How to sell college fest passes online: day passes, ambassador codes and fast gates

1. Start with an account that belongs to the fest, not a person

Sign up on Yano with the fest’s or council’s email, not a core member’s personal one, and use the college’s, club’s or society’s own UPI ID or Razorpay or Cashfree account for payments. Next year’s team inherits the account, last year’s events and the guest lists, and nobody has to explain fest money in a personal bank statement. Yano never holds the money; it goes straight to the account you connect.

2. Plan your passes

• Day passes and a full-fest pass: make the event multi-day. A Day 2 pass won’t work on Day 1, and a full-fest pass works once on each day.
• Our college vs other colleges: make separate pass types with their own price and quantity, and check college ID cards at the gate if the price depends on it.
• Early bird: a lower price for a fixed number of passes. When they’re gone, they’re gone — real urgency people trust, without a fake countdown.
• Pro-night or headliner passes: a separate pass type with its own quantity, so the main ground never oversells.
• Set the most passes one person can book, so a single group can’t buy half the early birds.

3. Get paid without chasing screenshots

For a fest, connect the college’s or society’s own Razorpay or Cashfree account. Students pay by UPI, card or netbanking and the pass arrives at once; there is nothing to approve, even when a thousand people book on launch night. The gateway charges its usual fee. For a small club event, a UPI ID is enough: students pay and tap “I have paid”, and you approve after checking the account.

4. One code per ambassador

Give every campus ambassador, partner college and influencer their own promo code, each with its own link. You see how many bookings each code brought, so certificates, goodies and next year’s team picks are based on real numbers, not claims. A small discount on each code is enough to make students use it, and you can cap how many times a code can be used.

5. Share where students already are

• The fest Instagram bio: your organiser page lists every event of the fest season in one link.
• Class and hostel WhatsApp groups. The link shows a preview with your poster.
• If the fest has its own website, Yano can show a booking button on it with two lines of code.

6. Competitions and workshops inside the fest

Give each competition or workshop its own event, so registrations, questions and seats stay separate: team name and members for a battle of bands, the college and year for a hackathon. Each can be free or paid. The fest page and the organiser page keep them together for students.

7. Run the gates

• Send the scanner link to every gate volunteer. No app or login, and no access to money or settings.
• Green means let in; yellow means the pass was already used, with the time and name; red means it isn’t valid for this day.
• Many volunteers can scan at different gates at once, and each pass still works only once.
• Walk-ins: sell a pass right at the gate for cash or UPI from the scanner; they’re counted like everyone else.
• Phone dead? Find the student by mobile number. If the campus network is weak at a gate, keep a printed list as a backup.

8. After the fest

Download every list for the accounts and the sponsors’ footfall report: names, colleges, what each paid, which code they used. Next year, open this year’s fest and tap “Repeat this event”: passes, questions and payment settings are copied, and the new team only changes the dates.