Hi all,
Currently, I am going through some of our legacy processes that were in place before I started to see if there are any improvements we can make, one area that we feel could be improved is our ticketing process for Children who are 6 months or younger (referred to in our organization as Babes in Arms tickets).
Current process
It's a fairly simple process however it does come with its downsides. Babes in Arms tickets are not a price type within the performance price table and instead, we print physical tickets via the 'Print Sample Ticket' element within the ticket design tab in Ticketing Setup. The reason we have decided against doing it as a price type for family-orientated performances is that this would result in us having to book a Babes in Arms ticket from our saleable capacity when the child will end up sitting on their parent's knee for the duration of the performance meaning we lose out on additional sales.
Another thought we came up with was using our Choir Stall seating (which is never used apart from a handful of performances throughout the year) to book Babes in Arms tickets into so it would not eat into our saleable capacity. However, from a health and safety point of view stating that an infant is sitting in one location when in reality they are sitting somewhere completely different may not be the best practice potentially. (however, this would still be more ideal than what we currently have in place)
I would love to hear from someone about the process of how they are currently handling infants in their venue. As I am really keen to move away from this legacy issue.
Many thanks in advance
Matthew
Hi Matthew thanks for your post! I'm wondering if it might be useful to cross-post to the new Ticketing & Admissions Community? Hopefully you'll receive a reply over there.- Gill, Community Manager
Hi Matthew,
We have just changed the way that we sell Babes in Arms tickets. Previously we had a general admission plan set up for each individual performance where customers could buy a babes in arms ticket in addition to their Standard ticket, this option only appeared after a Standard ticket had been added to the basket. We would hold a corresponding allocation of seat off at the back of the house in the Gallery so we didn't go over capacity for health and safety.
However we wanted to limit where babes in arms are permitted to sit in the auditorium due to safety - front rows of the circles and boxes so decided to set it up so the Babes in arms tickets are included in the price type eg Standard + cost of babes in arms which the customer can then select themselves. We then know exactly where they will be sat and this seems to be working much better for us and for customers as it's easier for them to book online. We still hold a few seats off so we don't go over capacity but as they are usually available for children's productions we don't have all levels on sale so it's not so much of an issue, it's just panto we have to track numbers sold more carefully.
Hope that helps, just get in touch if you have any further questions,
Annabel