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.
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!