Timed Entry Facility Share

Thanks! The capacities are very up-in-the-air. It's likely they will be determined by the Mayor or Governor for Chicago. Because of the size and create-your-own-adventure layout of our building we will likely have to do some soft-closes and clear the building a few times per day so at the moment the plan is to do 3hr blocks, clearing the building and re-opening for each block. In case it ends up being Shedd-enforced limit instead of a harder government-enforced limit I'll probably also have an hourly facility on the back-burner in case we aren't clearing the building, but just spreading out entry times. As for the number of tickets in each of those time slots...I have NO IDEA so I'll build big and hold as needed.  

It looks like you are on the right track. Timed Entry was my life at the Perot Museum and I am also building it out for the zoo right now. I have two recommendations that I have learned from the past. One is what you stated...overbuild your Timed Zones and use various Hold Code maps to bring it to your timed size. As you know, you can't easily add to the Zone. We are planning for 500 per slot. I am building it for 2000 and will use Hold Codes to bring it down. Two...consider an "Untimed Zone" where you can put things that you don't want exposed to the Web. We have CityPASS redemption and Comps there. You will always need some work-around for special circumstances that arise.

One last thought, you may wish to add an earlier zone or later zone. Give yourself the flexibility for an 8am slot or a 6pm slot or whatever your times are- you know the operating teams will be creative It took me nearly an entire day to build-out the zoo!

One last thing I thought of...Members. Our Membership Director wanted to allocate times for members, so I built a Zone for Public & a Zone for Members. Based on which tickets are in the zone allows it to be visible online.

Good luck!!

It looks like you are on the right track. Timed Entry was my life at the Perot Museum and I am also building it out for the zoo right now. I have two recommendations that I have learned from the past. One is what you stated...overbuild your Timed Zones and use various Hold Code maps to bring it to your timed size. As you know, you can't easily add to the Zone. We are planning for 500 per slot. I am building it for 2000 and will use Hold Codes to bring it down. Two...consider an "Untimed Zone" where you can put things that you don't want exposed to the Web. We have CityPASS redemption and Comps there. You will always need some work-around for special circumstances that arise.

One last thought, you may wish to add an earlier zone or later zone. Give yourself the flexibility for an 8am slot or a 6pm slot or whatever your times are- you know the operating teams will be creative It took me nearly an entire day to build-out the zoo!

One last thing I thought of...Members. Our Membership Director wanted to allocate times for members, so I built a Zone for Public & a Zone for Members. Based on which tickets are in the zone allows it to be visible online.

Good luck!!

Ha, great minds think alike. I tacked a GA slot at the end too. Good call on the member versions, hadn't thought of that. I think our houses will be so big I should go with a screen for each time like you have, as opposed to one screen and scrolling. Thank you for sharing!

Word of warning...applying Hold Codes to these giant Facilities can take a while. I timed it once and it took about 90 seconds to apply the Hold Code Map at the Perot to the General Admission Perf.

As a one-off, it isn't too bad. I would build the entire year at once and calculated that to be about 9 hours of Hold Codes being applied. I learned to not do more than about 30 Perfs at once in Season Maintenance or things would lock up!

Ha, I am all too familiar with this pain. I traced and recreated the script to apply hold code maps in SSMS if you want it. Not a whole lot faster but it won't crash the application :) 

Oooo, I would love to take a look, Amanda! One of my back-burner projects is to script out applying hold code maps in a SQL context where I can select the perfs in finer detail than what you get in Season Maintenance.

Here you go!

I think the easiest way to get the values you need for the EXEC is to run a trace while you apply the map through season manager to one event. Shoot me an email if you want to walk through any of it! aabernathy@sheddaquarium.org

--Trace:
--TP_APPLY_HC_MAP @m_perf_no = 113213, @m_hcmap_no = 39, @m_date_appl_mode = 3, @m_end_date = '2019-10-23 00:00:00', @m_repl_mode = 1, @m_session_no = 11169


DECLARE @item_id INT 
DECLARE ITEM_CURSOR CURSOR  -- Create the cursor

FOR --contents of the cursor, selecting the value you're gonna mess with
SELECT p.perf_no
FROM dbo.T_PERF p
WHERE p.prod_season_no IN (112850,136718,112851,112852,112853) -- 2020 4D Shows
 
OPEN ITEM_CURSOR -- Opens the cursor
FETCH NEXT FROM ITEM_CURSOR into @Item_ID -- Fetch the first value from selection into variable

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 -- start a loop for all the values within the selection 
BEGIN

