Scanning mobile devices with N-Scan

Hey Tom,

This was an important feature for us when we were looking at implementing scanning and the types of scanners we could use. We definitely welcomed and encouraged people to not print their tickets and just display it on their phone at the gate. At present we only use it for our outdoor film festival.

It is a little bit slower than scanning paper tickets. The brightness of the screen is a big factor (most people were ok though) and barcodes generally had to be zoomed in before they could scan. This was just off our first year though so we'll be doing more testing before our next Festival to see if we can fit a larger barcode and make sure it is right where we want it to be when it's viewed on a mobile device. I think that's the big thing out of this. 

As the season went on we found more people were presenting their tickets on their phone and not printing them out and this seemed fairly consistent across both our younger and older audience members.  

Our film venues have external toilets and the venues just issue a separate pass-out/toilet pass that customers surrender on the way back in. They've been doing it this way for years and we felt this was a lot simpler than constantly scanning in and out.

I think the biggest thing to get right is the way the barcode displays on the mobile. If you can get it to be the right size for scanning then you've only got to worry about the brightness at the gate and that's not going to be an issue for every phone. 

 

Hope this helps. Let me know if you want anything more specific. 

Tom,

First off, thank you for starting a conversation about this topic in the forums.  It is one that we have on a regular basis here at The Public, but it is time we as a community start discussing in order to ensure that future improvements to Tessitura and NScan are aligned with new technology as well as the needs of our guests.

Our organizational response to guests using PAH on their mobile devices is determined by two primary factors; venue and the particulars of each case. Additionally PAH has only been an option as of January this year. 

Joe's Pub welcomes and encourages it.

Our five traditional theaters we tolerate/discourage it.

We do not offer PAH options at The Delacorte in Central Park.  

The box office staff have not had issues with it thus far and we discuss it enough organizationally that I would know if there were specific concerns. The effect on house staff varies per the venue as discussed above and will be discussed below based off your additional bullet points. The customer response varies based on their age demographic, but only after we have exhausted all attempts of assisting them at the door do they become frustrated that our delivery methods aren't more advanced. 

• Technological challenges

1. Guests are unaware of how to brighten their screen.
2. The guest's screen on their mobile device is cracked to the point where the ticket is illegible. 
3. Guests are unaware of how to re-size a PDF on their phone.
4. Other than the aforementioned factors NScan has been successful.  (Time is necessary for staff to get used to it and to learn how to assist guests who present tickets on their phone.)

• Lines at Entry Doors

1. Re-sizing and moving through multiple tickets on a mobile device is quite time consuming.
2. Finding a solution for seating incomplete parties is a challenge and often slows the lines down.
3. Those are the two biggest challenges to be honest, but if you have a technologically savvy guest with only a pair of tickets on their phone it takes no longer than scanning PAH or ticket stock designs.

• Lines at the Box Office

1. Rarely affected. 

• Intermissions for Seated Houses/Guests without the Mobile Device

1. These have yet to be a challenge because we have such small houses. Even with our guest restrooms located in the lobby only.
2. During intermission we encourage all guests to carry their ticket with them for re-entry and this verbiage is repeated to them before they leave the theater by ushers and ticket takers alike. 
3. If we encounter a guest who has forgotten their ticket once they get to the exit door we ask them to return directly to that ticket taker for facial recognition or we use passwords. Each of the ticket takers is encouraged to use a password that night for reentry.  Most guests find it comical and appreciate the quick friendly response rather then returning to their seat for the ticket.
4. In larger houses, at past jobs, we would station our ticket takers at either our main exit doors or the scanning entry point with a hand stamp to be used on guests who forgot their ticket at their seat. We never had a guest complaint about the need for a stamp rather then walk all the way back to their seat.
5. In situations where we are scanning an incomplete party at The Pub, they will ask the guest already present to message the other members of the party to alert them that they will have to message the person already present to receive them personally.
6. For our traditional houses we either ask the guest to wait until they are a complete party to enter the theater or require them to have their tickets printed at the box office and leave the remaining tickets with the House Manager of the show they are attending with the guest name on the ticket. 
7. For large parties that scattered throughout a space we will often seat all of the guests, but then our House Manager or Theater Manager will have all the tickets printed and brought to the guest to ensure there are no issues during intermission. This was especially important during Hamilton and Grounded for us this season.  

