Hey everyone!
Our teams are discussing the costs/benefits of having guests choose a date of visit during their online purchase of general admission tickets vs a ticket expiring a year after the date of purchase (which is what we currently do) that can be used any single day.
What are you all doing? What works and what doesn't? We'd love to hear what you've experienced. :)
Georgia Aquarium operates using both scenarios, we have tickets that the guest can purchase a specific date and time through all channels and then we have tickets that are good for a year that can only be purchased through our call center or POS. We prefer the guest to purchase a specific date and time for the same reasons as Shedd (over crowding) as well as using the data for critical business decisions. Our "open-ended" tickets are not sold often and we have not had any major issues regarding having them available.
The Perot Museum in Dallas also uses date specific tickets and additionally, we require timed entry - we have entry times every 30 minutes. Much like Shedd & Georgia Aq, we do this for crowd-control. Our building is relatively small and we need to space out Saturdays & Sundays and Holidays. We've discussed getting rid of the timed element (keeping the date) as we see it as a barrier to the online purchase, but from a guest experience/crowding standpoint, we don't want to pack in too many people.