--actions taken for each row:-- stored procedure to apply hold code map
	EXEC dbo.TP_APPLY_HC_MAP 
	@m_perf_no = @item_id, 
	@m_hcmap_no = 39, 
	@m_date_appl_mode = 3, 
	@m_end_date = '2019-10-23 00:00:00', 
	@m_repl_mode = 1 ,
	@m_session_no = 11198

	FETCH NEXT FROM ITEM_CURSOR INTO @ITEM_ID -- We fetch the next value

END

-- We arrive here when @@FETCH_STATUS shows there are no more results to treat
CLOSE ITEM_CURSOR  
DEALLOCATE ITEM_CURSOR -- CLOSE and DEALLOCATE remove the data from memory and clean up the process


-- single test exec: 

--EXEC TP_APPLY_HC_MAP 
--@m_perf_no = 113053, 
--@m_hcmap_no = 39, 
--@m_date_appl_mode = 3, 
--@m_end_date = '2019-10-23 00:00:00', 
--@m_repl_mode = 1, 
--@m_session_no = 11192

--SELECT * FROM dbo.T_NEXT_ID

--SELECT TOP 10 * FROM t_session

--Trace:
--TP_APPLY_HC_MAP @m_perf_no = 113213, @m_hcmap_no = 39, @m_date_appl_mode = 3, @m_end_date = '2019-10-23 00:00:00', @m_repl_mode = 1, @m_session_no = 11169


DECLARE @item_id INT 
DECLARE ITEM_CURSOR CURSOR  -- Create the cursor

FOR --contents of the cursor, selecting the value you're gonna mess with
SELECT p.perf_no
FROM dbo.T_PERF p
WHERE p.prod_season_no IN (112850,136718,112851,112852,112853) -- 2020 4D Shows
 
OPEN ITEM_CURSOR -- Opens the cursor
FETCH NEXT FROM ITEM_CURSOR into @Item_ID -- Fetch the first value from selection into variable

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 -- start a loop for all the values within the selection 
BEGIN

--actions taken for each row:-- stored procedure to apply hold code map
	EXEC dbo.TP_APPLY_HC_MAP 
	@m_perf_no = @item_id, 
	@m_hcmap_no = 39, 
	@m_date_appl_mode = 3, 
	@m_end_date = '2019-10-23 00:00:00', 
	@m_repl_mode = 1 ,
	@m_session_no = 11198

	FETCH NEXT FROM ITEM_CURSOR INTO @ITEM_ID -- We fetch the next value

END

-- We arrive here when @@FETCH_STATUS shows there are no more results to treat
CLOSE ITEM_CURSOR  
DEALLOCATE ITEM_CURSOR -- CLOSE and DEALLOCATE remove the data from memory and clean up the process


-- single test exec: 

--EXEC TP_APPLY_HC_MAP 
--@m_perf_no = 113053, 
--@m_hcmap_no = 39, 
--@m_date_appl_mode = 3, 
--@m_end_date = '2019-10-23 00:00:00', 
--@m_repl_mode = 1, 
--@m_session_no = 11192

--SELECT * FROM dbo.T_NEXT_ID

--SELECT TOP 10 * FROM t_session

Hello Mark!

We're going to be implementing timed admission (purchased online), with restrictions- we'd like a certain amount to be just comps, a certain amount to be reserved for members, and the rest for general admission.

Could you explain a bit more how you set up your online visible/invisible tickets? We've done timed general admission once before, for a reduced set of exhibits, but we've never we reserved seats for our GA.

How would we have timed zones for admission, while reserving a certain number for comps, members, and general, while having this available online, while having a way to make sure only the correct types of guests are getting the right types of tickets?  I'm not sure how the zones, the price types, the TNEW setup (we're on TNEW 7, which gives us alot of control, which is good), and the N-Scanning all come together.

Any help would be appreciated!

Good morning-

Sorry for the delay. We are also working a quick path to an opening date!

I think the high-level answer to your question is that it is all about what tickets are exposed to your Web API (Price Type/User Group Tab in Ticketing Set-up) and the Price Type/MOS Tab. I have two Zones Per Hour - one for Public and one for General Admission. From there, I can Enable/Disable the appropriate Price Types by Zone so they show up. The Member Tickets are only in the Web-member MOS.

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by Comps. We don't have any Comps on the Web and honestly Comps, plus discounts, and pre-purchased vouchers and also CityPASS all cause grief, too. As I mentioned above, we have an "Untimed Zone" with tickets that are NOT exposed to the web available so that the Guest Services Team has some flexibility to take care of any situation (outside of the hourly zone limits) so their hands are not completely tied.

Hope this helps some!

Thank you! I appreciate you taking the time.

You ended up being right- we'll be using Modes of Sale to cordon off price types. We're still tweaking the end results, but we're getting very close to go-live functional.