Hello - Jazz at Lincoln Center is planning to try using a flex pass/voucher system for its jazz club Dizzy's. We're thinking along the lines of packages that include, for instance, 6, 12, or 24 covers that can be redeemed for jazz club sets in any combination throughout the Dizzy's season, with a limit of 6 passes being used for the same show. I'm thinking of following a suggestion to build a dummy show for selling the passes and then exchanging folks into those shows as they redeem their passes. If anyone works anywhere with a flex pass or voucher system and has encountered any problems or pitfalls, I'd like to hear about them so that we might try and avoid them. And if you have any advice concerning best practices, I would really appreciate hearing that as well.
In addition to Kathleen's comment, I wanted to share what we do.
We have a flex pass subscription option, and we build it as its own season. All flex pass revenue goes into our Subscription GL, and when we exchange the flex seat into an actual performance, it's allocated to that show as can be seen on our custom Daily Sales report, and other reports like Ticket Sales by Period, but the GL for Finance remains the same based on Price Type. All passes must be used by the end of the season; we do not roll any unused passes forward. (Last year I had someone mail in a flex pass from 2005 asking if they could still use it! We weren't even on Tessitura then.)
Re: best practices, if you're not already doing exchanges in a new order, I would recommend looking into it. My current org was doing exchanges in the original order when I first started here and it made flex passes (and everything else in my opinion) a pain. It also makes pulling data difficult, and can wreak havoc on a rollover for fixed seat packages.
A final note on ticketing for the flex passes: we are basically entirely mobile ticketed now, and we made a specific ticket type for our flex passes that tell patrons how to redeem. If you want them to exchange their flex pass ahead of time, that will need to be communicated clearly, and likely multiple times.
Oh wow, building it as it's own season, with a specific ticket type - I like that idea. Hard agree with doing exchanges in a new order. Thank you!