How Slade Gardens Uses Celium Tickets to Bring Their Community Together

Slade Gardens is a community group in South London that brings people together through local events — from summer fairs to community workshops and fundraising nights.

Like many community groups, they needed a simple, affordable way to sell tickets. Here's how they found Celium Tickets and what changed.

The Challenge

Before Celium, Slade Gardens faced the same problems as most community groups:

• Ticket platforms were expensive. Booking fees meant attendees paid more, and the group received less.
• Selling tickets felt disconnected. Sending people to a third-party checkout page broke the relationship. Attendees saw a corporate ticketing brand, not Slade Gardens.
• Door management was manual. Paper lists, manual counting, no easy way to know who'd actually shown up.

They needed something simple enough for volunteers to use, affordable enough for a community budget, and professional enough to represent their brand.

The Solution

Slade Gardens started using Celium Tickets and embedded ticket sales directly on their website. No redirects. No booking fees. Their community could buy tickets without leaving the Slade Gardens site.

For events, their volunteers downloaded the free Celium verifier app and scanned QR codes at the door — no training needed, no hardware to buy.

The Results

"Celium Tickets has made it so much easier to bring our community together and raise money for our charity. We love how simple it is to enable ticket sales from our own website and our customers have found buying tickets through the Celium platform a breeze."

— Frances, Slade Gardens Community Group

What changed:

• Zero booking fees — every penny from ticket sales goes to the community group
• Tickets sold from their own website — maintaining their brand and community feel
• Faster door entry — QR scanning replaced paper lists
• Better attendance tracking — they know exactly who showed up, enabling follow-up and future planning

Key Takeaways for Other Community Groups

1. You don't need an expensive platform. Community events aren't music festivals. You need simple, affordable tools — not enterprise features.

2. Keep attendees on your website. Your supporters trust your organisation. Sending them to a third-party checkout introduces friction and erodes that trust.

3. Volunteers can run verification. With a free app and QR codes, anyone with a phone can manage the door. No technical skills needed.

4. Track attendance for the future. Knowing who comes to your events helps you plan better ones. It's also useful for grant applications that ask for evidence of community impact.

Want Similar Results?

If you're a charity or community group looking for a better way to sell tickets:

• Create your free account → (takes 10 minutes)
• Book a demo → (we'll set everything up with you)

Or email us at ignace@celiumtickets.com — we're always happy to chat.