Blog
Does your festival need event registration?
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Those spring blooms you are gazing at so longingly mean it’s time to get busy getting everything ready for the big summer festival. All those things that you kept putting off during the long winter, have to get done. There are vendors to contact, patrons to inform, concerts to plan, activities to coordinate, tickets to sell. The list is long and getting longer. Time is flying and of course you want to go outside and enjoy the beautiful weather. It is time to get this whole shebang in order. But how? What you need is a one-stop, easy to use event registration and management tool. What would give for a package that let you create your own newsletter and coordinate your email blast to patrons, vendors and performers? How about if it provided easy ticket sales? What if it allowed you to collect the information needed for your post-event analysis and to generate a mailing list for future connections? With a few clicks you could have information flowing to everyone who needs it and you could be out reveling in the beautiful flowers, listening to the birds sing and ... OK, you still have too much work to do. Still, turning your annual festival into great event for your visitors and making the production less of a struggle for your management team is not so difficult as you might think. SimpleTix has event management tools that can help you achieve those goals. If you are looking for help to refine your festival planning and execution, contact us.
Evaluate eticketing systems carefully
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Everyone today wants to make things faster, easier and more efficient and if you are an event planner or organizer you want to do all you can to make your patrons happy. When it comes to buying and selling event tickets, no one wants a hassle. Your customers are wired and they are mobile. You need to be, too. That’s where turning to an eticketing solution could be the answer to your prayers and comfort to your patrons. When you examine options for e-ticketing, the first consideration has to be ease of use. A complex ticketing process can cause headaches for your staff and leave your patrons frustrated. You should also factor in the service fees. Review service fee calculators on provider websites so you can see the final costs of different systems. The next consideration should be validation. Sure we all expect everyone to be honest and above board, but reality has taught us to expect less. Keeping scammers at bay requires having a secure, easy to use, and flexible validation system. With those two essentials in place, it is time to consider options. Does the system provide you with a way to interact with patrons and for your patrons to interact with you? Does it have options for social media exposure? Does it have easy access for mobile use via cell phones and tablets? Can it generate customer reports and statistics for you? These are among the potential benefits an e-ticketing system can provide. At SimpleTix, we can answer many of those questions for you and provide easy to use, secure and interactive e-ticketing solutions no matter what your event. To learn more about the benefits of e-ticketing, contact us.
Use eTicketing for Your Next Event
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With the use of mobile devices increasing at a breakneck pace, eticketing and mobile accessibility is an absolute must-have for any event. According to this recent Mashable article, mobile web adoption is happening eight times faster than traditional web adoption during the late 1990s. That's a statistic worth keeping in mind when considering how to sell tickets to your upcoming event. This exponential growth in mobile usage brings with it new user behaviors and consumer trends. The article lists five important things to know about the changing mobile commerce landscape. 1. Customers spend more time on their mobile devices than desktops. With tablets joining smartphones as mobile devices, more and more consumers are using them for both research and making purchases. A 2011 study by Adobe reported that 52 percent of tablet owners prefer to shop online using their tablets, while 40 percent preferred using a traditional computer. 2. Mobile shoppers are more focused. Mobile searchers and shoppers are task-focused and more specific in what they’re seeking. When users search with a mobile device they are looking for information or assistance to help them make decisions quickly. In fact, 88 percent of consumers searching on a mobile device will make a purchase within 24 hours. Besides emphasizing the importance of providing mobile accessibility, this also means mobile commerce sites should be simple and focused, without the extraneous content that can be found on the full website. 3. Click-through rates are higher on mobile. Consumers are more likely to click on search results ads when using smartphones or tablets than when using a desktop or laptop. The higher click-through rates mean that the searches of mobile and tablet users are more likely to be commercial or consumer in nature. 4. Mobile shopping peaks at night. People search using different devices throughout the day. During the workday, more searches...
Moving the Community Theater Out of the 90s: ETicketing
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Imagine someone who worked twenty four hours, seven days a week, and managed every detail involved in the administrative tasks of marketing, promoting and analyzing sales for your performances. When the Hudson Village Theater was formed in 1993, the troup did not even have a theater. Their first production, Sacred Hearts, was staged at the local university. Sets were built by volunteers and tickets were sold in the theater box office. The hours were long, and the pay was nonexistent, but the troupe survived and thrived. Around the world, small groups like the Hudson Village Theatre are taking advantage of the new technology available to them, using blogs, websites, and social networking groups to soliticit donations, announce auditions, and share media from their performances with the public. One area smaller groups can use technology is eticketing. Because they depend on volunteers to do things like build sets, sew costumes, and of course, man the ticket booth, nonprofit organizations are particularly benefited by this flexible, secure and easy service. Whether it's selling tickets, event registration, or having an interactive seating chart online for your venue, it helps to have a system. If your group wants to spend more time performing and less time fighting with the hassle of ticketing, contact us. You take care of the performance, and we'll make sure your audience can find you.
