Hello,
We are looking at different ways to sell digital live stream content this season, and since TNEW's gated digital content feature has been moved to release in late August, I am wondering if any Tessitura users out there can share what they are doing now to sell gated content, particularly if you are using Tessitura/ TNEW for the sales path, and connecting to a third party stream from there somehow? What I am currently envisioning is selling on Tessitura/ TNEW, and then emailing a link to ticket buyers close to the time of a performance. Of course there are easy ways to break through the gate with this method, for example if we use VIMEO, where the password or direct link could be shared with non-buyers. While I'm not incredibly concerned about the dishonesty of our ticket holders forwarding their direct links along to other people, I'd love to know others' experiences and approaches have been with this. Or, maybe there is something simple that I am missing which would allow me to make the streaming more secure.
For Tessitura staff - We are looking to begin selling gated content before the TNEW release, but the actual performances may take place after the release, and so in addition to any third party workarounds that Tessitura users can provide, would we be able to take a performance sold before the release and convert it to a gated digital performance?
I have been searching the community forums and have not found a recent discussion on how people are selling gated content currently, and so if there is already one in progress that I missed, I'd love to be linked to it.
Thanks for your help, and I hope everyone is staying healthy out there!
Andrew
Hi everyone, this is a fantastic thread and so helpful - thank you!
Now that the TNEW Gated Content is out on LIVE - has anyone given any thought to how Guest Checkout plays into all this? I would assume that anyone with a Guest Checkout account cannot access the content because they don't have a login. Are you planning on turning Guest Checkout off in the standard purchase path (we still need it for One Page Giving) while selling Digital Content?
Similarly, if you have major donors/Board members who should receive access to a specific piece of content (it's Nutcracker for us), can we processed comp tickets on their accounts to grant them access? Does anyone have VIPs who just never use TNEW and don't know their logins? Trying to think through if it would be easier to try and get them setup to access the content via TNEW or if we should just keep a separate list of VIPs who should get the content via a direct link to the content provider.
Would love to hear your thoughts!
Lily
We've had to turn it off.
It has been a while since I looked at the messaging options on that page. Is there a way to put a message with the Guest Checkout option that says something to the effect of "You will not be able to use Guest Checkout for digital content"?
The problem is that there is no way (of which I'm aware) to prevent guest checkout by product. It's either on or off. So if it's on, then messaging or no people are going to buy access with Guest Checkout, and then will be unable to access it.
Sure, but then when they call and complain, you can say "you must have not read the warning; we are now going to have to convert your account from a guest account to a normal patron account, and you will have to set a login password" or something to that effect. Messaging of that sort that says "blame's on you here". Of course, that is not the greatest solution, but at least it would be something.
It's a little easier on us as for the time being streaming is all we're going to be offering.
My biggest concern with our streaming series is that we are hosting "premiers" for everything (i.e. a realtime stream that you log into and watch simultaneously with other viewers), and for some shows only that, no later access via video-on-demand. I'm confident that we will get a rush of customer technical issues right at "curtain time". An ounce of control there is always worth a pound of messaging, but we'll be doing tons of messaging as well. The hardest part generally is going to be forcing everyone who buys tickets (i.e. over the phone) to create an account and remember the password, and to get people to sign in early so that they can figure things out in plenty of time to watch the event.