What's the difference between a buyer and an attendee?

These terms come up in a few places on Matter Tickets and they're not always the same person.

Buyer

The buyer is the person who placed the order and paid. Their name and email address are on the order. If someone buys three tickets for themselves and two friends, there is one buyer for that order.

Attendee

An attendee is whoever holds an individual ticket. In the example above, three of the five tickets are for the buyer themselves — they're both the buyer and an attendee. The other two tickets belong to their friends, who are attendees but not buyers.

Why it matters

Your Attendees list shows all ticket holders across all orders. Your Orders list shows each purchase by buyer. They contain overlapping information but serve different purposes:

• Use Attendees on event day — it's the most accurate list of who should be there
• Use Orders for financial records, refunds, and buyer contact details

Collecting attendee names

By default, the buyer's name is attached to all tickets in their order. If you want individual names for each ticket (useful for allocated seating or personalised check-in), you can add a checkout question that collects a name per ticket rather than per order.