Approving paid events from new hosts
How the Pending Events queue works — which events are held, what Approve and Reject do, and the emails hosts and admins receive.
Internal · platform adminsLast updated Internal
Internal
This page is for ShowTix platform admins only. These screens are not visible to hosts.
When a host who hasn't been approved yet publishes a paid event, it's held — not public, tickets not on sale — until a platform admin reviews it at /admin/pending-events (Platform Admin → Pending Events). Approving takes the event live and approves the host for good.
The host's side of this is in Publishing and approval.
Which events are held#
At publish, an event is held for review only when all three are true:
| Check | Held when… |
|---|---|
| The event is paid | At least one ticket type has a price above $0. Events with no ticket types, or only $0 ones, are free. |
| The host isn't approved | The host's account has never been approved by an admin. |
| The approval gate is on | It is on by default. |
Free events, and paid events from hosts who are already approved, publish straight away and never appear in this queue. A held event has the approval state pending_review.
The check runs on every publish path — the anonymous builder, the signed-in builder and console Publish event, the API and the mobile apps, re-publishing after an unpublish or a rejection, and publishing a duplicated event. It also catches a live free event that gains a paid ticket type (or has a free ticket repriced) while its host is unapproved: the whole event comes off sale and lands in this queue, and approving it puts every ticket type, including the new paid one, on sale.
The Pending Events queue#
The page lists held events, newest first, with:
Event — the title
Host — name and email
Starts — start date and time
Ticket prices — e.g.
$25.00or$20.00 – $50.00Payout — On file if the event has a bank account for settlement, Missing if not
Review — Approve and Reject
When the queue is empty you'll see "No paid events awaiting approval".
Missing payout details don't block approval — the event can still go live. Check the bank details before you approve, because the event won't be paid out without them. See Payouts.
Approve#
Click Approve on the row.
The Approve host? dialog explains that this takes the event live and permanently approves the host — their future paid events will publish without review.
Click Approve & go live.
What happens:
The host's account is stamped as approved (
host_approved_at, plus which admin approved it). If they were already approved, the original approval time is kept.The event is made public and its ticket types go on sale.
The event leaves the queue and you see "Host approved — event is now live".
The host is emailed (see below).
There's no way to un-approve a host in the admin tools yet.
Reject#
Click Reject on the row.
In the Reject event dialog, optionally type a reason in Reason (optional) — shared with the host.
Click Reject event.
The event stays unpublished, the reason is saved on the event, and the host is emailed. You'll see "Event rejected — host notified". Rejecting an event does not change the host's approval status.
In the host's event console, a rejected event shows "Our team couldn't approve this event:" followed by your reason, and the publish controls are hidden.
A rejected event can't be sent back for review yet — there's no un-reject in the admin tools and the host can't resubmit it. If you rejected something by mistake, ask engineering.
Emails#
| When | Who gets it | Subject |
|---|---|---|
| A paid event is held | The platform admin inbox | New paid event awaiting approval — event title |
| A paid event is held | The host | Event submitted — under review: event title |
| You approve | The host | Your event is live — event title |
| You reject | The host | Update on your event — event title |
The admin email includes the host's name and email, the ticket prices and a Review in the admin inbox button that opens
/admin/pending-events. It goes to the address set as the platform admin email, or the ShowTix ops inbox if none is set.The "under review" email tells the host the review is usually within one business day and that they can keep editing while they wait.
The approval email has View your event and Open event console buttons and tells the host their future paid events will publish straight away.
The rejection email quotes your reason (if you gave one) and invites the host to reply to discuss it.
Emails are best-effort: if one fails to send, the approval or rejection still goes through.
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