Paid events in Ukraine during the war: cancellations, refunds, blackouts and money — a 2026 analysis

You've sold the tickets and paid the deposit for the venue and sound. A week before the concert, the city bans indoor events in venues without a shelter. For a lot of organizers, that was September 2026. Forbes.ua compared the scale of cancellations to the pandemic.

This isn't a ranking: we priced the tools in our cost and money-control ranking and described the sales models in our Ukrainian ticketing review. Below are eight events of the year that hit organizers' money, each with its source.

Three kinds of shock, then: safety rules, money infrastructure (operators, banks, tax guidance) and energy, which will be back in winter.

After a cancellation, organizers most often ask whether the war lets them skip refunds. There's one published court answer so far, and it isn't about alerts.

We're not lawyers, and this isn't legal advice. Below is only what's been published. Show your rules to a lawyer and your payment setup to an accountant.

The case people cite. According to Glavcom, a buyer won the ticket price plus moral damages from the organizer of a Russian band's concert; the court didn't accept martial law as force majeure. That's one ruling, not settled practice, and not about an event stopped by an alert. The broader principle: force majeure has to be proven, which means showing that these specific circumstances made the event impossible. A lawyer can tell you how that works in your case.

What the ministry document is. LB.ua calls it rules, Suspilne recommendations; we don't try to settle its legal force. What binds you is your local authorities' decisions, such as Kyiv's ban from Sep 10. The document covers cultural events; whether it covers a small café workshop isn't clear from the sources, so check with your city administration or the venue.

PRRO (the Ukrainian software cash register) issues the guest a fiscal receipt. We cover the general rule in how to accept event payments in Ukraine; the 2026 dispute is specifically about tickets paid online through a widget. As a general rule, goods such as merch sold by card need fiscal receipts; check with your accountant how that applies to your FOP group. Registers: check by mono at 180 UAH a month (Checkbox), standalone Checkbox at 249 UAH incl. VAT (checkbox.ua), WayForPay's free PRRO for its own payments (WayForPay help), and the free State Tax Service app where you enter receipts by hand (tax.gov.ua).

You need to be a FOP (sole proprietor) or a legal entity such as a TOV (LLC) for online card processing (a bank that accepts cards on your page). Collecting on a personal card runs into limits and financial monitoring, and banks ask you to explain each payment.

NGOs and charities. plata by mono (which AET uses) requires a FOP or a legal entity with a monobank business account; whether monobank will open one for an NGO or a foundation, check with the bank. Gligle takes payments into monobank jars, including for individuals, but with P2P limits.

Money from abroad. Stripe has no license in Ukraine and PayPal is restricted (DOU, Nov 28, 2025, Texty). Local card processing is what's left: plata by mono charges 2% on foreign cards; WayForPay also accepts them (check its rate).

On vidhuk.ua, Concert.ua reviews from 2024–2026 repeat a story: buyers waited years for refunds and never got the service fee back. The operator replies that it refunds once the organizer approves and sends the money (vidhuk.ua). Karabas reviews on the same site say refunds take months (vidhuk.ua). Complaint sites skew negative and we didn't count the reviews, so this is a signal, not a statistic. But buyers write to the organizer even when the organizer doesn't hold the money.

There are three models: your own card processing (the guest pays into your account, and refunds and chargebacks, meaning a buyer disputing the payment through their bank, are yours), a service collects the payment and pays you out, or a ticket agent sells on your behalf under a contract. The table answers the guest's question: what they pay on top of face value and how they get money back.

All terms are sourced in "Methodology and sources" (checked Oct 1–2, 2026). Payout timing and who holds the money before the event: cost and money-control ranking.

The takeaway for the guest is simple: with an agent the fee is gone even on cancellation, while with your own processing you do the refund, single tickets included.

An agent fee from the guest's side. A 1,000 UAH Karabas ticket plus a 10% fee. If the event is cancelled, the guest gets 1,000 UAH back and the 100 UAH stays with the agent. A guest returning the ticket at 72+ hours gets 500 UAH (may be refused), or 900 UAH with the paid guarantee (60 UAH, 120+ hours ahead) (Karabas offer). You'll be the one explaining.

