Got VSEATS Plugin Helpful Tips and Tutorials

We’re here to guide you through setting up and using the plugin, with each segment focusing on at least one of its features. How you utilize these features is entirely up to you once installation is complete. If any part of the process is unclear, we recommend rewatching the instructional video and reading the documentation thoroughly. Should questions persist, please submit your queries through our contact page for further assistance.

Index of Tutorials

Here is a quick guide to our documentation. Go through this once or twice and once you start working with the plugin you’ll figure it out relatively quickly.

Free Trial

Understanding the value of free trials, we offer a two-week trial period for our plugin, providing unrestricted access to all its features. This approach ensures you fully understand its capabilities, aiding in your decision-making process. To maximize this trial, we recommend reading our plugin expectations page and setting up your affiliate account beforehand. This preparation will enable you to experience the plugin’s full potential.

To begin your journey today, simply email support (@) gotvseats.com. In your email, use “Free Trial” as the subject line and include the website where you intend to implement the shortcode. This information is crucial for us to provide you with your secure key, a key step in activating your trial. Although we may not respond immediately, the two weeks won’t start until after we establish your key.

Installation

Option One

When it comes to installation, you have straightforward options. Once your trial commences or upon purchasing your plan, you’ll receive a zip file from us. To install:

  1. Navigate to the ‘Plugins’ directory on your WordPress site.
  2. Click on “Add New Plugin”.
  3. Select “Upload Plugin”.
  4. Click on “Choose File”, then select the zip file from your file directory and click ‘Open’.
  5. Click “Install Now”.

The installation process is swift, typically taking less than a minute. After installation, simply activate the plugin, and your setup is complete.

Option Two

Installing a WordPress plugin via FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a bit more technical than the standard WordPress dashboard method, but it’s straightforward. Here are the steps:

Once you have our plugin downloaded to a directory on your computer you will follow the steps listed below.

Extract the Plugin: Extract the .zip file on your computer. This will create a new folder with the plugin’s files.

Access Your Site via FTP: You’ll need an FTP client, like FileZilla or Cyberduck, to access your site. Open your FTP client and connect to your web hosting account using the FTP credentials provided by your web host.

Navigate to the WordPress Plugins Directory: Once connected, navigate to your WordPress site’s root folder (often called ‘public_html’, ‘www’, or named after your site). Inside, go to the ‘wp-content’ folder, and then into the ‘plugins’ folder.

Upload the Plugin: Upload the extracted plugin folder (not the .zip file) to the ‘plugins’ directory on your server. Ensure you upload the plugin’s folder itself, not just the contents.

Activate the Plugin in WordPress: After the upload is complete, log in to your WordPress dashboard. Go to ‘Plugins’ → ‘Installed Plugins’. You should see your newly uploaded plugin listed there.

Activate the Plugin: Find the plugin you just uploaded and click ‘Activate’. This will enable the plugin on your WordPress site.

Remember, using FTP to install plugins is generally only necessary if you can’t install plugins directly from the WordPress dashboard.

Plugin Setup

To set up the plugin so it functions seamlessly on both your posts and pages, follow these simple steps:

Activate the Plugin: After installing and activating the plugin, go to your WordPress dashboard.

Access Plugin Settings: Hover over the “Settings” option in the dashboard. A flyout dropdown menu will appear.

Select Plugin Settings: In the dropdown, click on “Vivid Seats Tickets Shortcode” to access the specific settings for the plugin.

Configure the Settings:
Root Server URL: Enter https://www.gotvseats.com/ in the Root Server URL field.
License Key: Enter the License Key, which will be sent to you via email. A One-Site-Only key.
Trial Period Settings: During the trial, you don’t need to fill out the Vivid Seats Affiliate ID or the Default Vivid Seats Affiliate Link.

Ensure SSL Certificate: Important – Your site must have an SSL certificate installed for the plugin to work properly. Ensure that this certificate is in place to enable secure connections.

By following these steps, you can easily configure the plugin for effective use on your WordPress site, whether it’s for posts, pages, or both. Remember, having an SSL certificate is crucial for the plugin’s functionality, so make sure this is set up before proceeding.

Style Options

We’re dedicated to enhancing the visual appeal of your ticket listings. In the plugin settings, you’ll find a “Style Options” tab. This feature allows you to customize the aesthetics of your ticket listings, including:

Text Color: Adjust the color of the text in your listings for better readability or to match your site’s theme.
Background Color: Change the background color of your listings to create a seamless integration with your website’s design.
Button Color: Customize the color of buttons in your listings to make them stand out or align with your brand’s color scheme.
Hover Button Colors: Modify the colors that appear when users hover over buttons, adding an interactive element to your listings.

Keep an eye out for future updates, as we’re continuously working to provide more styling options to further tailor the look and feel of your ticket listings to your unique website style.

