I am wondering if any venues have a stand-by ticket policy for sold out performances and how it works for you.
Do you sell comp tickets that aren't claimed?
How do you handle empty seats that have been purchased and not donated for re-sell?
Thank you in advance for your answers.
We do a few different things:
1.) If any event is a free-but-ticketed event we have a 15 minute will-call cut-off. If tickets aren't claimed 15 minutes prior to the show's start time, we release all unclaimed will-call to patrons waiting in a standby line. At 15 til, everyone in the standby line moves to the will-cal line (so if anyone is in line, they can still get their ticks) once the last patron is finished picking up their tickets, we release the unclaimed will call to the standby line patrons. This has worked very well.
2.) We do not "donate" seats for re-sale....if anyone turns in a ticket we call the first person in the standby line and they can choose to take the ticket or pass it a long to the next person in line.