Hi.
My question is specifically for those organizations who have at one time been dealing with a single house, Fixed Seat Package and are now using multiple venues in a Super Package season.
What tips or suggestions can you provide since we cannot rollover our Super Packages from season to season - how do you function and structure your renewal data so that it is accurate for the Renewal Invoices since we can't use Tessitura.
I am continuing a practice that I started last year, our first moving from Fixed to Super. I run a list of all current subscribers and populate it in the Customer Data Export Utility - this gives me their patron information as well as their previous seating information for the season in each different configuration.
I take that and save it into an Excel spreadsheet. I have to manually go in and clean the list so that seating information from the current season will be correct for the upcoming season. I also manually add pricing information, since it will change from current to the upcoming season. Then once I have all that information in a spreadsheet I do a simple mail merge onto a Word document so that the fields I want populate where I want on a blank renewal document.
This is EXTREMELY time consuming, especially since our sub base has grown so much. Is there an easier way to do this? Maybe a way that utilizes Tessitura that I am not aware of?
It was so much nicer to have the rollover functionality, but since it's not available with Super Packages it makes it difficult to be accurate and precise with our renewals.
Also, do you still utilize a paper renewal or do you also utilize the Online Renewal functionality even though with a Super Package, non-rolled over renewal it would appear that patrons are purchasing a new subscription online?
Hi Tommy, You can roll over super packages. To do so you roll over the sub packages separately. As long as all the sub packages end up in the same order, a super package is created. See the Package Administration document, section 2.D.2, for details. Kevin Sheehan Documentation & Learning Resources Specialist Tessitura Network 1 888 643 5778 ext 329 Office ksheehan@tessituranetwork.com--View this message online at: http://www.tessituranetwork.com/COMMUNITY/forums/p/2303/8091.aspx#8091 Tommy LooneyAssoc. Director, Ticketing & Patron ServicesDallas Theater Center2400 Flora St | Dallas, TX 75201214.252.3925 (direct)214.252.3927 (Subscriber Courtesy Line) www.dallastheatercenter.org
Hi Tommy,
You can roll over super packages. To do so you roll over the sub packages separately. As long as all the sub packages end up in the same order, a super package is created. See the Package Administration document, section 2.D.2, for details.
Kevin Sheehan
Documentation & Learning Resources Specialist
Tessitura Network
1 888 643 5778 ext 329 Office
ksheehan@tessituranetwork.com
If the proscenium and thrust configurations this year are the same as they were last year then you can rollover last year's subpackages for each into this year's subpackages for each respectively. The yet-to-be-determined would have to be seated manually. But you can still do it. However, if last year's proscenium is a different facility than this year's, etc. then you can't rollover.
You can only rollover sub packages within the same facility. So as Amanda replied, if you are using the same proscenium and thrust facilities this year as you did last year, you can at least roll those sub packages over. The sub packages for shows 1&5 (the environmental) will have to be sat manually. You may be able to rollover a sub package for show 4 though if you have old packages from when everything was in your old space. Let’s say that last seasons ago you were doing regular fixed seat packages in your old space, then this season everyone who had packages in the old space now moved to the new super packages. For the upcoming season’s rollover you can use last season’s packages from the old space as the rollover source. You’ll just need to use a list of current subscribers with your rollover so you don’t roll over anyone who didn’t renew for the current season.
Unfortunately, any time you change facilities you can’t do a regular rollover. Somehow you are going to have to manually seat people in the new facility. If you do an incomplete rollover of a super package, i.e. not all of the component sub packages, when you load those orders you will get an error and then the system will automatically add the missing sub packages as unseated sub line items. You could then go seat the unseated sub packages to create complete, seated super packages that you can use for renewals. Another option is to use the conversion rollover process (what people generally do for their first subscription season in Tessitura) which involves creating an import file of seat assignments in the new facility, dummy performances in that facility, and then a rollover from the dummy performances (which you can use as your rollover source product) into the new sub packages. You can read a little more about this process in the Package Administration document, though you may want to also open a help ticket if you go that route. I don’t know if any of these will be less work than you are currently doing, but maybe less prone to error at least. And you’ll have preexisting rollover orders, so you won’t have to process renewals from scratch.
Lookinglass is not a Tessitura organization and I don’t remember the names of anyone in your situation. I do know though that rollovers to new facilities are pretty common, whether with super packages or regular packages, so there should be others out there with similar experiences to share. The only big difference for you is that you are going to have to go through this process every year to some extent while for most others they do it once and then can go back to regular rollovers.
Good luck!
From: Tessitura Ticketing Forum [mailto:forums-ticketing@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Tommy Looney Sent: Monday, April 05, 2010 2:09 PM To: Kevin Sheehan Subject: Re: [Tessitura Ticketing Forum] Super Packages & renewals
Kevin:
We are a bit unusual in that our stage configurations will not be the same from season to season because of our new flexible space.
This season we had a 5 show season with shows 1 & 4 in a Thrust configuration, shows 2 & 5 in Proscenium, and show 3 in a Black Box.
Our upcoming season that we are renewing for is now a 6 show season with shows 1 & 5 being in a yet-to-be determined environmental configuration, shows 2 & 6 in a Proscenium configuration, show 3 will be in Thrust, and show 4 will be at our old location, a modified Proscenium.
So I guess the only way to rollover Super Packages is if the configurations and everything were consistent from season to season, correct?
To be honest I feel like I am making more work for myself that is necessary, and I know that however perfect I think I am that I am bound to make some mistakes.
Do you know of any other Tess users that have been operating successfully with a flexible space and how they have adapted the system to be beneficial with renewals and packages in general? I know that Lookingglass in Chicago is a LORT with a flex space plan, but are they on Tess? Thanks.
On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 8:37 AM, Kevin Sheehan <bounce-kevinsheehan4372@tessituranetwork.com> wrote:
-- View this message online at: http://www.tessituranetwork.com/COMMUNITY/forums/p/2303/8091.aspx#8091 Tommy Looney Assoc. Director, Ticketing & Patron Services Dallas Theater Center 2400 Flora St | Dallas, TX 75201 214.252.3925 (direct) 214.252.3927 (Subscriber Courtesy Line) www.dallastheatercenter.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!
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