Counterparty risk. An operator holding your money passes its problems to you, as Concert.ua showed in February. Organizers hedge by splitting sales across several operators or selling through their own processing, putting payout terms in the contract, asking for weekly interim payouts and exporting the buyer list early.

The refund reserve

Don't spend all your presale revenue before the event. Sold 150 tickets at 600 UAH? If you cancel, you need 90,000 UAH, even if it's already gone to the artist and venue. Size the reserve from your contracts:

• how much of the deposit the venue and artists will return or move;
• what the contracts say about a "red" alert;
• how many guests accept a new date instead of cash.

Promoters often reschedule instead of cancelling, offer swaps, or suggest donating the ticket value to charity. A guest can say no, so a cash refund should always stay on the table.

Refund rules before the first ticket

Put them on the event page and in the ticket email, before payment:

• Rescheduled: the ticket is valid for the new date; anyone who can't come gets a refund by a set date.
• Cancelled: full face value, the refund deadline and the method.
• Stopped by an alert: from what point the event counts as held; before that, a refund or another date.
• Guest-initiated refunds: until when, and how much.

Seven in the evening, guests at the door, and the power in the area is gone. Mobile internet can go too, and an online-only scanner becomes a queue. Here's what each tool says about scanning without a connection.

From vendor sites, Oct 1, 2026. "Not stated" doesn't mean "no".

Among Ukrainian tools only 2event confirms offline scanning; AET has no offline mode.

How to back up an online scanner

For AET or any tool without offline mode:

1. Paper list. A few hours before doors, export attendees to XLSX (on AET's Free plan) and print alphabetically, so you can tick names with a pen offline.
2. A second SIM from another carrier for a hotspot.
3. A power bank for every scanning device.
4. A second device. In AET only the owner and signed-in co-admins scan (Free: 1, Pro: 10), with no volunteer link, so add people in advance.

Energy

Generator prices and state generator funding are in the timeline above. So ask the venue about a generator and who pays for fuel, schedule in daytime, and price energy into the ticket.

After a reschedule, most of the work is messaging. Changes often go out by hand on Instagram and Telegram, and small events run on Google Forms, Excel and DMs (kharkiv.v.ua, 056.ua). Which tools send messages on their own, and through which channels:

Checked Oct 1, 2026. Luma takes payments only through Stripe, unavailable in Ukraine (Luma), so it suits only free events.

For reminders and Telegram, Eventmate and RegToEVENT beat AET, and Gligle partly does (bot broadcasts). In AET you write and send each broadcast yourself.

What the rescheduling notice should say

One message that answers everything: the new date, time or venue; whether the old ticket is still valid (best if it is); how and by when to get a refund, and how long it takes; where to ask. Repeat it on social media and the event page.

A guest briefing is part of the ministry document, and it's worth doing whatever the document's status. Write it in advance: where the shelter is, how to get there, what happens at "red". Add it to the ticket email.

Not every event needs a hidden address. It helps when only registered guests should come, and only as many as the shelter holds.

Which tools show the address only in the ticket, per their sites:

How to set it up in AET: how to hide the event location until registration.

When it makes sense. Small events with a hard shelter cap, closed community meetups, venues that ask you not to publish the address. Applications with organizer approval add a filter (AET, Eventmate, RegToEVENT).

When it doesn't. A big concert in a well-known hall, where everyone knows the address anyway.

A hidden address doesn't override local restrictions or shelter requirements and isn't a way around official checks. It controls who comes; it doesn't hide the event from the authorities.

Capping tickets at the shelter

The ministry document counts guests, staff and artists together. We'd do the same: your ticket cap = shelter capacity minus your team. Any tool has a ticket limit; in AET you can also draw a seat map (up to 15,000 seats on Free) and sell exactly as many seats as the shelter allows.