Creating a Performer Listing

Getting started with creating a basic performer shortcode is straightforward and flexible. You can choose any performer, sports team, comedian, theater show, or event with available tickets. Here’s how you do it:

  1. Navigate to the Shortcode Generator within a post or page.
  2. Enter Performer Name: In our example, we’re using ‘Chris Stapleton’. Simply type this name into the performer field.
  3. Generation Options: You have two choices – ‘Preview’ and ‘Generate Shortcode’. For this demonstration, select “Generate Shortcode”. The resulting shortcode will look something like this (We removed the brackets to prevent actual listing creation): WP_VST_EVENT name=’Chris Stapleton’ count=’10’. This code specifies the event name (Chris Stapleton) and the count (next 10 events).
  4. You would then copy this code and paste it anywhere you wish the listings to appear.

Tip for Effective Use:

Always Preview First: We recommend using the preview option before finalizing the shortcode. This feature helps ensure the correct spelling and functionality, as the generator is sensitive to spelling errors. Previewing allows you to check the output before it goes live.

Next, we’ll discuss the importance of previewing your shortcode output, which ensures a cleaner and more accurate ticket listing. Our instructional video will illustrate what might occur if you only fill in the performer field and the benefits of utilizing the preview feature for optimal results.

Video – Coming Soon!

Preview of Your Listings

Emphasizing the importance of previewing cannot be overstated, both on this page and in our tutorial videos. Previewing is a critical step to ensure that you are receiving the correct listings before actually applying the shortcode to your page. This step is crucial for verifying that the shortcode will display the intended information.

Video – Coming Soon!

Let’s take a different example to illustrate this point: selecting the Duke Blue Devils Basketball Team. For this example, we have two images to demonstrate the outcome.

If we simply set the performer to “Duke Blue Devils” without further specification, the output could include mixed and unrelated events. However, by using the preview function, we can identify this issue and make necessary adjustments. Adding the category (in this case, ‘NCAA Basketball’) refines the output, ensuring that the listings are more relevant and specific to the Duke Blue Devils Men’s Basketball Team. This example highlights how previewing and adjusting categories can significantly improve the clarity and relevance of your event listings.

Duke Blue Devils
Notice the output of the generator. This is everything Duke Blue Devils.

Duke Blue Devils with Category - Only the NCAA Men's Basketball Team Events Show Up

Duke Blue Devils with Category – Only the NCAA Men’s Basketball Team Events Show Up

The Importance of Category Usage

The category feature in the shortcode is essential for fine-tuning your event listings, as seen in our Duke Blue Devils example. Specifying the category helps to segregate and streamline the output according to specific teams or genres. For instance, when dealing with collegiate teams like the Duke Blue Devils, you can specify categories like NCAA Basketball, NCAA Women’s Basketball, NCAA Football, Hockey, Soccer, Amateur Wrestling, Volleyball, etc. This ensures that your listings are accurate and relevant to the chosen category.

The importance of categorization is also evident when listing artists. Take the artist Drake as an example. If you input ‘Drake’ without specifying a category, the listings might include various unrelated events like the Drake Bulldogs, and Drake White, among others. To narrow down the listings to the artist Drake exclusively, adding the category ‘Rap/Hip Hop’ filters out irrelevant results, leaving only events pertaining to Drake the musician.

However, it’s important to note that some limitations exist, especially with common names. Using a general name like “John” without additional context could lead to a confusing array of events. But if you use a more specific name, such as ‘John Mulaney’, without a category, you are less likely to encounter issues with unrelated listings, given the uniqueness of the name.

Using the category feature in your shortcode can significantly enhance the accuracy and relevance of your event listings, making it a crucial tool for precise and targeted outputs.

Video – Coming Soon!

Creating a Venue Listing

Continuing with our tutorial series, let’s explore how to feature venues on your website, particularly useful if your site is focused on a specific area like Chicago. With our plugin, adding event listings for particular venues is a straightforward process.

For example, if you want to highlight events at the United Center in Chicago, simply type “United Center” into the venue field and hit preview. This action will generate a listing of all upcoming events at the United Center. This method is applicable to various venues, such as Wrigley Field, Chicago Theatre, Vic Theatre, Aragon Ballroom, and more, covering an extensive range of locations across the United States.

The plugin offers a depth of customization for your listings. For instance, if you wish to display events at the United Center for the month of January, focusing on NBA games, and want to show the next 15 events, you can easily set these parameters. The corresponding shortcode for this specific query would be WP_VST_EVENT venue=’United Center’ count=’15’ category=’NBA Basketball’ month=’January’.

The shortcode’s flexibility in breaking down options by venue, time frame, category, and event count truly showcases its power and utility. This level of detail allows you to tailor the event listings to fit the exact needs and focus of your website, enhancing both the relevance and appeal of your content. For a more comprehensive understanding, our video tutorials go into these features, illustrating the extensive capabilities of the shortcode and how it can be effectively utilized for your specific requirements.

