Pkg Pay now Choose shows later

Hi Shelley, 

We are going through the same thing - how do we encourage patrons to buy when we haven't released all our programming for the season yet? To solve this, we are offering a membership program. Pay $__, get access to all concerts. We're doing it by time frame:

$150/membership = Access to all concerts from October – December (1 ticket/per concert, per membership)

$300/membership = Access to all concerts from October – March (1 ticket/per concert, per membership)

$450/membership = Access to all concerts from October – June (1 ticket/per concert, per membership)

I built performances for each membership so patrons can choose which timeframe works best, and choose how many memberships they'd liked to purchase based on how many seats/concerts they plan to book. I have a SQL procedure running every 15 minutes to look for orders with these performances. It assigns them a constituency based on how many memberships (aka seats) they've purchased. The constituency is then used in a pricing rule that allows the patrons to book free tickets for any concerts as long as they have that constituency. 

You don't really need the SQL procedure if you don't have any concerts for them to immediately book into; you could schedule the Manage Constituency utility to run every evening to look at patrons' ticket history and assign the constituency. 

As for patrons who still have subscriptions or on-account $$, we are offering the membership to these patrons with the understanding that we will move their money around behind the scenes. Not super elegant, but it works for now.

I hope this is helpful!

Could you use Flex Passes? Or CYO (create your own)? 

Hi Shelley, my apologies for the delayed response. We don't use TNEW, so I'm not sure any of this is helpful. I read somewhere that TNEW will be coming out with a way for patrons to apply on account money to an order. In your circumstances, the patron would have to purchase some sort of voucher and the value would have to be put on account so the patron could apply it. 

We typically offer blind renewals each year (before the titles/dates are announced), so we create subscription "vouchers" built as performances. Then later, we transfer the $ to the final package later.

In regards to CYO and Flex. Our CYO are built in "Flex" mode, but our Flex Packages are built in "Fixed" mode. The passes are built as performances (i.e. Pass 1, Pass 2 etc.) and then added to the Package. Later, the patron would exchange this "Pass" performances for actual perfs. This would only be feasible if TNEW can do exchanges online. 

If you have additional questions, feel free to reach out! My email is mblau@studiotheatre.org. 

Here's what I'm testing out. We'll have a show called Season Pass with 3 fixed pricetypes. Then we'll manually return the ticket and put money to on acct payment method called Season Pass. I can run the On Acct Tracking report to see how many people have purchased that. Once TNEW releases functionality for patron to use on acct $ to buy online in about 2 wks then they can buy whatever they want. 

We are going to waive ticket fees for these patrons. I'm new to pricing rules. How would I set it up for their constituency to change the price type which is not associated with fees? What if a GA event has 2 pricetypes, can I set it up that they see both of those after the rule change?

I love this solution - please post about how it turns out!

For your pricing rules question, the pricetype would flip after the patron has already added the ticket to their cart and is logged in. If you'd like them to be able to see price options or see their discount prior to selecting seats, you might be better off giving these subscribers a ranking that flips their MOS upon login. That MOS would then have no fees and only the discounted prices. Either way you'll have to do some training with your patrons about logging into their same account every time they return.