Hello all -
I just learning this (learning new things all the time) so if there is a simple solution, fix or setup issue I'm unaware of, please forgive me.
We have two subscription packages for each night of the - a 5 Play (5 plays in facility A, 0 in facility B) and an 8 Play (5 plays in facility A, 3 in facility B). I just noticed today that the BASE seat map for the 5 Play does not account for seats sold in the 8 Play and vice versa while the COMPOSITE map accounts for all tickets sold. I was under the impression that the BASE map would consider only BASE seats even if in another package. Not being able to see the 8 play base seats when selling a 5 or vice versa makes it difficult to adequately sell subscription seats.
Is there a setup issue that I've never realized or is this by design in Tessitura that two different package will use a base seat map that doesn't account for base seats in the same set of performances?
Thanks in advance.
RJ
Hi Richard-
It's not a setup issue, but a question of the different role in transactions between the Base and Composite maps. The Base map holds the seat locations for all seats sold in the specific package you're looking at, so that you have a reference record from which to renew people next year even if they exchange or return all their performances. Base seats will only be returned if the entire package is cancelled. The Composite map is an up-to-date reference of the availability status of all the seats in the package, composed (as the name implies) from an overlay of all the performances which make up the package. So if a performance is shared between the 8-play and the 5-play, and a seat is sold as part of an 8-play package, it will show up in the BASE seat map for the 8-play, the performance seat map for each of the performances in the 8-play package, AND in the Composite map for the 8-play and the 5-play packages, because its status in the 8-play package affects its availability for a 5-play. However, it won't show in the BASE map for the 5-play because there's nothing to renew in the 5-play package for that seat.
Does that help?
Jonathan
That does help, Jonathan. Thanks. The situation I ran into was observing a box officer on the phone tell a new subscriber that there were no aisle seats available for his subscription seats. When I suggested checking the BASE map of the 5 play package he was selling, the manager on duty told me that they don't do that because that base map won't account for the base seats of people in the 8 play package.
If there is no way to see a base seat map for both 5 and 8, then the usefulness of selling, say, seats 1 and 2 on row A as base seats (available) and moving the subscriber to seats 4 and 5 on row B for actual performances (as row A seats 1-2 have been sold as single tickets) then moving base seats in our map might be a moot point.
Thanks for the quick response!
Richard-
Going back to my original comment, I'd recommend the box office staff use the Composite, not the Base, maps to verify availability for package seats. The ONLY purpose of the base map is to record the seats sold in a fixed package for purposes of renewal. Once single tickets have gone onsale, there is no map that will show the joint package sales and ONLY the joint package sales, but the Composite map is designed to be the representation of what's truly available across the entire package.