Hello all,
Writing in from Austin where as you all probably saw SXSW was cancelled. Our two venues are the main venues for the SXSW film festival and luckily for us the cancellation isn't having that much of an impact directly. However, our presented/non-sxsw shows are still going on and we are experiencing varied waves of calls and concerns. We are trying hard to maintain distance from the paranoia, but I think it is important to acknowledge the realities and listen to those who may know more. Any thoughts or tips on what y'all have been doing? Thank you.
San Francisco Ballet's performances have been canceled officially from March 7th to March 20th, unofficially until April 1st. When our run of Midsummer Night's Dream was canceled we sent all of our patrons an email through P2 that allowed them to choose if they would like to donate their ticket or receive credit that can be used until the end of our 2021 season. Once they choose an option, it creates a CSI that we are then processing manually so I will definitely be looking into the Performance Seat Release report! Thank you Jessica! We also have a webpage for patrons to decide between those options, but that is a ninja form that is then emailed to us to process.
https://www.sfballet.org/a-midsummer-nights-dream-ticket-options/
Thank you and please keep sharing your processes and ideas because I think this is going to get a bit worse before it gets better, but we are all in this together.
Megan Quintal
Ticket Database Specialist
When we had to cancel a performance last fall, we used the Performance Seat Release report and then created an activity for patrons to "RSVP" to on our website with how they wanted us to handle their money (they were sent an email with a link to click on that took them to the RSVP page), the options were donate, refund or hold for future use. We scheduled the activity tracking report to email to the box office every day for them to actually do what the patron had requested. After the box office had handled, they changed the status of the activity to fulfilled so we could make sure we didn't miss anything (and to make sure the activity didn't show up on the web for them anymore). We also created a custom order field to record the action.
Curious. For single ticket buyers, I'm assuming this does not refund fees.