• Forged Tickets

1. We are currently using every security function possible within Tessitura for all of our ticket designs in addition our ticket stock and PAH designs are pretty specific and not easy to forge. 
2. Actually during Hamilton we didn't encounter a single forged ticket in a PAH format. All of the forgeries were attempts at creating some kind of ticket stock design. Most true scalpers are becoming aware that people are suspect of a ticket printed on a home printer, unless they are coming from a secondary market website like Stubhub.

• Percentages

1. Joe's Pub skews higher because we have a younger demographic represented at their shows. 
2. For our traditional houses I would say 1-5 guests use their mobile devices per performance.

The key, is to have a real mobile option. PAH delivery should not be our final frontier. Until then set your organizational boundaries of what you can and cannot accommodate and remain friendly towards the guests when they become upset about a lack of technological advancement. We are restricted to what Tessitura can offer and what organizationally we can afford as non for profits. We are blessed with a fantastic web and development team and I am very excited about the options we are exploring to combat many of the concerns you have above. 

Until then I look forward to a day where we can scan a membership card for entries into a performance and catch up with those entities that are already using ticketless entry options in commercial venues. 

I am always happy to discuss specific points further and feel free to email me directly Tom. I will happily find time to reply and/or set up a phone call.  

 

Best,

Rich Denney

Rich thank you so much for the wonderful detailed response. When our front of house folks return to BAM in the Fall, I would like to facilitate further conversations between our groups. I particularly appreciated your passcode or hand stamp idea on exit for intermission.

In the mean time it sounds like you can envisions or would appreciate some improvements or changes on the technology side. Do you wish to elaborate?

Others, thoughts?

--Tom

On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 10:11 PM, Tessitura Ticketing Forum wrote:

Tom,

First off, thank you for starting a conversation about this topic in the forums. It is one that we have on a regular basis here at The Public, but it is time we as a community start discussing in order to ensure that future improvements to Tessitura and NScan are aligned with new technology as well as the needs of our guests.

Our organizational response to guests using PAH on their mobile devices is determined by two primary factors; venue and the particulars of each case. Additionally PAH has only been an option as of January this year.

Joe's Pub welcomes and encourages it.

Our five traditional theaters we tolerate/discourage it.

We do not offer PAH options at The Delacorte in Central Park.

The box office staff have not had issues with it thus far and we discuss it enough organizationally that I would know if there were specific concerns. The effect on house staff varies per the venue as discussed above and will be discussed below based off your additional bullet points. The customer response varies based on their age demographic, but only after we have exhausted all attempts of assisting them at the door do they become frustrated that our delivery methods aren't more advanced.

* Technological challenges

1. Guests are unaware of how to brighten their screen.
2. The guest's screen on their mobile device is cracked to the point where the ticket is illegible.
3. Guests are unaware of how to re-size a PDF on their phone.
4. Other than the aforementioned factors NScan has been successful. (Time is necessary for staff to get used to it and to learn how to assist guests who present tickets on their phone.)

* Lines at Entry Doors

1. Re-sizing and moving through multiple tickets on a mobile device is quite time consuming.
2. Finding a solution for seating incomplete parties is a challenge and often slows the lines down.
3. Those are the two biggest challenges to be honest, but if you have a technologically savvy guest with only a pair of tickets on their phone it takes no longer than scanning PAH or ticket stock designs.

