When a customer loses a ticket, a printed season pass, or a physical membership card, you don’t need to refund the order, re-order, or edit the order in Shopify. Re-assign the barcode instead. That issues a fresh barcode on the same ticket, so the missing one stops scanning at the door and the customer keeps their order, their check-in history, and their spot.
Use this whenever the ticket itself is fine and only the copy the customer holds is gone. If the customer isn’t getting a replacement at all, void the ticket instead.
Requirements: The Event Ticketing app installed. Re-assigning barcodes is done in your Guest Manager dashboard, which is available on the Advanced plan and higher.
Find the right ticket
If the order has more than one ticket on it, identify the lost one before you change anything. Re-assigning the wrong ticket will stop a card the customer is still holding.
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Open the order in Shopify admin.
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Find the Event Ticketing block on the order page. It lists every attendee on the order with their barcode number.
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If the tickets have attendee names, match the name to the customer who lost theirs.
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If they don’t have names (common with physical season passes sold in a batch), work it out by elimination. Ask the customer to read you the barcode numbers printed on the cards they still have. The remaining number in the block is the lost one.
Make a note of that barcode number. You’ll search for it in the next step.
Re-assign the barcode
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In the Event Ticketing app, go to Attendees and click Export. That opens your full Guest Manager attendee list in a new tab. You can also go there directly from the Manage in Guest Manager link on the order block.
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Type the lost barcode number into the search box. Searching a number matches that exact barcode, so you’ll land on the one ticket.
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Tick the checkbox on that row, and only that row.
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Open the Actions menu and choose Re-assign barcode numbers.
The ticket gets a new barcode immediately. The old number stops working, and your scanning devices pick up the change the next time they sync. Nothing else on the ticket changes: the order stays linked, the check-in count is preserved, and event capacity is untouched.
Re-assigning barcodes acts on every row you have selected. If you use Select to grab a whole page or a whole filter, you will re-issue all of those tickets and invalidate every copy your customers are holding. Select one row at a time for a lost ticket.
Send the replacement
Re-assigning a barcode does not notify the customer. Send the new ticket yourself.
- Emailed tickets. With the ticket still selected, use Actions then Send emails to deliver the new ticket. Or open the ticket and re-send it individually.
- Printed tickets and physical cards. Download the ticket again with Actions then Download (PDF) and print the replacement. The PDF is generated from the current barcode, so it carries the new number.
- Apple Wallet and Google Wallet passes. A pass the customer already added to their phone will not update on its own after a barcode change. Send them the ticket again so they can add the new pass, and have them delete the old one.
Void a ticket instead
Voiding kills the ticket outright. Use it when the customer is not getting a replacement, for example a ticket you’re cancelling or one you believe was shared or resold.
- In the Event Ticketing app, open Attendees and open the attendee.
- Choose More actions → Void ticket, pick a reason, and confirm.
In the Guest Manager dashboard, the same action is under Attendees → Actions → Void.
A voided ticket stops scanning and shows as Voided in your reports. Voiding does not move any money. If you also owe the customer a refund, handle that separately in Shopify. See Refunds and cancellations.
Don’t use order editing for a lost ticket
Shopify order editing is for changing what the customer bought, a different date, a different ticket type, or an extra ticket. It’s the wrong tool for a lost ticket, for three reasons:
- It changes the order. Removing a line and adding it back re-prices the line at the current catalog price, which can leave a balance to collect or discount away on an order that was already settled.
- You don’t get to choose which ticket goes. On a line with several tickets, reducing the quantity releases them in the order they were issued, not the one that was lost.
- Fulfilled lines are locked until you cancel the fulfillment first, which is extra work for no benefit here.
If you do need to change what the customer bought, see Edit orders.
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FAQ
Will the old ticket still scan?
No. Once your scanning devices sync, the old barcode is not recognised. Devices sync automatically, so open the scanning app before the doors open if you made the change close to an event.
Does the customer get an email when I re-assign a barcode?
No. Re-assigning is silent by design, so you can fix a batch without spamming anyone. Send the ticket yourself with Send emails once you’re done.
The customer lost one of several passes on the same order. Do the others change?
No. Re-assigning acts only on the rows you select. The other passes on the order keep their existing barcodes and keep working.
Do I need to refund and re-buy to replace a lost ticket?
No. The order is unchanged. The customer paid for a ticket and still has one, it just carries a new number.
Does this free up or use extra capacity?
No. The ticket already exists and is already counted against your event capacity. Re-assigning only changes the barcode on it.
The tickets on the order have no names, so I can’t tell which one is lost.
Ask the customer to read you the barcode numbers printed on the copies they still have. Compare those against the list in the order’s Event Ticketing block. The number that isn’t accounted for is the lost one. To avoid this next time, collect attendee names at checkout. See Collecting attendee information.
Can I re-assign barcodes for a whole event at once?
Yes, by selecting multiple rows, but be careful. Every ticket you select is invalidated for whoever holds it, so only do this if you’re re-issuing tickets to everyone.
