17 years helping British businesses
choose better software
Brown Paper Tickets
What is Brown Paper Tickets?
Free, socially conscious ticketing and event registration platform with 24/7 live, in-house, multi-lingual customer service. Low service fee for attendees. Free seating charts. No exclusivity contracts. Option to collect donations for fundraisers at the point of sale. Free ticket printing and shipping. Robust features and tools no matter the event size.
Who Uses Brown Paper Tickets?
Event planners and agencies, entrepreneurs, non-profits, community centers, schools, as well as venues, artists and promoters who sell tickets or set up registration to events.
Not sure about Brown Paper Tickets?
Compare with a popular alternative
Brown Paper Tickets
Reviews of Brown Paper Tickets
Alternatives Considered:
Cheaper than many alternatives, and easy to use
Pros:
Very easy to use and implement. We used to sell event tickets right off our website using a more manual process, and when exploring options Brown Paper Tickets was recommended to us. After looking into it we decided to try it out on a free event. That went so well we started using it for paid events as well. We recently held an event with different t time options and their customer service was extremely helpful in walking us through getting our event set up correctly.
Cons:
Interface/look of the site is a little dated. I wish you could customize it a little bit more.
Alternatives Considered:
Simple platform for event needs
Comments: It has been great! Very simple and straight-forward, which is good for my clients who may not be so tech-savvy.
Pros:
I really like the "fair-trade" model that Brown Paper Tickets embodies. Being in community development work, I like to source equitable tools and software for my engagements.
Cons:
The interface of the BPT website could be improved. It has an old-style look to it that may not be appealing to all users.
Alternatives Considered:
Beware the gross negligence, you won't get your funds :(
Comments: We became customers of Brown Paper Tickets in 2008, using their services to sell tickets to our public tours. In 2020, we continued to use them and were lucky to safely remain open and hold our tours. Brown Paper Tickets has withheld over $30,000 of our ticket sales for tours from July through September, none of which were cancelled. We have gotten no response from them despite countless attempts to reach them, begging for an answer as to when we will get our funds. We are a small non-profit historic site, and our staff worked hard to bring in that income that we so heavily rely on. Brown Paper Tickets has been grossly negligent, and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone anywhere. We have since ceased all ticket sales through them and are shopping for an alternative.
Pros:
I loved their customer service team until they laid them all off. They used to be so wonderfully helpful and kind, always available. Now they shut down the phone lines and refuse to provide answers.
Cons:
It was complicated to set up for our needs at times, and was too time consuming / not very customizable.
Alternatives Considered:
Excellent choice for free online events
Comments: Overall, Brown Paper Tickets is easy to use but not customize.
Pros:
I appreciate that brown paper tickets doesn’t charge if you are not selling tickets.
Cons:
It was sometimes difficult to find specific event data or make customer reports.
Alternatives Considered:
Perfect for small-budget nonprofits
Pros:
It's safe to say that BPT has stayed true to its mission from the beginning: providing low-cost ticketing and event management that's suitable for student groups and low-budget nonprofit organizations. It's simple, effective, and we've never had a complaint about the UX.
Cons:
It would be interesting to see their branding / user-flow updated to something similar to Eventbrite, but I'm almost hesitant to say that because it's almost nostalgic at this point.