Hello All,
So with this here, I am more asking a question/looking for a conversation rather than trying to solve today's particular issue. I am not expecting immediate action of any kind. But I have seen a number of threads created recently about PAH and Mobile Tickets, and there are always fun issues with reprints, separating some tickets from the rest of the order, etc... which got me talking about delivering tickets in general, spurred a couple of conversations with coworkers thinking on the myriad number of issues I and my organization have had as well, and how things have changed.
In the days of yesteryear, a patron would call, the tickets would be mailed or held at the Will Call, and everyone was happy. Then online ordering came, and we had PAH enter into the equation. But still, pretty easy, we just now had a third option for orders. Something to split the gap between months-early subscription orders and people who purchased the week of who are still too eager to wait to pick them up at the Box Office the night of the performance. But even there, there was a general understanding with in person orders. You come to the Box Office, you purchase, they print them out and hand them to you, and you go in.
But then along comes mobile, and that is changing the game. Even in person orders at the Box Office might want to be mobile tickets these days. Especially when it is a Monday afternoon at 2:00 PM and not a Friday night at 7:45 PM right before the show purchase. And Covid certainly ruffled some feathers with its lessons on increased disease and germ prevention. It seems to me that things that used to be hard and true about orders and delivery methods are no longer so. Specifically, I am thinking about Mode Of Sale (MOS) and the Order Level specificity. MOS is used to determine Web vs. Phone vs. In-Person vs. Quick-Sale. But, as the same delivery methods are mainly being used for all of those anyway (except maybe Mail), tying the delivery methods to that seems unnecessary. And then the Order Level can also cause issues. To our practice, these days, the driving force behind how a ticket can be delivered seems to be at the Performance level. Some performances have VIP things that are supposed to be delivered one way, or student tickets that require proof of ID. Maybe an artist has a mobile-ticket only requirement. And then this is printing and reprinting. PAH and Mobile are order level printing (I believe, we are just getting started there; online TNEW might allow individual performance printing). But we are also well at the point where a quick, at the window, nigh of sale patron might want that ticket delivered to their phone rather getting something printed physically.
Anyway, my sort of vision would be to make a change kind of like what was done with source codes. It used to be just an order level source. Now they are specified at the line item level. What if we assigned delivery methods to performances, and then did something like source codes for orders? Maybe MOSes would have no defaults, and then you could reserve all the tickets, choose a delivery method at the end, and it would auto-fill on each line item. Except for those performances for which it was not valid; you would choose another delivery method. Or, you choose the delivery method first, then reserve all the line items, and it autofills in based on the one selected. And maybe you WOULD still have a default delivery method for MOSes like Walk-Up, figuring that most still WOULD get the printed ticket, but sometimes they go for mobile for future events. But to be more easily able to indicate that THESE tickets should go out this way and these OTHER tickets should go out this other way, even within the same order, would be nice.
Maybe you are all there ahead of me. Or maybe I am the lonely guy in a vacuum, and you all think I am a strange man for thinking this. Anyway, as the youtubers would say, let me know in the comments.
John A. Moskal II
Fully agreed that delivery method by MOS causes tons of problems and needs to be fixed. We have a custom website and have had to implement custom coding to filter delivery methods by performance, but that still requires Tess configuration which causes conflicts elsewhere. Upping this request.