Live Storefront or Elements on your own site?
Both sell the same events through the same hosted checkout, with the same fan data. The difference is where fans buy: on pages Ticketlayer hosts for you, or on your own website.
If you have a website and someone who can edit it, use Elements on your event pages. If you do not, or you need to be on sale today, use Live Storefront. You can also use both on the same channel.
The two options#
Live Storefront and Elements are two front ends over the same Live API. Whichever you pick, the events, prices, theme, checkout and fan data are the channel's, in Backstage.
Answer three questions#
- 1Do you have a website you can add a script tag or an embed to?Yes Question 2No Live Storefront
- 2Should fans stay on your own address while they choose tickets?Yes ElementsNo Question 3
- 3Do you need a full shop with seat maps and accounts this week?Yes Live StorefrontNo Elements
Side by side#
The rows are the ones every Choose guide uses where they apply, so two guides read the same way.
| Live Storefront | Elements | |
|---|---|---|
| Where fans buy | Pages Ticketlayer hosts: events, dates, tickets, cart, checkout and account | Your own pages, with Ticketlayer components where you put them |
| Setting it up | Nothing to deploy. It is live when the channel is | One script tag and the elements you want, or npm packages for React and Next.js |
| Who sets it up | An administrator, in Backstage | Whoever edits your site |
| Web address | Your channel's address on Ticketlayer, or your own subdomain with a CNAME | Your site's own address |
| Look and feel | Your logo, colours and fonts from the channel's theme | The same theme, inside your own design, plus CSS variables such as --tl-primary |
| Seat maps | Built in | <tl-seat-explorer>, or the buy modal's Seats step |
| Checkout and card details | Hosted checkout. Card details never touch your pages | The same hosted checkout, opened over your page |
| Fan accounts and orders | Built in | <tl-login> and <tl-my-orders> |
| Your fan data | Yours, in Backstage | Yours, in Backstage |
Or use both#
A common set-up: Elements on your homepage and event pages, and Live Storefront as the full listing and the link you put in emails and on social posts. Both read the same channel, the same theme and the same events, so there is nothing to keep in step.
- Your site: Elements
- Links and emails: Live Storefront
- One channel behind both
Switching later#
Nothing is lost either way. Moving from Live Storefront to Elements is adding a script tag to your site and pointing your links at your own pages; the channel, its orders and its fans stay where they are. Moving back is pointing the links at the storefront again.
And the Live API?#
Elements and Live Storefront both run on the Live API. If neither fits, for a native app or a kiosk, build on the Live API directly: How sales work covers each kind of front end and the credential it carries.