* Lines at the Box Office

1. Rarely affected.

* Intermissions for Seated Houses/Guests without the Mobile Device

1. These have yet to be a challenge because we have such small houses. Even with our guest restrooms located in the lobby only.
2. During intermission we encourage all guests to carry their ticket with them for re-entry and this verbiage is repeated to them before they leave the theater by ushers and ticket takers alike.
3. If we encounter a guest who has forgotten their ticket once they get to the exit door we ask them to return directly to that ticket taker for facial recognition or we use passwords. Each of the ticket takers is encouraged to use a password that night for reentry. Most guests find it comical and appreciate the quick friendly response rather then returning to their seat for the ticket.
4. In larger houses, at past jobs, we would station our ticket takers at either our main exit doors or the scanning entry point with a hand stamp to be used on guests who forgot their ticket at their seat. We never had a guest complaint about the need for a stamp rather then walk all the way back to their seat.
5. In situations where we are scanning an incomplete party at The Pub, they will ask the guest already present to message the other members of the party to alert them that they will have to message the person already present to receive them personally.
6. For our traditional houses we either ask the guest to wait until they are a complete party to enter the theater or require them to have their tickets printed at the box office and leave the remaining tickets with the House Manager of the show they are attending with the guest name on the ticket.
7. For large parties that scattered throughout a space we will often seat all of the guests, but then our House Manager or Theater Manager will have all the tickets printed and brought to the guest to ensure there are no issues during intermission. This was especially important during Hamilton and Grounded for us this season.

* Forged Tickets

1. We are currently using every security function possible within Tessitura for all of our ticket designs in addition our ticket stock and PAH designs are pretty specific and not easy to forge.
2. Actually during Hamilton we didn't encounter a single forged ticket in a PAH format. All of the forgeries were attempts at creating some kind of ticket stock design. Most true scalpers are becoming aware that people are suspect of a ticket printed on a home printer, unless they are coming from a secondary market website like Stubhub.

* Percentages

1. Joe's Pub skews higher because we have a younger demographic represented at their shows.
2. For our traditional houses I would say 1-5 guests use their mobile devices per performance.

The key, is to have a real mobile option. PAH delivery should not be our final frontier. Until then set your organizational boundaries of what you can and cannot accommodate and remain friendly towards the guests when they become upset about a lack of technological advancement. We are restricted to what Tessitura can offer and what organizationally we can afford as non for profits. We are blessed with a fantastic web and development team and I am very excited about the options we are exploring to combat many of the concerns you have above.

Until then I look forward to a day where we can scan a membership card for entries into a performance and catch up with those entities that are already using ticketless entry options in commercial venues.

I am always happy to discuss specific points further and feel free to email me directly Tom. I will happily find time to reply and/or set up a phone call.



Best,

Rich Denney
From: Tom Brown
Sent: 7/14/2015 4:50:00 PM

Does your organization:

* welcome and encourage
* tolerate
* discourage
* down right refuse

the use of mobile devices to presentation ticket bar codes?

As we move to a world with more mobile devices and expectations set by the Airlines, for profit Stadiums and StarBucks.

I'm interested in conversations with organizations that have decided to be inviting about the use of mobile devices to present tickets. How are your box office and front of house staff finding the experience? How are your customers finding the experience?

* Are there technology issue?
* Does it cause lines to run slower or longer at the Entry doors or the box office?
* How are intermissions for seated houses?
* What do you do if the mobile device with the ticket is no where near the person who has to go out for a smoke or to the bathroom?
* Has this increased or decreased the incidents of forged tickets?
* What percentage of customers choose to use their mobile device to present their tickets?

What are the keys to a successful mobile device friendly ticket operation?

--Tom Brown
tbrown@bam.org



This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Ticketing Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Ticketing forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!

Tim also a great response. Thanks for the insights.

--Tom

On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 9:30 PM, Tessitura Ticketing Forum wrote:

Hey Tom,

This was an important feature for us when we were looking at implementing scanning and the types of scanners we could use. We definitely welcomed and encouraged people to not print their tickets and just display it on their phone at the gate. At present we only use it for our outdoor film festival.

It is a little bit slower than scanning paper tickets. The brightness of the screen is a big factor (most people were ok though) and barcodes generally had to be zoomed in before they could scan. This was just off our first year though so we'll be doing more testing before our next Festival to see if we can fit a larger barcode and make sure it is right where we want it to be when it's viewed on a mobile device. I think that's the big thing out of this.

As the season went on we found more people were presenting their tickets on their phone and not printing them out and this seemed fairly consistent across both our younger and older audience members.

Our film venues have external toilets and the venues just issue a separate pass-out/toilet pass that customers surrender on the way back in. They've been doing it this way for years and we felt this was a lot simpler than constantly scanning in and out.

