(Last updated on: April 25, 2014)
When patrons purchase general admission tickets online and print them at home, every single ticket is identical. The only identifier is the order number. In theory, a customer could buy one ticket and print it as many times as they chose. Not only could you lose money, but you could have an over-subscribed audience.
Fortunately, performing arts patrons tend to be a very honest bunch and this very rarely, if ever, a problem.
That said, one way to deal with it if you see this becoming an issue problem is to create a seating plan for GA seats and number the actual seat (i.e. for a seating capacity of 1-300, each seat is numbered consecutively from 1-300). For your online patrons, they can still select the number of seats they want without having to select seats off the seating plan. For example, the first ticket printed would have the number 1, the second ticket printed would be 2, and so on.
Regardless of whether the tickets are GA or reserved, print at home tickets can be reprinted many, many times. Even if the tickets are bar coded, it is still a matter of first come first served. We recommend doing the following:
Run a report | for ticket delivery = “print tickets at home.” Choose the show and performance date and ticket delivery method.
You will be able to print this report and give it to your house manager or users at each entrance to the theatre. Each print at home ticket should also have the sale number printed. Check to make sure that is the case. If not, contact Center Stage support: 831-920-1254.
Run the reports and give them to your house manager and/or ushers. When your patron shows up with the print at home tickets at the door, and the usher doesn’t recognize the patron, have the patron tell the usher their name. The usher can then look at the manifest and check off the name on the manifest. This should reduce any chance of patrons getting in without having paid for those GA seats.
For our clients that have events for which people will counterfeit tickets, whether the print at home type or the actual thermal ticket type, they use reserved seating AND they bar code their tickets.
Most of our clients use reserved seating because their patrons like them because they don’t have to get to the theatre early to get a good seat. Also, from a marketing standpoint, you can charge more for reserved seats.