Printing Tickets on Plastic cards

Hi Dot,

We are in the process of launching 2 new programmes using plastic cards and using  2 new features of Nscan 6.0.

1.       Dress Rehearsal Club – Basically a fixed seat package to all of our dress rehearsals (11 in a season, GA seating because we can’t predict where they will be allowed to sit)  using the Composite bar code on the card.  This is ideal for this situation.  We have priced the club cheaply to allow for the fact that some dress rehearsals may not proceed.  Club members are not entitled to any refund or transfer if a dress is cancelled.  There are no exchanges.  So the composite barcode will hold all year regardless of what happens with any individual performances.  We use the Batch Print function to get the data out of Tessitura into Excel, and the card printer we bought has a program that reads off the data in Excel.  We have tested the process and it all seems to work as expected.  The first dress is on 31 January, so fingers crossed.

2.       Members Lounge – We are launching a members lounge, which entitles members to access the lounge whenever it is open.  We are using the new NScan Limits feature of Memberships.  We have modified the Acknowledgements report to give us a field that is a combination of the letter C plus the constituent number (with filler zeros to make a consistent length).  This becomes our barcode on the plastic card.  We also launch this in January, but testing to date indicates no issues.

As far as the printer we bought, I could no longer buy the models people recommended.  I found a local supplier who sells their own brand and it has been fine to date.

Hope that helps

Dale Bradbury | Director CRM and Ticketing
Melbourne Theatre Company | 252 Sturt Street, Southbank VIC 3006 | mtc.com.au

T: +61 3 8688 0980 | M: +61 413 938 886 | F: +61 3 8688 0901 | E: d.bradbury@mtc.com.au

From: Tessitura Ticketing Forum [mailto:forums-ticketing@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Dot Krebs
Sent: Saturday, 13 December 2014 1:27 AM
To: Dale Bradbury
Subject: Re: [Tessitura Ticketing Forum] Printing Tickets on Plastic cards

Hi Dale,

Have you had any luck with this?  We may be interested in doing same.

Thanks,

Dot

Hi,

We use access control at our venue and I am planning to use the new Composite bar code feature in v12.1 to provide a single bar code covering our dress rehearsal performances.  I would like this to be able to print out on a plastic membership-style card.

Has anyone had any experience with printing ticket designs including a bar code out onto a plastic card? Can you do this directly from Tessitura or is there some intervening step?

Many people mention using Evolis plastic card printers for things like membership cards and I am thinking of buying something along these lines.  Ideally I would be using this to print both this composite bar code ticket design, and for another membership programme that will use the new Nscan membership bar codes (via acknowledgement output).

I would appreciate any comments or recommendation on plastic card printers (without mentioning pricing of course), and any tips or pitfalls in the process of getting the data out of Tessitura and onto the card.  The Evolis Zenius currently seems the most suitable so feedback on that specifically also welcome.

Thanks

Dale

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