Tip – Be sure to spell the venue correctly or you may not see events on the preview. People sometimes type in Theater instead of Theatre.

Video – Coming Soon!

Month-by-Month Listings

Building on our previous tutorial, monthly event listings are an excellent way to enrich your content with timely and relevant information. For instance, if you’re writing an article about activities in a specific city during December, you can seamlessly integrate a list of all events happening in that month using our plugin.

To enhance the specificity and relevance of your listings, it’s beneficial to add a few more details to your shortcode. For example, if your site focuses on Jazz and Blues, you might want to compile a list of Jazz and Blues concerts happening in December in a particular city, say New Orleans. To do this, you would set the shortcode parameters to include the city, category, and month. The shortcode for Jazz/Blues concerts in New Orleans during December would be WP_VST_EVENT count=’10’ category=’Blues and Jazz’ city=’San Francisco’ month=’December’.

This level of customization ensures that the listings on your site are not only relevant to your content theme but also to the specific interests of your audience. Whether there’s just one event or as many as ten, they will be neatly listed on your site, providing your readers with valuable information and potentially increasing engagement on your platform.

Our plugin’s versatility in generating such targeted event listings makes it an invaluable tool for content creators looking to offer their audience comprehensive and curated event information based on specific themes, locations, and timings.

Video – Coming Soon!

Create Listing by City

By this point in our tutorials, it’s clear that our plugin offers a wealth of features, each with its own depth and utility. It’s important for us to cover each feature in detail to ensure you don’t miss out on any of its capabilities.

One of the standout features of the plugin is the ability to select events by city. This function is incredibly versatile; it doesn’t matter whether the city is a major metropolitan area or a smaller town. If there’s an event with tickets available, our plugin can list it. This flexibility allows you to tailor your content to any location of your choice, as long as there’s an event happening there.

The simplicity of this feature lies in its user-friendly interface. Cities with available events will appear in a dropdown menu, making it easy to select the one you’re interested in. This means you can easily focus on a specific city, whether it’s for a targeted marketing campaign, a local event feature, or even a travel-related article.

The ability to zoom in on any given city enriches the content on your website, offering your audience a more tailored experience. It’s particularly useful for sites focused on local content or those that want to showcase events in less-covered areas. This level of customization is what makes our plugin not just a tool, but a powerful asset in enhancing the relevance and appeal of your website’s content.

Video – Coming Soon!

Number of Listings per Shortcode

While our plugin’s default setting displays 10 event listings, you have the flexibility to adjust this number to suit your needs. You can choose to list any number of events, but we recommend maintaining a maximum of 25 listings per page for optimal user experience and site performance.

This recommendation takes into account website aesthetics and load times, ensuring that your site remains user-friendly and efficient. A concise list also helps in keeping your audience’s attention focused, providing them with a curated selection of events without overwhelming them.

Next, we’ll discuss the “Load More” button feature. This function is particularly useful as it allows users to view additional events beyond the initial set number of listings without cluttering the page. It enhances user experience by offering them the option to explore more events at their convenience, keeping the initial page view neat and manageable. This feature is an excellent way to balance comprehensive event coverage with a clean, user-friendly interface.

Video – Coming Soon!

Using the “Load More” Button

The “Load More” button in our plugin serves as an essential, though not flawless, feature. We prioritize transparency, so it’s important to acknowledge that this function might occasionally present challenges. Due to data limitations, the “Load More” button isn’t always able to direct users to the exact page they’re seeking.

In an ideal scenario, the “Load More” button would consistently open the correct page corresponding to the user’s search or filter criteria. However, because of certain data constraints, there’s a possibility that users might be directed to a page that is similar in name but not exactly what they were looking for.

To mitigate this issue, we strongly recommend utilizing the ‘Category’ feature in every shortcode link you create. This approach significantly increases the likelihood that the plugin will direct users to the most relevant page.

A more effective, albeit time-consuming, solution is to manually create the link you want in the backend of the Impact platform. This method allows you to craft a custom affiliate link with the specific destination you desire. By adding a deep link and the parameters you need, you can enhance reporting accuracy and ensure that users are taken to the precise page they intend to visit, where they can view more events.

While this approach requires a bit more effort, it greatly improves the user experience by providing them with direct access to the exact events they’re interested in, thereby enhancing the overall functionality and effectiveness of the plugin.

Video – Coming Soon!

Things that May Happen

Cache – If you make changes but aren’t seeing them, be sure to check your cache plugins. You may need to purge your current cache for any updates to happen.

No Events – You may want to apply events to a performer or team that doesn’t have anything in the near future. You may create the shortcode with just the name or if you are positive about the category, you can add that as well. Once the events get added to the schedule they will get added to the listings on your page.

This plugin offers multiple functionalities to enhance your content with relevant information and provides a significant opportunity to earn as a ticket industry affiliate. If you encounter any difficulties after exploring our page and videos, please reach out for assistance. We are always open to suggestions for improving our plugin.