How does my box office staff book phone and mail orders using TicketStage?
Does TicketStage provide for both "reserved seat" and "general admission" ticketing?
How is online seat availability coordinated with box office seat availability?
Our group performs in multiple venues. Can TicketStage handle multi-venues?
Can I add marketing questions asking patrons how they found out about our show?
Sometimes we have to reassign seating. Can TicketStage do this?
How do we interface TicketStage to our existing computer system?
Nothing happens when the patron clicks on the Confirm Order button at the end of the order process.
TicketStage's approach is to provide online and box office ticketing at no net cost to the theater and at a small incremental cost to patrons.
No investment is required. This assumes the theater has a web site and a computer with internet access. No additional hardware or software is required.
Fees are structured to each theater's profile. A common structure is to charge a fee for guest tickets ordered online or by phone and to charge no fee for subscriber tickets, mail orders, and window sales. Fees are from $2.00 and up per ticket for this structure.
Ticket purchases are charged by and credited to MMCIS/TicketStage. Since we submit the charges real time, the information is checked and the order process cannot proceed to completion without good credit information.
Once credit card orders start for a show, TicketStage will issue a check/direct deposit to the Theater approximately every two weeks. The check/direct deposit will be for the amount of the tickets orders, minus TicketStage’s handling fee, for which TicketStage has received settlement from Authorize.net, our merchant account provider. The box office can see a report for each check/direct deposit that lists the orders that are included in that amount.
If the current amount due is less than $100 and the show is not complete, TicketStage may choose not to issue a check at that time.
Since credit card settlement usually occurs with 2-5 business days after the order is placed, the biweekly settlement will normally include all the new orders placed up through the Sunday before the check issuance.
Patrons start at your theater's website viewing show and performance information. To order tickets patrons click on a buy tickets button "link" which brings up the ticket ordering screen for your theater. This is actually TicketStage, but looks like a part of your theater's web site. The patron then selects the show and performance he wishes to order tickets for. The next step depends on the type ticketing for the performance.
For reserved seat ticketing, the patron is presented a seating chart showing seats available. The patron chooses seats he wishes to order by simply clicking on those seats. Once seats are selected, the patron is presented with an updated seating chart confirming the seats selected are available and put on temporary hold for his order.
For general admission ticketing the patron is presented with the ticket pricing levels available. The patron enters the quantity of tickets wanted at each level. TicketStage confirms the tickets are available and puts them on temporary hold for his order.
The patron then identifies each ticket as a subscriber ticket or guest ticket. The patron next enters name, address, contact, and credit card information. The patron is then presented with a summary of his order for review and acceptance. Upon accepting the order, a detailed invoice is displayed confirming his order. The patron is also sent a confirming invoice by email that can be used as a ticket.
The logged in box office person first selects the show and performance which causes a seating chart for the selected performance to be display. Both general admission and reserved seat tickets are booked using a seating chart. For general admission performances each seat represents a ticket and not a specific seat location. The box office person selects the seats/tickets he wishes to sell by clicking on unsold seats. Seat selections are confirmed by an updated seating chart showing the seats selected placed on temporary hold. Subscriber identification is next entered for subscriber seats/tickets. TicketStage automatically confirms subscriber credits/discounts and adjusts prices accordingly. Entering the ordering person's identification and credit card information completes the order. An order summary is displayed for final review, editing, and acceptance. Upon acceptance, the order is confirmed, credit card charged, subscriber credits/discounts usage logged, and an invoice displayed available for printing.
TicketStage is accessible from any home computer having internet access. TicketStage provides for multiple box office staff to simultaneously enter orders.
Theater staff set up shows, performances, and control accessibility for online ordering using the box office functions of TicketStage. It is very easy to do.
A show is set up by simply entering a show name.
Performance setup involves entering the date and time of the performance, selecting the venue, selecting the type ticketing (general admit or reserved seating), setting prices, and reserving seats/tickets. A venue is chosen by clicking the one you want from a list of predefined venues setup for your theater. The type of ticketing is selected by clicking the type you want. You can set multi-level pricing (adult - senior - child) for each seat/ticket by entering the price along with a title.
With TicketStage a theater can eliminate most ticket handling. TicketStage provides an email confirmation for all online orders and can provide an email confirmation for box office orders that include an email address. These email confirmations can be used as tickets. A theater can choose to obtain and handle tickets in the same manner as they did before TicketStage, or use a combination approach.
TicketStage facilitates ticket handling by providing a work list of orders to be ticketed and by keeping track of ticket status for each order. As tickets for each order are mailed or held, the ticket status is updated accordingly.
TicketStage also facilitates printing envelopes and invoices by providing a downloadable file of orders to be ticketed. By merging this file with a template using Microsoft Word, your theater can batch print envelopes and invoices.
Yes. For each performance you have the choice of setting up reserved seat or general admission ticketing. For a show you can setup both reserved seat and general admission performances.
Seats can either be "available", "reserved", "sold" or "held"
Available means the seat is for sale online and by the box office.
Reserved means the seat is for sale only by the box office.
Sold means a confirmed order bought the seat.
Held means the seat has been selected for an order that has not yet been completed. Seats are held for a minimum of 15 minutes.
