I am looking for a new approach to managing holds. What has your organization tried? What works? What doesn't? To give some background, our organization hosts a number of small capacity events- in the range of 100 tickets. Nearly a third of our inventory is placed in department holds- Director, Artist, Performing Arts, Marketing, and Development. It creates a circular problem, wherein available tickets are quickly purchased, and departments then do not feel comfortable releasing their tickets for a "sold out" performance. The reality being that the holds themselves are the reason the event appears so in demand!
I would like to set up holds so there is less emphasis on individual departments "owning" holds. I want the ticket office to be in control of hold inventory. It is counterproductive to hold back excessive tickets, whilst turning away potential sales. Has anyone been successful setting up just one or two hold types? For instance, one hold for artist guest list, another for internal requests? How about expiring holds? I suspect that I will get support from Senior leadership if I can share examples of how other institutions organize their holds.
Hi friend
We went through this years ago and had great success. I'm not going to say anything you don't already know, but I'll certainly validate your expectations.
Historically, each department had its holds. This was all with great intentions, as I am sure is the case in your organisation. But having 10x programming holds and 8x VIP holds etc was simply inefficient.
Typically every department was good at releasing most of their holds, but they would hang on to one or two pairs "just in case".
The issue arises due to the volume of "just in case holds" at the last minute.
If you are making a business case to reduce holds, simply track the quantity which go unsold. At the same time track how many are used.
As you know, you will soon identify that only 25% of the original number needs to be held to satisfy everyone's needs
Ideally you can eliminate everyone's personal holds. But if that isn't feasible, you can reduce their "just in case holds" to one or two pairs that represents everyone's just in case provision
Thanks for the feedback. It's reassuring to know that this is a problem all Box Offices face. I have records from the last two years of hold activity. I bet if I do some research, I can use my findings to make a case for reducing holds.
When we present in smaller venues departments have tended to understand that they will have access to a proportionally reduced number of holds. When we have found ourselves in a situation where we have sold all inventory except for the holds we'll share with patrons that we don't have anything at this time but that because we permit exchanges we often have tickets returned for exchange and to not give up on getting tickets! We then take a couple steps:
The interest list is my favorite because we then get the patron's information in Tessitura and flagged for a particular interest. Even if they don't buy for that event, we can make sure they are aware of future, related events. It also allows the patron to relax and not worry about calling us every hour, knowing we will send an alert if tickets open up.
Another thing that I wanted to share about from UMS is that Christina has done a great job getting buy-in from some of the other department heads, and as shows approach they have a routine of bringing up holds in meetings to remind everyone to get their requests in asap so they can release any that aren't being used. Even just one or two allies from other departments can really help amplify the voice of the ticket office. One of our coworkers even came up with a catchphrase: "A ticket on hold can't be sold."
I may steal that catchphrase. Thanks for your input!
Thanks for chiming in. I like the idea of the interest list in the attributes section of the event. Our current system for waitlists is to create a new event called "Waitlist for [Event Name Here]." Then we "sell" free spots on the waitlist. We then notify patrons by email if tickets open up for the event. It sounds like maintaining a list in attributes would cut down on setup time. How do people add themselves to the list? Do they call or stop by the ticket office? Can it be done online?
They can call or stop by or do it online. To make it easier for them to do it online we will typically provide a link to a short, quick Google form in TN_Express_Purchase_Instr for the performance. We can input that info into Tessitura when we have a quiet moment and can copy and paste the captured emails in to a blast to go with the emails exported from interested Tessitura accounts.