On-line ticketing systems
Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Theater Administration
Forum Name: Running Your Theater
Forum Discription: General questions about how to make it work
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4404
Printed Date: 5/02/24 at 1:24pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 8.05 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: On-line ticketing systems
Posted By: dramagoon
Subject: On-line ticketing systems
Date Posted: 1/07/10 at 3:11pm
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I am on the board of directors of a midwest CT. We currently use one ticketing system (Ticket 2k) to manage all tickets bought at the box office (including season tickets) and another to allow patron to buy tickets on-line (TicketLeap). This causes many issues. Because they are separate systems, we have to restrict a block of seats at the box office from being sold and on-line users can't see how many seats are really available.
We are thinking about moving to an interactive system that allows both on-line users and box office to sell tickets out of the same pool. Systems like that are much more expensive than our current process.
Does anyone have any experience with interactive ticketing systems? Do your on-line sales make up for the cost difference in the improved software? Any other considerations?
Thanks
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Replies:
Posted By: Gaafa
Date Posted: 1/07/10 at 8:20pm
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You could contact James Walters, a member on this forum;-
http://www.ticketjunior.com/ - http://www.ticketjunior.com/
I have no experiance with his system, but aparently it is cost effective & designed to suit commeatres needs. [hence the 'Junior' title]
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Joe
Western Gondawandaland
turn right @ Perth.
Hear the light & see the sound.
Toi Toi Toi Chookas {{"chook [chicken] it is"}
May you always play
to a full house}
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Posted By: teejaystudio
Date Posted: 2/09/10 at 11:39am
I have two:
1. http://www.eventbrite.com/ - we are moving to this one due to integration with mailchimp, surveymonkey and less cost than our current vendor
2. www.tix.com - we are leaving these folks because of higher costs, no integration with our email marketing, social marketing and other advertising and the time it takes to get a check.
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Posted By: godolphs
Date Posted: 2/19/10 at 3:42pm
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My interview for a sales position for this company never happened but as a customer I am satisfied with their service and prices and will recommend the company. Check out http://www.ticketturtle.com - www.ticketturtle.com
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Posted By: lparks
Date Posted: 7/08/10 at 6:30am
I know this post is rather old, but if you still need advice on ticketing sales, I would be happy to offer what I can. We use Tix.com, which has been an amazing service for us. I'm not sure why teejaystudio thinks they have high fees? Their fees are very reasonable. We only pay 25 cents per ticket printed at the box office and $1.50 for tickets printed online. The system we had throught about using, Vendini, charges $2.00 per online ticket, while some systems such as ticket master rang up to $7.00 per ticket or more.
The best thing about Tix.com is that they don't require a setup fee, no monthly fees, etc. Most of the other ticketing companies that offer free setup, etc are "online-only" companies (i.e. Brown Paper tickets, etc), which don't allow you to actually sell the tickets through a box office. They also offer e-tickets for your customers to print at home.
ALSO, teejaystudio addressed another issue, which is time to get a check. Tix allows you setup a merchant account to use with their service, which means you usually get the money in your bank account in 48 hours after the order is processed. This is how we do it, and it works great for us. Keep in mind though you'll need to setup a merchant account, which really is not the expensive. We use Payflow from Paypal, which cost us $120 to setup, but has come in handy by allowing us to have the ticket funds in our bank account almost immediately.
Bottom line is: You'll not find to many better places to provide your ticket services. No setup fee, fairly low ticketing fees (below average in my opinion), the option to sell tickets both online AND at your box office with their point of sale software (which is also free by the way). You can also offer your customers a 1-800 number to call that is available 24/7 for them to order tickets for your event directly through Tix.com, but this fee is rather steep at $3.50 per ticket.
Just my opinion. Also, no - I do not work for Tix.com, I'm simply a happy customer.
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Landon Parks,
Producing Artistic Director,
Bloomington Repertory Theatre Co
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Posted By: Anna Bessonova
Date Posted: 7/08/10 at 10:45am
Don't want to intrude but you can actually sell tickets online by yourself *and* track all the transactions with a web service called Scred - www.scred.com.
You can just create a group profile there for your theater or for an individual production and use 'Registrations' tab on left hand side. It allows you to create customized tickets of any kind (you can actually collect membership fees for your theater with the same feature if you like).
The service gives you a link and you can embed it to your website. Tickets can be bought online with PayPal. What I like about the service is that it tracks all transactions and gives you automated reports that you can use for book-keeping. Registering on Scred is free but they charge 1,5% from direct transactions through the service, which on top of PayPal fees is still quite small considering how much time and pain the service saves!
Disclaimer: I'm working at Scred as a summer intern.
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Posted By: jayzehr
Date Posted: 7/10/10 at 4:31pm
Originally posted by lparks
Just my opinion. Also, no - I do not work for Tix.com, I'm simply a happy customer.
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How long have you been using Tix.com? How many shows?
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Posted By: lparks
Date Posted: 7/10/10 at 8:31pm
We used them successfully on one - our fundraiser we held earlier in the year. We also have all shows from our upcoming season and our subscriptions being done through them.
The fundraiser we simply used their credit card processor, and we received the check 8 days after the event. We now have a payment gateway of our own for our season shows, so that income already goes into our bank account in 24-48 hours after the transaction is made.
Doug Hendricks (our board vice-chairman who handles much of the business end of things) informed me that we no longer use Payflow, but are using Authorize.net through merchant express. They offer better rates.
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Landon Parks,
Producing Artistic Director,
Bloomington Repertory Theatre Co
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Posted By: clee
Date Posted: 10/07/10 at 1:17pm
We have begun using Tix and have been very pleased. The cost is reasonable (.25 per box office transaction) and the staff has been very helpful. Allowing patrons to select thier own seats has increased our online sales to almost 50% of our total sales.
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Clay
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Posted By: drose
Date Posted: 9/08/11 at 7:19pm
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Probably way too late to be of any help, but we use Tix too and are extremely happy with them. We have been told by several online customers that they prefer our online system (tix.com) to another local theater's online system (which I will leave un-named, as I have no experience with them.) We did use Quantix when we first went to online ticketing, but Tix is much better suited to our needs.
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