Patrons (online ordering) see seats as either available or unavailable. "Reserved", "sold" and "held" seats are shown as unavailable.
Seat availability is managed using two TicketStage tools:
Performance Seating Chart: The box office staff can flip the status of seats between reserved and available whenever they wish, thus controlling what seats are available online.
Default Seating Chart: When a new performance is set up it starts out with the default seating chart. The box office staff can modify the default seating chart at any time. Changes to the default seating chart do not affect the seating charts of performances already setup.
If TicketStage is used to book all orders, seat availability coordination is automatic and instantaneous.
If box office orders are handled on a separate system, seat availability coordination is handled by defining "available" seating only for online orders and "reserved" seating only for box office orders. The box office staff then coordinates availability by flipping the status of seats between reserved and available whenever and as often as is needed.
Yes! As you setup each performance you simple choose which venue the performance will be at. TicketStage's multi-venue support is ideal for theater groups who may not have their own space.
Yes. TicketStage will add your specific marketing questions to both your online and box office order forms. An online report will provide an up to the minute tally of the responses to your questions.
Yes! When seats/tickets are being ordered for subscribers, subscriber identification information is entered for each subscriber ticket ordered. Credits/discounts are automatically checked, applied, and usage logged.
Yes. Each ticket in an order is selected as a guest or subscriber ticket and is priced accordingly.
Not online! However TicketStage provides box office functions for your staff to reassign performance and seats on an existing order.
Yes! TicketStage provides box office functions to edit existing orders. Both performance and seats can be changed. The seats originally ordered are reset to "available" status.
Yes! TicketStage provides a box office function to cancel orders. Seats are released and the order saved in a canceled order file. Subscriber credits are readjusted but no financial adjustments are made.
TicketStage provides for exchanging data files with the theater's computer system over the internet. All order and customer data is available for downloading to the theater's computer. Membership/Subscriber data files are uploaded to TicketStage to provide automatic credit/discount handling, and downloaded for usage accounting. Data file exchanges are controlled by easy to use TicketStage commands. Exchanges typically only take a few seconds to complete.
TicketStage is flexible and easily set up to provide online ticketing for theaters ticketing manually. Order reports make it easy to keep track of and record internet orders onto the theater's manual system. On-Line seat availability is instantly and continuously changeable directly by the theater, providing coordination with the manual system. A theater website and use of a computer with internet access are prerequisite to implement this approach.
TicketStage can be used as a box office system only. All that is needed is a computer with internet access. The computer does not have to be dedicated to TicketStage. If your box office staff typically handles phone orders from home, they can use their home computers to book orders on TicketStage. If you have more that one person handling orders at the same time, TicketStage provides for multiple box office staff simultaneously entering orders. Since TicketStage includes online ticketing, it can be implemented whenever your theater is ready.
To access and use the TicketStage box office, a computer with a current Internet browser and Internet access are the minimum requirements. The computer does not have to be dedicated to TicketStage. No additional software or hardware is needed.
To implement TicketStage online ordering, a theater must have a website or social media page. TicketStage is added to a theater's website by adding an Internet link to the site. Adding this link is simple to do and usually costs nothing.
Experience using computers and accessing the internet using a current web browser (Chrome, Edge, FireFox, etc. ) is all that is needed. No special skills or programming experience is required
In some very infrequent cases, an order is charged for twice. In that case, report the order number to webmaster@ticketstage.com and a credit will be issued.
Far more often, the patron is seeing the result of one or more declined transactions. This requires a little explanation. Credit card transactions are done in two steps: authorization and capture. Authorization validates the card information and verifies that there is enough credit in the account to pay the order total. Capture actually moves the money from the patron's account to the TicketStage account (the money takes 4-7 days to move). When a transaction is declined for some reasons, such as Address Verification System mismatch, or wrong or missing card security code, the authorize step is completed but the capture step is not. That means that the issuing bank has put a reserve on the account for the amount of the transaction. This is done because we (as the merchant) have the ability to tell the bank that we want to process this transaction even though it had the address or security code failure. We generally do NOT exercise this right since we would be charged a higher fee.
Those reserves will be voided within 3-5 banking days (set by the issuing bank) if the transaction is not captured. In the rare case that someone has maxed out their card because of these declines, call your bank and find out what their process is for releasing those authorizations. Some banks require the cardholder to make the request, some the merchant (us), and some just don't do it. For us to do that we need the customer support number for the card issuer from the back of the credit card used. It bears repeating that not all banks comply with such a request.
Address Verification System (AVS) errors are generated by the card issuing bank. We have no control over that. Most of the time the patron has not used the street address and ZIP that exactly matches the address on the most current bill. We have seen a few cases of the bank's system not being up to date as well.
If a patron reports that nothing happens when they click on the Confirm Order button at the last step of the order process, they most likely have a popup blocker on for the site. Clicking on the Confirm Order button executes a little javascript that makes the button unavailable by swapping layers. This reduces that chance that it will be clicked twice, resulting in a double charge. Have them turn off any popup blockers either for the TicketStage site or completely while they are completing the order.
Yes, TicketStage supports the ability to process membership or subscription orders, including additional donations or other special collection types.