I think the biggest thing to get right is the way the barcode displays on the mobile. If you can get it to be the right size for scanning then you've only got to worry about the brightness at the gate and that's not going to be an issue for every phone.



Hope this helps. Let me know if you want anything more specific.
From: Tom Brown
Sent: 7/14/2015 4:50:00 PM

Does your organization:

* welcome and encourage
* tolerate
* discourage
* down right refuse

the use of mobile devices to presentation ticket bar codes?

As we move to a world with more mobile devices and expectations set by the Airlines, for profit Stadiums and StarBucks.

I'm interested in conversations with organizations that have decided to be inviting about the use of mobile devices to present tickets. How are your box office and front of house staff finding the experience? How are your customers finding the experience?

* Are there technology issue?
* Does it cause lines to run slower or longer at the Entry doors or the box office?
* How are intermissions for seated houses?
* What do you do if the mobile device with the ticket is no where near the person who has to go out for a smoke or to the bathroom?
* Has this increased or decreased the incidents of forged tickets?
* What percentage of customers choose to use their mobile device to present their tickets?

What are the keys to a successful mobile device friendly ticket operation?

--Tom Brown
tbrown@bam.org



This message was sent automatically to you by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Ticketing Forum. You may reply to this message to post to the Ticketing forum or visit the site to search, read and post to the forums. In the interest of keeping the forum posts from becoming cluttered, we encourage you to delete previous message text from your reply before sending. Thank you!

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to flag that with Tessitura V12.5 includes the capability to print QR codes on Ticket Designs (both client and PAH). I know that when we do mobile ticketing, using QR codes will be our preferred approach for sure.

For more info on this, check out page 72 of the What's New in V12.5 document.

Beau.

Thought I'd just post an update on this. 

 

I started testing some QR scans both in printed form and on my phone and the scanner picked up the QR barcodes with much more ease than a standard one. This also worked without having to zoom in on the phone which would make things quicker. 

We're using the Motorola MC40 and I'll definitely be changing over to QR codes on 12.5. Early days yet but it looks very exciting. 

Hi Tom (and Tim and Rich ad Beau!)

I'd like to share what we currently do at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, and also ask you all for recommendations / lessons learned.

This is a very relevant discussion for us.  Currently, we allow the use of mobile devices to presentation ticket bar codes, using Motorola MC55 scanners, NSCAN version 6.0.5, and Tessitura 12.1.2

It slows things down a bit.  Our scanners are used by a great team of volunteers, and getting the barcode to scan often takes multiple attempts and therefore more time than a printed ticket.  PAH tickets have a similar difference in scanning time.  Adjustments like enlarging the barcodes, mobile device screen brightness, and the volutneer changing the angle and distance of the scanner help.

At intermission, or other unscheduled breaks, the ticket (or bar code on mobile device) is examined by the volunteers, they are posted at each entrance/exit, but they do not all carry barcode scanners.

The percentage of those customers choosing to use the mobile device ticketing is low (less than 10%), and I think that is partly due to the preference of our audiences.  I can see where it may be easier to forge tickets, but have not noticed an increase, nor decrease.

I think the keys to successful mobile device friendly ticket operation are still being identified, but, I know training is key, and also our volunteers cooperation with each other--taking the overflow if the line backs up, and allowing the group expert (a.k.a. fastest, most successful mobile device scanner)  to be the mobile device scanner for the performance.  We like to post at least two scanning volunteers at each entrance, with three or four at the busier doors, so this helps when it's crunch time for ticket scanning.

===================My Request for Your Recommendations===================================

I am in the investigation phase for scanner hardware.  Currently we use Motorola MC55, but I understand from our vendor that these devices are not 4G compatible.

Do you know of a reliable 4G compatible scanner that would read QR or Barcodes, and be compatible with NSCAN?  Are you using a device now that you love, that meets these specifications?  

Or a device we should avoid?

I appreciate any advice, recommendations, or lessons learned.

Many Thanks,

Laura

Thanks so much for posting this tidbit Tim. QR codes have been frowned upon here (we don't have scanners yet) so I wasn't going to present it as an option. Now I know it may be preferable. Do you know if a PAH ticket can have both the QR code and the standard barcode sent to the patron? 

Thanks.