Published: October 20, 2026 | Updated for the 2026-2027 high school winter season
Winter home events are a different kind of busy. Basketball, wrestling, and other indoor sports put your entry line, concession stand, and whole crowd in one building, often on the same night as a rivalry game or senior night. A gate and a stand that held up on a fall 2026 football Friday get tested harder when everything happens under one roof.
The good news is that you have time. Tip-off is weeks away, and most of what makes a winter night run well gets decided before the doors open. This guide walks through four decisions worth making now: how families get in all season, how your concession stand gets counted, which events carry a fundraiser, and how fans pay.
A short checklist to hand to your staff.
Before you plan anything new, look at the season you just finished. You have the best information you’ll get all year: a full run of home events and a clear memory of where they got hard.
Pull up your last few home nights and ask:
Where did the line back up, and why?
How long did closing out the night take?
Which jobs landed on the same two or three people?
What did families ask about that you couldn’t answer quickly?
Winter doesn’t create new problems so much as it makes existing ones louder. A line that was a minor annoyance outdoors is a bottleneck in a crowded lobby. Keep your answers handy, because they’ll shape every decision below.
Families who come to most home games don’t want to buy a ticket every Friday, and your gate staff doesn’t want to handle a separate transaction for each of them. A season or multi-event pass solves both. It also gives you something single-game sales can’t: revenue and attendance commitment before the first game.
Which sports get a pass, and whether you’ll offer single-sport options, an all-winter option, or both
What each pass costs and when presale opens
How you’ll sell it: online ahead of time, at the gate, or both
How you’ll tell families it exists
That last one gets skipped more than any other. A pass nobody knows about doesn’t sell, so put the presale date in your newsletter, on your announcements, and in front of your boosters early.
GoFan’s Mobile Passes handle season and multi-event access, sold and redeemed alongside single tickets, so your gate staff works from one system either way. Schools on GoFan use it well beyond the gate.
“From athletic events to season passes to school dances and even the athletic banquet, we use GoFan for everything we can,” said Raymond Knauer, Athletic Director at Academic Magnet High School.
Your stand ran in the fall. Winter changes the conditions: a smaller space, a longer stay, and a line everyone in the gym can see. This is a good time to check how sales get counted and who gets paid.
Think about your reconciliation and reporting process:
Do concession sales and ticket sales end up in one report, or two?
Does your bookkeeper still match a cash count against a ticketing report by hand?
If a team or club runs the stand, can you show them exactly what they sold?
What happens when the stand runs out of change?
Conway Public Schools ran a cash-only stand until last year, and the athletic director there described delays whenever the stand ran out of change or had to make change during long lines. Once they added card and digital payments, spectators spent less time waiting. “No one carries cash anymore,” said Greg Hughes, Athletic Director at Conway Public Schools.
Box Office sells concessions alongside tickets and passes on the same devices, so food and drink sales land in the same reporting as ticket sales.
“Using GoFan for concessions has provided our programs with an easy, convenient way to accept credit/debit cards and digital payments at our various locations around campus,” said Damon Chase, Athletic Director at Helix Charter School.
Winter is full of natural fundraising moments: a rivalry-night T-shirt sale, a booster-run concession night, a tournament weekend. The mistake is picking them a week out. Choose your fundraising nights now, so promotion has time to build and your boosters have time to staff them.
Work through the following four questions:
Which two or three home events draw your biggest crowds?
Which of those already have a booster club, team, or student group attached?
What’s the goal for each night, and who’s responsible for it?
How will the group get paid afterward, and how quickly?
Event fundraisers in GoFan run as a ticketing product type tied to a single event. That fits a one-night effort well, like a rivalry game where a portion of sales supports a team or club. Think of event fundraisers as a way to raise money around a game you’re already ticketing, not your whole fundraising plan.
Every fan digging for exact change slows the line for everyone behind them, and in a winter lobby, that line is usually right next to the door. The fix is simple: make it easy to pay however fans already carry.
Box Office accepts cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and CashApp, on the same device selling tickets and concessions. New this winter, Tap to Pay lets your staff take any of those payments directly from an iPhone, tapped phone to phone, no card reader needed. At Highland High School, Athletic Director Brandon Larson said his assistant used to spend five to seven hours a week counting money. After moving off cash, that time was freed up.
Across GoFan Box Office, card and Apple Pay together make up about 85% of gate transactions, so those are the two to get comfortable with first if you're easing into digital payments before your first home night.
Before tip-off, check three things:
Box Office is turned on for the events and locations where you want to sell
You’ve turned on and tested the devices your staff will actually use, so you know it's ready to see before the gate opens
If you're using Tap to Pay, your staff knows it only works on iPhone, every other device still takes cards and digital wallets the same way
A five-minute test run before your first home night beats finding a problem with a full line watching.
Winter events built and dates confirmed
Season pass options and pricing decided, presale date chosen
Pass announcement planned for newsletter, social, and boosters
Concession items and stand leads decided
Fundraiser events picked, with an owner for each
Box Office turned on and tested on the devices you'll use at the gate
Gate and concession staff briefed on which device does what
Will adding winter events affect my fall reporting?
No. Winter events, passes, and concessions are their own configuration inside the same account, so your fall reporting stays as it is.
Do I need new hardware for concessions?
Concessions run through the same Box Office devices and card readers you use for ticketing.
What is Tap to Pay?
New this winter, Tap to Pay lets your staff take contactless payments, cards, Apply Pay, Google Pay, straight from an iPhone, no separate card reader needed. It currently requires iPhone XS or later with the latest iOS and Box Office app version. Tap to Pay isn't supported on iPads, and needs wifi or cell service at the gate.
Can I sell winter passes before the season starts?
Yes. A presale window lets you sell winter 2026-27 passes now, so revenue and attendance commitment come in before your first game.
Winter’s first home game goes a lot better when the decisions are already made. Which of these four is your biggest open question right now: passes, concessions, fundraisers, or payments? Talk to our team about getting ready before tip-off.