Hi Everyone,
Following on to the Pop Up Skill Builder we had today about Physical Distanced Seating, we want your input on an algorithmic or automated approach to accomplishing this.
1. We want to build the automated feature if members will actually be able to use it and derive value from it. Is this something that you are thinking would be "nice to have" if you decide you can operate with reduced capacity, or is it something that would be required for you to successfully operate with reduced capacity? Keep in mind that automated doesn't necessarily mean it will be the most efficient or profitable way to do physical distancing, but may save you staff time or improve the patron experience. For those of you that saw the webinar, would you be able to reopen using the features we demonstrated?
2. If we build an automated physical distancing feature,do you have suggestions or considerations that we should take into account? We have, for example, considered allowing you to set a seating group X and Y offset, such that any seated group would have seats around it automatically held according to that offset, creating a buffer. What comments on that approach, or other suggestions do you have?
Many thanks, we look forward to the open conversation about this with you.
Chris Szalaj
Product Owner, Business Facing Products
Tessitura Network
I wasn't able to attend the webinar today, so this might have been touched on, but speaking just to 2.) It would be very helpful if there could be a way to trigger an assumption that certain unticketed seats would need to be occupied/used. Some seats we must hold for VIPs, contractual obligations or for accessible seating needs. It would be a big time-saver for us if they if we didn't have to ticket these in dummy accounts in order to properly trigger any automated physical distancing.
Hi Chris Szalaj
It was a really useful sessions today and has definitely thrown up some options to add to the mix as we work out the best way to offer socially distanced seating.
This is a big consideration for us for our cinemas across the Science Museum Group. While we *could* go on sale with either best available seating on a plan with seats held off sale, or offer SYOS, neither of them offer the visitor experience our users would expect, so we're really keen to be able to do what we can to improve their booking journey. Also, operating in the cinema sector, it appears that rival cinemas will be able to offer algorithmically generated live holds for social distancing, and are likely to have a competitive advantage in that market.
In terms of the solution, the one other consideration for us is that we don't want to seat groups who would have to push past others to access an aisle. That means an X and Y offset for us probably wouldn't meet all our needs. Putting some thought to how this might be achieved technically, I think what we'd like to have is a map for each seat in the auditorium which highlights which seats should be held offsale should that seat be booked in an order. That would be a challenge to set up, but once it was done it wouldn't need to be done again - until social distancing regulations change
Hope that's helpful
Grae
Hey there, interested to hear if point 2 (automated physical distancing feature) has made any headwind? We were interested in incorporating this almost condition-based seating automation for our 2021 season.
Following this thread as we would also be interested in an algorithm that would allow our patrons to SYOS and not allow disparate parties to seat next to one another. We've done a work around for our outdoor stage, but with a strong likelihood of moving indoors, it's definitely something we'd be interested in.