Hi there,
I'm after any feedback on print-at-home ticketing from anyone who has recently gone through setting this up.
Are there any pitfalls to be aware of? unexpected costs? major 'roadblocks'?
I'm just trying to gather some anecdotal evidence at this stage so any advice offered would be much appreciated!
Many thanks,
Emma
Emma,
I can't speak to all the technical issues, but the only concern from our patrons is the large number of sheets that print up. We are a science museum and ticket general admission for multiple venues the same day, and each venue gets a separate page (ticket) for each person. The size of the attachment sometimes gets blocked by SPAM filters. Setting up access control with bar code scanners was a snap thanks to Ron Wilson and the N-Scan team.
Ray Bernard
Director of Visitor Program Sales
We implimented the print at home service about 2 years ago and it has been working fine. I agree with Kay about setting up a procedure to send you the exceptions. Ron Wilson did the same for us and this way we can reset the service if it has a glitch. I also agree with the folks at the Science center in Minnesota. We also have multiple events that a person can attend in 1 visit. Each event is a performance in Tessitura so it uses multiple tickets. I would be nice if only 1 ticket printed for all performances. Maybe the next gen software will include something like this. I guess the last peice of practical advice is to make sure that you have links to download the latest version of Adobe Reader as the ticket will not render properly without it. We have found that the Apple/Mac program "preview" seems to have a hard time rendering the print at home ticket.
Christian
I fully agree with all of the advice given so far. One other thing we did was to have copies of all print-at-home tickets forwarded to a separate e-mail box. If a patron hasn’t received their print-at-home tickets for some reason, or have accidentally deleted the e-mail, all ticketing managers have access to find and forward a copy of the tickets directly to the patron instead of reprinting or regenerating the file. This does require some maintenance and archiving on a regular basis since the files tend to be rather large, but it has been very helpful. Good luck!
Maryke VanBeuzekom
Ticketing Operations Manager
The 5th Avenue Theatre
Tickets (206) 625-1900
www.5thavenue.org
From: Tessitura Ticketing Forum [mailto:forums-ticketing@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Christian Mauri Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 10:07 AM To: Maryke VanBeuzekom Subject: Re: [Tessitura Ticketing Forum] Print-at-home Ticketing
From: Ray Bernard <bounce-raymondbernard7790@tessituranetwork.com> Sent: 5/28/2009 11:02:14 AM
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Thanks Ray,
Interesting point to watch out for re: the SPAM filters. Does each venue and person get a seperate page becuase that is how you've set it up, or did you not have any choice in the matter?
We have no choice. As Christian noted, Tessitura counts each venue/person as a seat (ticket). So if we sell a Combo (package) for Omnihteater and General exhibits, we get two tickets printed (3 if they add special exhibits). That's as it should work, but is inconvenient for our purposes.
BUT, our patrons love the option of print-at-home.! We had a tripling of members using the web to make print-at-home reservations, even though they pay a nominal fee online, but can make free phone reservations for will call pick-up.
Ray