, Eventbrite Ads, email marketing and TikTok promotion. An optional Premium subscription is listed at £59 a month for the UK, with eligibility rolling out from the US (published price at October 2026). |
| API and integrations | LockerPay REST API with signed webhooks and SDKs in seven languages for locker and kiosk vendors. VenueGo API and webhooks for integrators. Ticketing integrations on request. | Eventbrite for Developers documents an API for events, orders, attendees and webhooks, and links to an App Marketplace. Whether API access costs extra is not stated in the pages we reviewed. |
| Industries covered | Theme parks, waterparks, zoos and aquariums, trampoline parks and FECs, soft play, leisure centres, gyms, festivals, nightclubs and bars, arenas, museums, ice rinks and members’ clubs. | Music, nightlife, food and drink, performing arts, corporate events, health and fitness, concerts, festivals, non-profits, parties, virtual events and seasonal moments. Attractions, leisure centres, zoos and theme parks are not shown as industries. |
| Pricing transparency | Two platform plans are published: Free at £0 a month and £1.50 per ticket sold, and Venue at £150 a month and 80p per ticket sold, with bespoke pricing for groups and multi-venue operators on request. VenueGo plans from £0 for 25 checks and ePOS licences from £25 a month plus VAT are published too. Lockers start with a consultation; card processing is quoted with your plan. | Fees published per country on the pricing page and in the help centre. Free events are free to list. The buyer pays the fee by default or the organiser absorbs it. |
| UK base | UK company, VenueOra Ticketing Limited, with UK-based support. | A UK site with GBP fees and a UK help centre. The about page lists country sites from Argentina to the United States and names no office location. |

## When to choose Eventbrite

- You want attendees to find your event. Eventbrite’s marketplace, app and ads reach people who have never heard of your venue.
- You run free events. Eventbrite charges no fees on free tickets and lets you publish unlimited free events.
- You run occasional ticketed nights and want to pass the fee to the buyer with no contract or monthly charge.
- You want QR scanning and Tap to Pay on a phone from a free app, and nothing else at the door.
- You sell in several countries and want one account with fees published per country.

## When to choose VenueOra

- Your venue trades every day and you want tickets, memberships, kiosk payments and locker hire on one record per guest.
- You want the guest record to belong to the venue, with memberships, ticket history and locker hire attached to it.
- You need membership plans that bill monthly or annually, with applications, staff review, renewal reminders and lifecycle emails.
- You want ePOS, kitchen display and kiosks installed by a UK partner with payments on the same ledger as tickets.
- You sell alcohol or run over-18s nights and want age verification on the guest’s phone at ticket purchase.

## Questions

Q: Is VenueOra an Eventbrite alternative for UK venues?
A: Yes, for venues that trade every day and want more than event tickets. VenueOra sells event and timed-entry tickets and membership plans with applications and lifecycle emails, takes payments online, on kiosks and on terminals on one record, and adds Posso UK ePOS and kiosks, LockVault lockers and VenueGo age checks. Eventbrite is the platform UK venues know for one-off events, and for occasional events with free listings it is hard to beat. The choice rests on how often you trade and what you need around the gate.

Q: What does Eventbrite charge in the UK?
A: Eventbrite’s UK help centre lists a service fee of 6.95% plus £0.59 per sold ticket, no separate payment processing fee for UK payouts, no fees on free tickets, a 2% fee on donation tickets, and at-the-door sales at £0.50 per paid ticket plus 1.6% per order (published prices at October 2026). The buyer pays by default or the organiser absorbs the fee. VenueOra publishes a Free plan at £1.50 per ticket sold and a Venue plan at £150 a month and 80p per ticket sold, with bespoke pricing on request.

Q: Does Eventbrite do memberships or season passes?
A: Memberships and season passes are not shown on Eventbrite’s organiser overview or features navigation at October 2026, which centre on events, ticket types, reserved seating, timed entry, promotion and check-in. VenueOra sells annual and monthly plans priced by the venue, with applications and staff review, renewal reminders and lifecycle emails for due, lapsed and win-back members, guest day passes and member-only ticket types, on the same guest record as every ticket and kiosk payment. Ask Eventbrite directly for anything its site does not show.

Q: Can I take bar and food payments with Eventbrite?
A: Eventbrite’s Organizer app sells tickets and merchandise on site with Tap to Pay on a phone, and its payments page covers online and in-person payments for events. Bar and food tills, kitchen display and self-ordering kiosks are not shown on its public site at October 2026. VenueOra covers these through Posso UK, which supplies, installs and supports ePOS, kiosks, kitchen display and card machines, with VenueOra processing the card payments on the Posso platform.

Q: Does Eventbrite check age or ID?
A: Not on its public site. Its nightlife page covers guest lists, table reservations and QR scanning without mentioning age or ID checks. VenueOra includes VenueGo, which checks the guest on their phone. VenueGo reads the document in the camera. It does not look up DVLA, the passport office, or any other government database, and it does not read a passport chip. A clear result is not proof a document is genuine. It does not replace a premises licence, a challenge at the bar, or legal advice.

Q: Will I lose marketplace discovery if I move to VenueOra?
A: VenueOra does not run a public events marketplace, so discovery through Eventbrite’s app, recommendations and ads is something you would give up or keep running alongside. Nothing stops a venue listing one-off events on a marketplace while selling daily admissions, memberships and on-site payments through its own platform. VenueOra keeps the guest record with the venue, with member-only ticket types, discount codes with campaign URLs and lifecycle emails to bring your own guests back.

## Related pages

- Ticketing: https://venueora.com/ticketing
- Card terminals: https://venueora.com/card-terminals
- Age verification: https://venueora.com/age-verification
- What is white label ticketing? A buyer's guide: https://venueora.com/guides/white-label-ticketing-what-can-be-branded
- Card payment machines for events: a UK guide: https://venueora.com/guides/card-machines-for-events
- Pricing: https://venueora.com/pricing

Book a demo: https://venueora.com/pricing#request