So here's the issue. Our theater is finishing a huge renovation that is greatly expanding our seating capabilities in one of our two mainstage performance venues. In order to improve our seating efficiency, we are decreasing the run time of the shows in that venue by a week or two, but maintaining the original length in the other space. Since these spaces are linked in super packages, I'm trying to find a way to have the packages that fall in the last two weeks of the first house be dispersed throughout the other weeks in the other venue while still maintaining the ability to do rollover and have seating stability. I've been told that our theatre used to do that years ago with a different box office manager, but no one has any documentation on how it was accomplished. I'm sure we are not the only theatre that links different sized spaces. Does anyone have any suggestions or know how to set up this kind of a subscription package?
When you're planning your packages, some of the series will have to "share" sub packages with other series.
(A super package can't use the same sub package that another super is already using but the dates in the unique sub packages' performance groups can be the same)
Say you have 3 weeks in one house (Big) and 4 in the other (Little).
Super Package A - Sub Packages: Week 1 Little, Week 1 Big
Super Package B - Sub Packages: Week 2 Little, Week 2 Big
Super Package C - Sub Packages: Week 3 Little, Week 3 Big
Super Package D - Sub Packages: Week 4 Little, Week 3 Big
Super packages C and D share the same dates in their "Week 3 Big" sub package.
When planning out your package series look for performances that will allow two sub packages to combine as cleanly as possible. As you're most likely going to run into seat conflicts no matter what, it's best to run your rollover from lists -- roll VIPs first, then long time subscribers, etc -- resolving seating issues before moving on to the next rollover list. In the end, some people are going to "lose" but that way it won't be the most important patrons.
Hope that makes sense - good luck!
Super Packages are the way to go. We had a similiar scenario when I was at City Theatre in Pittsburgh. The Mainstage was 250-seats (assigned) and ran for 3 weeks and the Studio space had 110-seats (general admission) and had 6 week runs. We converted from doing 2 individual packages for each venue to Super Packages in order to sell on the web and force the customer to buy a package that included both spaces. We built the Super Packages as follows:
Super Package: Wednesday Matinee 1A
(containing packages: Wednesday Matinee Mainstage 1A and Wednesday Matinee Studio 1A
Super Package: Wednesday Matinee 1B
(containing packages: Wednesday Matinee Mainstage 1B and Wednesday Matinee Studio 4A)
It is possible to build Packages that duplicate performance dates. In the above example the same exact performance dates are contained in the Mainstage packages (both first week dates) but the Studio packages have different performance dates (1st week for A and 4th week for B). I instructed the Box Office to fill up the "A" packages first and once the smaller theater ran out of seats start selling the "B" packages. It took some time to work out all the details and do the rollover but in the end we could sell packages on the Web. Let me know if you have any questions along the way.
Chuck Buchanan
Thank you both. That will definitely help!