Online Ticket Sales
Our original plan was to sell tickets directly through the website. This has several advantages:
- Ordering by credit card
- Central list of who's bought tickets - don't need to transcribe from loads of emails in the account
- Easy breakdown of ticket sales per night, ticket type, etc.
- Link to 'Buy Tickets Now' on the home page might encourage more people to come to the show, possibly from further afield.
Ideally, if tickets are sold for cash, they should be logged on the website to make sure we know how many we have sold.
All of this turned out to be done for us in the form of TicketSource. They charge ~10% overhead, but since we'd have to pay some transaction fees anyway, we decided it was easier to use their pre-built service than create our own. The whole thing worked incredibly well, and made the process of pre-ordering tickets very simple.
If an online shop with a greater range of products is created in future, we may want to save a few percent on comission, but until then this is definitely a good solution. We chose to charge the booking fee to the customers, so it would only make a difference if we also charged a booking fee.
See Online Sales
Ticket Design
- Don't get the SU to print them. See Printing for more info.
- Tickets should have unique numbers
- Basically, the logo of the show and the society with the date and time of each performance should be enough in terms of design.
- It may also be convenient to have different colored tickets for each performance.
Tickets for Ruddigore 2008
Mike printed the tickets for Ruddigore 08.
Cost breakdown:
| Item | Cost | Total |
| 160gsm Card - 2x 100sheets | £2.95 | £5.90 |
| Thursday - 25 sheets | 3p | 75p |
| Friday - 25 sheets | 3p | 75p |
| Saturday Matinee - 25 sheets | 3p | 75p |
| Saturday Evening - 34 sheets | 3p | £1.02 |
| Total | £9.17 |
In terms of selling tickets, book Vanbrugh Stalls the week before the show and get people to sign up to sell them, probably in two hour slots (10-12, 12-2). It's also a good idea to give about fifty tickets for each night to YOUR:SHOP, but only if you speak to the manager beforehand and clear it with him. He'll usually be at the store in the mornings, so just ask someone. Be sure you also know the dates and times of all the shows, as he will ask you, and it may be a little embarrassing if you don't know.1
