Event Extras let you sell useful items alongside your event tickets.

These can include food, merchandise, drinks packages, meet-and-greets or other items attendees may want before or during the event.

A buyer can add extras while choosing tickets and pay for everything through the same checkout.

For you as the organiser, extras can also make planning easier because you know some of the demand before event day.

What can you sell as an extra?

An extra should be something that makes sense for the event and that you can reliably provide.

For example:

An official event T-shirt.
A meal or drinks package.
A merchandise bundle.
A meet-and-greet.
Another event package or add-on.

Keep the offer simple. A buyer should be able to understand what they are getting, how much it costs and where they will receive it.

Open Event Extras

From your seller dashboard:

Open Events.
Select the event.
Open Extras.

From here, you can create the items you want to sell, manage their availability and open the customer orders connected to them.

Add an extra

Choose Add an Item and enter the information buyers need.

Give the item a clear name and explain what is included.

For example:

Event T-Shirt
Official event T-shirt available in Small, Medium, Large and XL. Collect from the merchandise desk near the main entrance.

Or:

VIP Meal Package
Includes a main meal, dessert and one soft drink. Collect from the VIP dining area from 6:00 p.m.

Add the correct price and the number you can actually provide.

If buyers need to know something before ordering, such as available sizes, flavours or collection times, include it in the description or collection information.

Link an existing product where useful

If the item already exists in your Tambala product catalogue, you may be able to link it instead of creating everything again.

Choose Link Product and select the appropriate approved product. Tambala can use information from the existing listing as a starting point, after which you can adjust the details for the event.

This is useful for merchandise or other products you already sell normally.

Before saving, check that the event price, quantity and collection information are still correct.

The way you sell an item at an event may not be exactly the same as the way you sell it through your normal store.

Choose how buyers will pay

You can offer an extra using full payment or, where supported, a deposit followed by a balance.

Full payment

The buyer pays the full amount when placing the order.

This is normally the simplest choice for ordinary food, merchandise, parking and lower-cost extras.

Once payment is confirmed, you know exactly what has been sold and can prepare it for the event.

Deposit and balance

For some higher-value items or packages, you may allow the buyer to pay part of the amount now and the rest later.

Use this only where splitting the payment genuinely helps.

If you offer a deposit, make sure the buyer can clearly understand the full price, the amount due now, the remaining balance and when that balance must be paid.

The balance due date should leave enough time for you to know which orders are fully committed before you prepare the final quantities.

Do not make a simple item unnecessarily difficult to buy by adding a deposit process it does not need.

Explain what happens if a balance is late

If you accept deposits, buyers should know what happens if they do not pay the remaining balance on time.

Use the late-payment policy available on the listing to explain this clearly.

For example, if an unpaid balance may eventually cause the reservation to be forfeited and the deposit retained, the buyer should know that before paying the deposit.

Do not introduce new penalties after the order has already been placed.

The terms should be clear from the beginning.

Set a realistic quantity

Only sell what you can provide.

If you can prepare 80 meals, do not make 150 available.

If you have 50 T-shirts, your available quantity should reflect the stock you actually have for the event.

Extras are useful partly because they tell you how much demand exists in advance. That benefit disappears if the quantities in Tambala do not match reality.

You can also use the buyer limit where available to prevent one person from taking an unreasonable share of a limited item.

Set an order cutoff when you need one

Some extras need preparation before event day.

Food is a good example. You may need to give a caterer the final number several days before the event.

In that case, set an order cutoff that gives you enough time to prepare.

Other items may be able to stay available until the event starts.

Choose the cutoff based on what you genuinely need operationally rather than simply leaving everything open as long as possible.

Make collection instructions clear

This is one of the most important parts of an extra.

The buyer should know where and when they will receive it.

For example:

Collect from the merchandise desk beside the main entrance from 4:00 p.m.

Or:

Show your Tambala receipt at the meal collection point inside the VIP area.

Avoid instructions such as:

Collect at the event.

At a busy event, that is not enough information.

Think about the person arriving for the first time. They should know where to go without having to ask several members of staff.

Add a useful image

Where an image helps, use one that clearly represents what the buyer will receive.

For merchandise, show the actual item where possible.

For food or packages, use an image that honestly represents the offer.

Do not use a photograph that shows several items if the buyer only receives one unless the description makes that clear.

The goal is to make the purchase easier to understand, not simply more attractive.

Manage availability

After publishing an extra, keep its availability accurate.

