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.
We just sent out an email this morning about the steps we are taking to clean, disinfect, etc. The rest of the arts orgs in our area sent something out this afternoon. We also set up a web page for updates. https://modlin.richmond.edu/covid19.html We are a part of a university so we will go with their recommendation but I personally think we will end up canceling this month's events and refunding/crediting/donating orders. We are on spring break right now but I have a feeling they will ask students to stay home for another week. We will be asking people to donate their tickets instead of outright refunding everyone. I am trying to figure out exactly how that will work. If you don't want to panic I would suggest not reading any news articles. The more I read the more I don't want to be here when students come back from spring break and their different home cities...
Also, we offer subscribers the option to return their tickets for a credit up to 24 hours before a performance. We have received a higher than normal amount of returns but it is not an amount that we are worried about. However, I have seen ticket sales for all of our events drop in the last week.
My state just got its first confirmed cases yesterday, so the questions from patrons have begun. Today we added a link to our website's callboard to our official statement: https://www.kazoocivic.com/docs/misc/coronovirus_concern.pdfAt the moment, we are not planning to cancel any shows or classes.
We popped the following statement on out website. https://www.sydneydancecompany.com/novel-coronavirus-covid-19-update/
Most of us in Australia are following the advice of Live Performance Australia (LPA) https://liveperformance.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/LPA-MR-Live-performance-and-COVID-19-11-March-2020.pdf
At our TUG last Friday we had a good discussion on this. Our PAC and Festival folks are affected or preparing strongly though us presenters less so. Our support is with our pals at Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) who cancelled Dark Mofo.
Hope you're all doing OK (reach out if you need to)
Heaath
PS: I'm also stockpiling our collection of <insert hated printnews media here> in case of TP shortage
It's comforting to have a community to turn to. I work at Ithaca College and all events will be cancelled until beginning of April (at this point), which means our almost sold-out run of Pippin will be cancelled (or potentially postponed). I haven't received a directive from my supervisors yet, but I imagine I will have to process hundreds of refunds for single tickets and partial refunds for subscriptions. Open to any suggestions for how I should go about organize this process!
We just got word the classes will be online until April. They didn’t say anything about events though. I’m guessing they will get cancelled. Is there a way to mass refund performances?
I asked this question last week about bulk refunds and got the network response:
I think there is away to put it all on account. I think I’ve done that before but can’t find the documentation because I’m on my cell phone. I’m hoping we can ask people to take a credit and call us if they want a refund or donate. I wonder if there are any laws against that.
@Jessie- There is the Performance Seat Release report that will put $$ to an On Account you select. A way to return seats in bulk, but not necessarily refund the $$ back to credit cards, etc
This is a great option, and we have used it before. I will say for us our finance department didn't love the way it looked. Just a heads up in case.
Curious why your finance department didn't love/like it? (just arming myself with info).
I think the it look like a bunch of credits and they weren't expecting it. I think if I had let them know ahead of time they would of been fine.
I'm with the Schwartz Center at Emory. The university announced last night that spring break was to be extended an extra week, and following that all classes will be done online for the rest of the semester. As most of our events are tied to the performing arts departments (music/dance/etc) we are either cancelling or postponing all events in March and April. For all ticketed events we'll be offering to credit ticket amounts toward future purchases (or subscription renewal!), refunds if desired, or they can make their ticket purchase a donation.
If anyone needs me, I'll be in my bunker.
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