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I’ve been asked by a number of non-venue arts and cultural organisations recently about the best and most cost effective way to sell tickets without ‘buying-in’ an expensive box office system or selling them through a receiving venue’s box office.

I’m already aware of several different approaches to this problem, all with varying levels of success:

From my experience it seems that the most popular approach is to set up a dedicated mobile number and voicemail message encouraging audiences to leave contact details and the number of tickets they require for a show or performance. A return phone call is then made to the booker to confirm the tickets and payment method. Payment is often made either by cheque or bank transfer, or sometimes is taken when the tickets are collected. This information is then added to a spreadsheet, which can then be used as a mailing list (if prior consent is given). This is a quick, cheap and simple system to set up, but can be very time consuming to administer and can be confusing if more than one person is looking after the process.

Selling tickets through friends and family is always a good way to generate income, but limits the type of audience that you will get through the door. If you are looking to develop or diversify your audience you should consider alternative or additional approaches. It is also difficult to build up an accurate picture of who is buying your tickets as very little data is being captured.

It’s relatively simple these days to set up a system through PayPal. You can add a shopping basket to your website and encourage people to book their tickets online. You will however need some sort of ‘support’ for less technologically advanced bookers who may struggle with this system. There are fees associated with PayPal so it is worth reading all of the terms and conditions before you begin. There are also companies who offer a simple ‘do-it-yourself’ website product, which often have the shopping basket function set up with the site based on this technology.

Selling tickets on the door is a good way to capitalise on last minute bookers - but does not allow you to gauge the potential number of ticket sales in advance of the event.

And finally there are online box office systems that you can hire. These are often expensive but require fewer resources to manage.

I would really like to hear about your experiences using any of these systems, or maybe you have tried a different approach?

What ever your approach to ticket sales there are a number of things that you should consider:
• The bookers experience
• The appropriateness of the system to your target audience
• The resources it takes to administer a system
• Procedures and protocols for refunds
• What data are you collecting and how can this be used in future audience development

It’s been over three months since Arts Council England launched A Night Less Ordinary; a free theatre tickets scheme for under 26 year olds, and Audiences Central are interested in finding out how it’s going for you?

You don’t have to be a theatre taking part in the scheme to reply to this thread. We would also like to hear if the scheme has affected your organisation in any way?

The team at Audiences Central are currently working hard building our new consumer listings website Scene Central (currently artscentral.co.uk) and we would like our members views on online maps. Our decision is whether to use Google map or Multimap on venue pages so that customers can find out where they are going with ease.

Multi map shows a map in several different ways, a street map, an Ordinance Survey map and a birds eye view. They also have a facility to get directions. The perceived market leaders Google have their own maps, the facility to get directions and street map.

We would love to get your feedback on which maps you prefer and why. Here’s a few examples of the two maps using a few of our members' venues.

I look forward to your feedback.

Al

The REP, Birmingham

The REP Multimap

The REP Google map


The Place, Telford

The Place Multimap

The Place Google map


The Herbert Museum and Art Gallery, Coventry

The Herbert Museum and Art Gallery Multimap

The Herbert Museum and Art Gallery Google map


New Art Gallery Walsall

New Art Gallery Walsall Multimap

New Art Gallery Walsall Google map


The Courtyard, Hereford

The Courtyard Multimap

The Courtyard Google map