Sell In-Person and Virtual Classes with Castiron Events

You can sell tickets in your Castiron shop to classes, events, and other experiences with Castiron Events. Group classes are a great way to increase your income without actually making and selling physical products, helping you work less and sell more!

What does this mean for you?

• New revenue stream - Diversify your income by offering fun classes for skills that you can teach to others such as sugar cookie or cake decorating, bread making, meal prepping, or how to assemble a gorgeous charcuterie board.
• Flexible hosting options - Classes can be hosted in person at your house, another event space, or virtually through the online platform of your choice, such as Zoom or Google Meets.
• Streamlined sales process - Customers can purchase tickets alongside your other products, simplifying their shopping experience.
• Potential to boost sales - Classes can typically be priced higher than products leading to more opportunities to increase your monthly revenue.
• Customer connection - Enhance relationships with your customers through engaging experiences, leading to repeat business and long lasting connections.
• Simple management - Use the same platform to run all aspects of the class (and your business) through, including marketing your classes, taking attendance, automated pre-event reminders and more!

How to set up a Class or Event in Castiron

Watch the video to see a demo, or read below to learn more!

• Click on Events in the lefthand menu of your Castiron Admin, and then "New Event" at the top.

• Click on "Start from Scratch"

• Add a Title that describes your class/event, and a price per ticket. Note: you'll be able to add additional pricing and event variations later.

• Select any Holidays or Occasions that are relevant to this class to help promote it with our Automated Marketing tools!

• Add a main photo for the Class or Event by either dragging the files and dropping in the middle, or clicking the "Browse Photos" button to select it. Note: you'll be able to add more images later.

• Once you click "Create Event," you'll be taken to the Edit Event page, where you can add the final details.
• Fill out the Description for the class with enough information for customers to make an informed purchase. Here's where you can add a personal touch to your text to get them excited for how much fun they'll have and discuss the skills they'll be learning!
• It's great for SEO purposes to have phrases and words about your event that your customers might be typing in when searching for classes in their area online. This helps them find you more easily!

• Under Availability, you can choose to make this product "Active" (visible) in your Shop, "Inactive" (not visible), or use "Scheduled" to set the product to show up in your shop during a future time period. Note: This area is for scheduling when the product will appear in your shop, NOT the start/end date and time for the event itself (that's done in a different area)

• Under the Price area you'll see a box you can check to Feature This Event on your homepage, as well as one to Limit Event Size if you'd like to set a limit on how many tickets are sold.

• Scroll down further and you'll see the Location section, where you will choose if it's an "In Person" or "Virtual" Event. Add the Venue Name if applicable (or you can also describe your house), as well as the Venue Address and any Notes with information that customers might need to find the event.

• For the Virtual Location, a URL is required for the event that you will set up on a separate video hosting platform, such as Zoom or Google Meet.

• Next is the Date section where you will specify the Date and Start and End Times for the Event

• There's also an Allergens & Dietary Info area so you can inform customers of any food allergens.

• At the bottom of the page is the Photos area where you can add up to nine pictures for the Event listing.

• Next, scroll to the top of the page and click on the "Variations" tab.

In Variations, you can create add-ons for the class that customers can purchase, such as an extra cookie kit that they can take home with them after the class, any swag or merchandise you might sell, or maybe an "upgrade" to your class.

• When you're done adding your Variations, you can click the blue "Save" button, to go back to the Edit Event screen.
• Make any final edits to your Event, and then click "Preview" at the top right to get a peek!
• When ready, click the blue "Save" button at the bottom right corner of the screen.

You're done! Time to promote your event and get ready for the ticket sales to come in!

• To get started, you can click on the "Actions" menu at the top right, and then "New AI Social Share"

• This will generate a Social Media post in which you can copy the text and the photo, and add to the Social Media platform of your choice.

"Why can't my customer buy more than one Event ticket?"

Your customers can buy more than one Event/class ticket at once, but they will need to add each ticket individually.

Why? Because each ticket has a unique name and customer contact info attached to it (which is important for you as the artisan.)

How To:

1. Customer clicks on the Event/Class they want to purchase tickets for. They enter their name and email/phone number, then "Add to Cart".
2. They return to that Event/Class listing and enter the next person's name and contact info, then "Add to Cart".
3. Continuing adding each person's contact info until all are entered and added to cart.
4. The cart will have the correct number of tickets with each person's name listed.

*One exception is if you have an inventory limit on number of tickets and they are trying to buy more than is left (ex: You have 2 tickets left and they want to buy 3, they will not be able to check out. You can increase your inventory by 1 to accommodate or they can only buy 2—it's up to you!).

Update: Events now show on your admin calendar. Click on the event and you can see the details, including number of tickets sold and attendee details.

Email us anytime for support at [e-mail], and we hope you have a wonderful Event!