Introducing “Event Tickets Seating Labels by TechSpokes”
If you’ve ever organized an event and sold tickets online, you know that getting people in the right seats should be the easy part. But for anyone using Event Tickets Plus (or almost any WordPress ticketing system), there’s a familiar frustration: the seat numbers on your attendees’ tickets often don’t match the labels in your actual venue. The result? Confused guests, wasted staff time, and endless manual corrections—turning what should be a seamless experience into a logistical headache for everyone involved.
How a Personal Project Solved a Real-World Problem
My wife regularly produces events across France and Spain, bringing her expertise and passion to each show she organizes. Like many event organizers, she prefers selling tickets directly from her own website, avoiding third-party platform fees, maintaining control of branding, and directly managing customer relationships.
I’ve chosen for her website the Event Tickets Plus (a WordPress plugin by The Events Calendar team) because it’s excellent. It offers independence, flexibility, professional-level features without commissions or hidden costs, and easy checkout experience.
But there was one significant gap: accurate seat labeling.
As a “tech” guy, I quickly recognized just how frustrating this problem was for organizers—including in my own household! My wife’s regular “can you check this?” requests made it clear how much time and energy were wasted on proper seat labeling issues. Seeing the pain firsthand, I knew there had to be a better way—and that if I didn’t build it, I wasn’t going to get any good sleep!
The Challenge: Great Seat Maps and Checkout Experience, but Confusing Labels
Event Tickets Plus does seat mapping and checkout process really well, visually and intuitively, way better than many other high-end solutions out there. The problem arises when attendees purchase a ticket labeled something like “A1″—because that’s how the plugin generates ticket labels by default. But in our venues, the real seat might actually be “Row 1, Seat 14.”
This small mismatch led to confusion, extra customer support, and manual corrections post-sale.
We needed a way to make sure every ticket showed the exact seat label guests would see in the venue—simple, clear, and accurate from the very beginning.
Our Real-Life “Awesome” Experience
At a recent event in Valencia, guests picked their seats directly from the interactive map on our website—simply choosing the seats they liked the most, with codes like “E15” displayed on the checkout page and the tickets. Naturally, they expected to see the same label on their chair when they arrived.
But our actual seat markers followed a completely different logic: on the left side, seats were numbered odd and counted down; on the right, they were even and counted up; rows in the main floor (Patio) went from 2 to 19; the upper level didn’t have row numbers at all, and the balcony used classic consecutive numbering. It was a patchwork of different systems, none of which matched what was on the pdf ticket delivered to the guest.
We knew it was going to be messy, so after each purchase we had to manually add custom fields to the attendee information in the Event Tickets Plus plugin, update the seating info, resend the tickets to guests, and then explain away the “technical issue”…
We sold just under 1,000 tickets—and spent countless hours on manual corrections. Despite all that effort, unnecessary confusion and awkward moments still happened at the entrance.
This wasn’t just inconvenient—it felt unprofessional and was frustrating for everyone involved.
What Didn’t Work
We tried just about every workaround we could think of.
For a while, we physically relabeled the seats in venues to match the plugin’s codes, but that was messy and hard to keep up.
We also experimented with sending automated emails with detailed seating instructions, but guests were still confused (and, honestly, most people never read the instructions anyway).
The only workaround that actually worked was manually editing the tickets after each sale—correcting every ticket info by hand and sending it again to the guest. But as our events grew, this became totally unsustainable.
That last event in May in Valencia was the final straw. When you’re selling hundreds of tickets, there’s just no way to keep up with that level of manual work—no matter how dedicated your team is.
Our Solution: Event Tickets Seating Labels by TechSpokes
Instead of looking for another plugin or building an entirely new ticketing solution, I created a focused addon designed specifically to complement the Event Tickets Plus and their Seating extension.
This personal project became Event Tickets Seating Labels by TechSpokes.
The plugin gives you exactly what was missing:
- Multiple customizable seat label fields (“Row,” “Seat,” “Zone,” “Level,” etc.)
- Fully customizable naming (English, local languages, or multilingual)
- Flexible and precise one-to-one mapping to match the actual venue seat labels
- A one-time setup per layout that can be reused across events
How It Works in Real Terms
The process is straightforward:
1. Create your layout with Event Tickets Plus
Set up your seating plan visually using the standard workflow provided by The Events Calendar team.
2. Create Your Custom Fields in the Addon
Use our plugin to define the fields you need—such as “Row,” “Seat Number,” or “Zone.” You can name these fields however you like: in English, another language, or even with bilingual labels for international events.
3. Assign Real Venue Labels
Map the seats using the addon’s bulk-editing tools (supports any logic for ascending, descending, odd/even sequences and their combinations, or custom text). Each seat is matched to exactly what’s labeled in the venue (e.g., Event Tickets “A1” becomes clearly labeled “Row 1, Seat 31”, or “Filla 19, Silla 32”, or anything you need).
4. Save Once, Reuse Forever
This mapping stays with the layout. Organize multiple events effortlessly without remapping.
5. Clear, Professional Tickets
Attendees get tickets showing exactly the seat information they’ll see in the venue—right after checkout, with no manual editing or confusion.
Video of the Addon at Work
Here is a (rather) short video of how the addon works in the WordPress admin area:
Who Benefits from this Plugin?
If you’ve ever found yourself manually editing ticket seat labels after every sale, relabeling venue chairs just to match your ticketing software, or watching guests wander the aisles at your event, frustrated and unsure where to sit—this plugin was made for you.
If you run your own ticket sales—especially for venues with unique, non-standard, or multilingual seat labeling—Event Tickets Seating Labels by TechSpokes will help you:
- Eliminate hours of tedious manual work
- Prevent attendee confusion and awkward moments at the door
- Deliver a professional, consistent experience that builds trust with your audience
- Best of all, you can keep using the excellent tools from The Events Calendar team—and finally spend your time where it really counts: running the show (not running around the venue with a highlighter and a stack of ticket printouts like I did).
Coming Soon: Special Early Access Offer
We’re getting ready to launch “Event Tickets Seating Labels by TechSpokes” to the public very soon. As a special thank you for early adopters, subscribe now and get a 50% discount for your first year.
Affiliate Program: Partner with TechSpokes
Want to share this solution with other event organizers? Join our affiliate program and earn commissions while helping others improve their events.
A Personal Solution, Built for Real Organizers
This plugin started as a personal project to solve a real issue faced by my wife (and me indirectly) and her events. It’s now a robust solution ready to help event organizers everywhere. Clear, accurate seating is a critical piece of professional event management—and we’ve finally made it simple.
— Serge Liatko,
TechSpokes CEO
P.S. Quick heads-up: My wife recently started growing her business partnerships and needed an easy way to track ticket sales from affiliates right on her website (direct links, SEO, credibility, etc.).
Unfortunately, AffiliateWP—one of the most popular affiliate solutions for WordPress—doesn’t work out-of-the-box with Event Tickets Commerce unless you also use WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, which can add a lot of extra complexity and bloat.
So I’ve decided to build a custom addon for exactly this use case. It’s now in active testing. If you’re thinking about running an affiliate program for your own events, stay tuned—we’ll have more news soon!