An item may be Available, Sold Out, Paused or closed because the ordering period has ended.

If you temporarily need to stop new orders, pause the item.

This is better than deleting something that already has customer orders attached to it.

If buyers have already purchased the extra, preserve the listing and its history so their receipts and order information continue to make sense.

Check customer orders

Use Manage Customer Orders from Extras or open the relevant event orders from the main Orders section.

Here you can see what buyers have ordered and what still needs to be prepared.

Each extra order has its own reference that helps you identify it when the buyer collects.

Use the order information in Tambala rather than keeping a separate informal list as your main record.

As the event approaches, these orders become part of your preparation plan.

If 90 people have ordered meals, your catering team needs to know that.

If 35 people ordered shirts, those shirts should be organised before the collection desk opens.

Prepare the orders

Once you know what has been sold, prepare the items before the event.

Do not wait until buyers are already arriving to start separating merchandise or counting meal packages.

Organise the orders in a way your event team can work with.

For example, you might arrange them by receipt number, buyer name or item type.

When an order is genuinely prepared and ready for collection, update it to Ready where available.

Tambala can then let the buyer know that their item is ready.

Do not mark something ready while it is still being prepared.

Check payment before handing over an item

For a fully paid extra, make sure Tambala shows the payment correctly before handover.

For an item bought with a deposit, check whether the remaining balance has been paid.

A Deposit Paid status means there is still money outstanding.

A Fully Paid status means the buyer has completed the payment.

Do not rely on a screenshot showing that the buyer says they paid the balance. Check Tambala.

If money is still due, ask the buyer to complete the payment through the approved process before handing over the item.

Handle late balances

Tambala may remind buyers when a balance is approaching its due date.

If the date passes and the balance remains unpaid, the order may show as overdue.

You can then decide what to do based on the late-payment terms attached to that extra.

Where Tambala allows forfeiture, only use it when the original terms support that decision.

Forfeiting an order may release the reserved item so someone else can buy it and may affect what happens to the deposit.

Do not forfeit an order casually, especially if the buyer is actively communicating and the situation can still be resolved fairly.

Hand the item to the right buyer

At the event, ask the buyer for the information needed to find the order, such as their receipt number.

Open or confirm the order and make sure the item and quantity are correct.

Then hand it over.

Only update the order to Collected after the buyer has actually received it.

Do not mark several orders collected in advance simply because you expect those people to arrive.

The collection status should show what genuinely happened.

Make collection easy on event day

For larger events, treat extras collection as a small fulfilment operation.

Have the items ready, make the collection point easy to find and make sure staff understand the process.

If you expect a lot of orders, it may help to separate collection by item type or have one person finding orders while another hands them over.

A simple process matters more than a complicated setup.

The buyer should be able to arrive, show their reference, receive the correct item and continue enjoying the event.

If something becomes unavailable

If you discover that you cannot provide an item that buyers have already paid for, deal with it early.

Contact affected buyers and follow the appropriate Tambala refund or support process.

Do not wait until they arrive at the collection point to tell them.

Also pause the listing so additional people cannot continue buying something you cannot provide.

Use extras to learn what attendees want

Extras can tell you more than how much additional revenue the event generated.

They also show what your audience values.

If a meal package sells out quickly, that may be worth expanding next time.

If people repeatedly buy parking in advance, transport and parking may be an important part of the attendee experience.

If a merchandise item barely sells, you may want to produce less next time or rethink the design or price.

Use the information to improve future events.

The important thing to remember

A good event extra should answer four questions:

What am I buying?

How much and when do I pay?

Where and when do I collect it?

What happens if I do not complete the payment?

For you as the organiser, there is one more:

Can I reliably provide everything I am selling?

If those answers are clear, Event Extras can make the event more useful for attendees and create another valuable source of sales for your business.

For the rest of your event setup, see Edit and Manage Your Events.

For ticket purchases and attendee orders, see Process Ticket Orders.

For event-day entry, see Check Attendees In.

What can you sell as an extra?

Open Event Extras

Add an extra

Link an existing product where useful

Choose how buyers will pay

Full payment

Deposit and balance

Explain what happens if a balance is late

Set a realistic quantity

Set an order cutoff when you need one

Make collection instructions clear

Add a useful image

Manage availability

Check customer orders

Prepare the orders

Check payment before handing over an item

Handle late balances

Hand the item to the right buyer

Make collection easy on event day

If something becomes unavailable

Use extras to learn what attendees want

The important thing to remember

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