School groups and the web

We do here for Schools Matinee Performances.

Schools have to register with us and we give them a constituency which is then ranked. We create a log in for them and when they log in their constituent ranking changes their MOS to the Schools MOS. The Schools MOS is attached to all performances that only schools can access. All logins without this constituency are messaged to say that they must be a school to access the events and to contact the Education department should they need further information.

When a school is logged in they can then reserve tickets through filling in an online form. This form takes details of School Key Stages, contact numbers for that particular group, number of teachers, adults and students along with any special requests or information. There is coding on the web that works out (based on rules we have in place) the ratio of adults needed to children and how many free tickets each group is allowed based on their numbers.

We do not let the teachers seat themselves as we have certain rules about where certain age ranges can sit within the Hall, so the orders all come through as unseated and unpaid.

The Education department can then check all the special requests and information via a CSI report and are able to seat those school parties first of all and can then seat everyone else. They then print payment requests to send to the Schools asking for payment and once that is received they then print a group ticket letter for the teachers with the details of their seats and all timings and information required for attending the show.

We are booking Museum tours from school groups on the web.  This is set up to request a reservation for a particular tour time and day.  We have created a facility named "AB Dow Scheduled Tours".  Then created performances for the Exhibit that is accepting tours.  In this case named "AB WaterWorks Tour Booking".  We have the zones in the facility named for each time the tour is available to book.  There may be three or more tours for one time period.  For instance 9:00 am Tour #1; 9:00 am Tour #2; etc.  The schools book their tours at no cost and then are asked to answer some questions.  We use a content field for listing the questions we would like answered.  The questions currently are: 

Please provide the following information below for each tour date/time you have chosen:
1. What is your school name?
2. What is the grade range of the students who willl be visiting?
3. How many students are you bringing? (Maximim per tour time is 35)
4. How many teachers will be with your group?

Then they complete the booking as they would a regular sale.   Each day a report is given to the Tour Manager and they respond to the school letting them know if all is good or if there are any further question needing answers to.  Once all is settled a contract created in a separate database is sent out to the school with all the detail of their booking.   

Doing bookings through Tessitura online has helped us to work with the customer on our time rather than phones ringing all day long.  This has also allowed our Tour manager to easily see what dates/times are booked and which are still open by just viewing the online calendar.  Once a time is booked it shows sold out. 

You can check it out at this link:  http://www.mcfta.org/tickets/calendar/view.aspx?id=10151

Hey, thanks all-- this is really helpful detail!