Go through this list before you publish a "Buy" button. It comes from organizers' pains, not from one tool's feature list.

1. Where the money sits until the event: your own account (own processing), a service or an agent.
2. FOP or legal entity, and KVED. Check your single-tax group and codes with an accountant, including the "except touring events" wording.
3. PRRO. Ask your accountant; a register costs 180 UAH, 249 UAH, 0 UAH with WayForPay, or use the State Tax app. Merch generally needs receipts; check for your FOP group.
4. No personal cards, given the 100k UAH monthly P2P limit and financial monitoring.
5. Ticket cap from the shelter, staff and artists included, plus a check of local restrictions.
6. Alert plan: who watches, where guests go, who decides whether to continue.
7. Refund and rescheduling rules on the event page and in the ticket email.
8. A refund reserve, matched to your venue and artist contracts.
9. Agent or service contract: payout terms and interim payouts, buyer export.
10. A channel to reach guests and a ready rescheduling template.
11. Entry without internet: an offline scanner or a printed list, a second SIM, power banks.
12. Energy: a generator, who pays for fuel, daytime slots.
13. Address, public or ticket-only, and the briefing text.

Most of these depend on your decisions, not on the tool.

We make AET, so read this section critically.

It fits if you're a FOP or legal entity with a monobank business account selling to your own audience:

• money lands in your mono account the next day, and AET never holds it;
• you refund a whole order or a single ticket from your own account;
• the shelter cap, a hidden address and XLSX export are on Free;
• 0% platform fee on Free and Pro. The full price: mono charges you 1.3% on Ukrainian cards and 2% on foreign ones, Free covers 3 events a month and more needs Pro at $19 a month, and check by mono costs 180 UAH a month if you need a PRRO. We priced it in UAH in our cost ranking.

It doesn't fit in three wartime situations:

• A blacked-out door with no internet. AET has no offline mode; 2event has an offline scanner.
• Rescheduling notices without manual work. AET has manual broadcasts only; Eventmate and RegToEVENT have automatic reminders and Telegram.
• No FOP, legal entity or mono account. AET can't take payments then; use Gligle (payments into monobank jars, with the P2P limit), an agent or a partner with a FOP.

The full list of where AET loses, with numbers: where AnyEventTool is not the best choice for Ukraine.

What we did. We matched organizers' pains from 2024–2026 publications against vendors' terms on their own sites (checked Oct 1–2, 2026). There are no new numbers except the examples in the money section (150 × 600 = 90,000 UAH; 10%, 50% and 90% of 1,000 UAH = 100, 500 and 900 UAH). "Not stated" means the vendor doesn't say.

Limits. Some sources predate 2026 and are marked: the P2P limit (in force since June 2025). Reviews from vidhuk.ua come from a complaint site; we didn't count them and draw no statistics from them. The court ruling is a single one and not settled practice; sources describe the ministry document's status differently. Our full research methodology: /en/learn/aet-rankings-methodology.

Media and consultations with dates are in the timeline and the legal table; the rest are linked in the text on first mention: vidhuk.ua (Concert.ua reviews 2024–2026, Karabas reviews), DOU (Stripe, Nov 28, 2025), Texty, kharkiv.v.ua (Feb 2026), 056.ua (Jul 2026), hvylya.

Tools and prices (checked Oct 1–2, 2026): AnyEventTool; plata by mono, mono acquiring; check by mono; Checkbox; WayForPay (PRRO, payouts); State Tax app; Eventmate; 2event (for organizers, prices, FAQ); RegToEVENT (pricing, wiki); Gligle; Luma (payments, pricing); Ticket Tailor; Hi.Events; public offers of Karabas, Kontramarka, Concert.ua, Internet-bilet.

This analysis is published by AnyEventTool; the author is AET's founder. We sell one of the tools discussed here, so weigh what you read with that in mind.

Spotted an error or outdated data? Write to support@anyeventtool.com. Vendors we cover have a right of reply, and we'll publish clarifications with a date.