Has anyone got any experience of using Tessitura to handle seat/table reservations for pre theatre meals?
We are exploring the idea of constructing a new auditorium on the system with a seating layout to match our restaurant when it is built next year. At this stage we are just looking at how far we can push Tessitura to provide this functionality.
The long term aim is to try and get the table reservation process tied into our website which integrates with Tessitura so that people can book show tickets and book a table at the same time.
Your thoughts/ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Mike Cornthwaite
Mike,
We actually do this currently at AT&T Performing Arts Center. Our dining “venue” is set up as a facility in Tessitura and the “reservations” are set up as a performance. We offer an upsale online so when patrons purchase show tickets, they are given the opportunity to also purchase dinner (we also upsale parking at the same time). This allows our patrons to plan their entire evening, order and pay all at the same time.
I’m happy to discuss in more detail offline if you’d like.
Teresa Dean
Tessitura Systems Director
Teresa Dean Tessitura Systems Director 2403 Flora Street Dallas, Texas 75201 direct line 214-978-2865 fax 214-954-9936 mobile 972-835-3225 teresa.dean@attpac.org | www.attpac.org
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Hi Mike,
We have recently set this up in a fairly straightforward manner although I know some other organisations have more complex scenarios. We don't take reservations via Tessitura (yet!), we only take paid for meal packages.
We use a Restaurant Gen Ad facility for our two restaurants with their seating times built in as zones over four screens (eg. Restaurant Daytime covers available from 12:00 to 16:45 at fifteen minute intervals, Evening from 17:00-2000). At the moment we only allow restaurant bookings for those who also have theatre tickets for that matinee or evening show (but I am on a mission to change this in future!)
The Box Office staff can access the plans and add them in for customers but we've also built some coding into our purchase pathway to offer you a restaurant package only if there is availability on the day you are coming. The extra sexy bit is that when you log in to your account with us and look at the Your Tickets section, it will offer you a restaurant package if you haven't booked on and there is one available for that date as an 'add on'.
The problems we face include displaying the start times of the 'performance' during the purchase pathway (eg. if your restaurant opens at midday, it will say midday on certain screens and in the confirmation screen, despite the fact that Tessitura 'knows' you're coming at 5.30pm) but our confirmation emails have been manually edited to be able to display the correct times. The other tricky part is if a customer moves a booking - we haven't found a sophisticated way to track exchanges as of yet, however they are quite infrequent so it's not a huge issue at all.
Our Catering department are set up with Tessitura access and can log in to confirm bookings and manage inventory, as well as running reports such as Seating Bookings to ensure all information is accurate and up to date.
I'm sure other people do it a bit better than us but there you go!
If you want any other info, feel free to email me. I'm happy to send screen shots and talk about pros/cons.
Brooke
National Theatre
We introduced a dining reservation page within the purchase path for our Festival this year, it's been quite successful.
Each of the Restaurant options are set up as a production in Tessitura, their performance IDs are then associated to the Opera performance that they relate to using web content fields.
Once the user has added the production to their basket they are offered dining before proceeding to payment. Our restaurants are laid out different dependant on the number of covers and party sizes, so the venue used is general admission, this allows us to use the same facility for each of the different venues and instead pull the restaurant name from another content field in the Title section of ticketing setup.
If users have not added the dining when initially offered, they have the option to add it from the basket later in the process, in case they change their mind.
Hope that all makes sense / is useful.
Thanks,Caspian
Thanks everyone for your responses.
It's good to know others have been down this route and that it is at least possible to implement a solution using Tessitura.
We're at a very early stage at the moment so we'll have a think about exactly what we want to achieve and I may have more questions soon as we get into the detail of setting it up.
Mike
We also allow customers to reserve tables in our restaurants both via our call centre and via the Royal Albert Hall website.
We have restaurant facilities, and within the facility we have the zones set up as time slots that are available to book. This allows us to blackout times that aren't available (if there isn't a matinee) and open times up if the restaurants are opening earlier or even for post show dining.
I'd be happy to send you screen shots of how we have set it up and what we have learnt, good and bad about the way we have things!
Caryl