Hey Everyone,
We are looking at moving Season creation from IT to the Box Office and I wanted to know if you tell me which department in your Organization is responsible for creating your Season, Performances, and Packages?
Thanks,
Rich
I've worked in two organizations, and that task has always fallen to the Box Office. If you've got a box office Super User, I'd say they could easily take on the task.
Yeah, definitely Box Office Manager.
That said, we have a large and complex season, and the details are often only finalized shortly before we are expected to start selling it, so we generally turn the Box Office over to the Assistant Managers for about a week while it's being built out.
We also have done what we can to simplify the process. Our pricing setup is very complicated (and involves a number of custom tables), but also follows a standard script, so we have built a utility to automatically fill all of that in with a few inputs.
I have also built a utility that builds out all of the campaigns/appeals/sources, gl codes, seasons and other annual data structures automatically, which I typically run a few months before we will be building out shows against them.
In two of the organizations I've worked with it has fallen to the Box Office. Here at the Symphony, I do the build as the Application Specialist but the Box Office Managers know how to build performances and do build the ones that are added after the season launches if I am not available. Everyone proofs.
Our season build used to live in Box Office with our legacy ticketing system. When we moved to Tessitura I transitioned from box office to IT and took that project with me when I moved. I continue to do the build though I suppose it could mostly move back to being a box office task if we really wanted it to. Our biggest reason for keeping it out of box office is simply the time involved. They have been making do with less admin staff than they used to have and don't usually have the resources anymore to throw a season build into the mix. Additionally, there are some aspects of our season build that they would be unable to handle on their own (updates the to the renewal form, a custom SQL procedure that assigns custom donation asks or other small hacks that I've started doing from the back end when needed). So I suppose it would depend on if there are any elements that happen outside of Tessitura that your box office wouldn't (or shouldn't) have access to do. If there are, then IT will still need to be involved at some point in the process.
Our Box Office builds performances and Packages, For Education IT still builds School Year, and in Development IT builds each fiscal year.
IT handles ALL GL build for all departments and the "Season" Table.
Here at the Stratford Festival, it has always been the job of the Tessitura Administrator (me) but I have lived under both I.T. and now Marketing.
The Box Office Patron Services Manager (me) is in charge of the Season, Performance and Package builds. But we're a smaller company, so our IT & Database Administrator often helps out too. It just depends on how big or small your staff is, and what's on their plates in terms of projects.
Other venues I've worked at the Season/Performance Builds have resided with the Box Office - usually with a Director or Administrator - as well.
Hi Everyone,
Thank you for the replies. This helps to make my case.