Advanced Features Put SimpleTix on the Cutting Edge of Local Ticketing Portal...
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New features on the SimpleTix platform make it easier than ever to set up ticketing portals around the globe. Here’s a few to notice: 1 – Enable event organizers to sell and manage own ticket sales via the Box Office.It is now possible to limit who can see and manage order information, giving your customers direct access to their own personal box office on a per-venue basis: Organizers can sell tickets, manage orders and email participants by logging into their box office area. 2 – Brand e-tickets with your ticketing portal logo while still providing organizers with individual banner space.E-Ticket banners can be uploaded on a per-event basis and may contain advertisements to other events being organized, provide room for sponsor logos or simply brand the ticket with the organizer’s logo and information as well. Tickets sold via the organizer’s box office may utilize a different format from what is sold through the front end of the ticketing portal, enabling organizers to print tickets easily from standard ticketing printers such as Boca, Epson and more. 3 – Give organizers flexibility when validating tickets.SimpleTix technology enables on- or off-line ticket validation, as well as easy-download participant lists and mobile ticket validation. No matter how simple or complex an event may be, organizers have the flexibility to validate tickets efficiently. 4 – Provide top-quality interactive seating chartsImpress local event organizers with interactive seating charts, providing easy and professional usability for participant bookings. Event for larger venues of over 400 seats, sections can be mapped individually. Create interactive charts in a matter of hours on your own, or have SimpleTix support set them up for you quickly at an affordable per-seat cost. 5 – Each event and venue has its own landing pageOrganizers can efficiently link their own websites to their own event...
Facebook Profile Auto Publishing Your Events
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Great news! In next week's SimpleTix update we will have this killer new feature! If a user adds ticket to their cart, then signs in using Facebook, and then completes their order, your event will appear on their Facebook wall. This includes a link to your event page so their friends can click it and order tickets too. Social sharing is the fastest growing way for venues to increase ticket sales.
Affordable E-Commerce, E-Ticketing, and Online Marketing Come Together for Vino2VanGogh
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Vino2VanGogh is a cool new art space in Corpus Christi, TX that merges a wine bar and trendy art gallery – only it is full of blank canvases! That’s because they offer interactive paint classes that are led by local artists LaLisa Hernandez and Michael Diamante. Meant to foster friendships and provide a fun evening out for those interested in art, you can go alone or with a group of friends, toting along a bottle of wine, your creativity, and a desire to paint. If you aren’t super artistic, no worries. Their 3 hour classes use “follow the leader” instructions to ensure your painting looks fabulous. Like any new business, especially one with a retail component, Vino2VanGogh needed a lot of equipment and services to get going. When we first spoke to them, their laundry list of needs included: A visually pleasing and easy to navigate website Cash registers and software The ability to accept credit cards and swipe them on site E-commerce capabilities so they could sell products and memberships A customizable e-newsletter platform that would allow them to create and distribute email marketing messages and newsletters Because they host classes and special events, Vino2VanGogh also needed: An online list of workshops, classes, and special events that they could easily add and update themselves Online registration and payment capabilities A Facebook app that lists events and builds a community of fans And, just like any new business, Vino2VanGogh was getting up and running with a limited budget. SimpleTix was the perfect solution. We were able to address all of their needs for only $50/month – yes $50 – that is not a typo! And the best part –it only took 2 days to set up everything. If you are looking for a comprehensive solution to your online e-commerce, ticketing, and marketing needs at...
New Layout for Reserved Seating Makes it Easy to Track Sales
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Organizing events can be a juggling act of planning and promotion, which is why we make online ticketing so user-friendly. If you haven't used it yet, our professional-grade e-ticketing platform gives venues of all budgets the customized features you would expect from pricier, custom e-ticketing software. Now we're providing our customers with even more value by offering a new layout for reserved seating. If you want to sell tickets for individual seats, tables or booths, we have you covered. Whenever someone buys a ticket for that space, it will be removed immediately from the available seating list. Check out our competition - there's no other ticketing app with a feature like this. Because our customers are located around the world, your e-ticketing website can be localized for any language. You can even create multi-lingual websites, and your users can select their own language from the front end of your SimpleTix site. Check out the Loge 10 layout in Dutch: We also offer six different ticket selection layouts, so you're sure to find one that works for your venue. The reserved seating layout allows you to limit how many tickets people select per show time and is available with our Premium and Ultimate plans. If you want to fill your venue with people, whether they're sports fans, opera patrons, or film festival attendees, our platform can help! We love to hear from our customers and are always improving our product and features based on your feedback. Send us a note – we look forward to hearing from you! Image courtesy of flowersandsupplies.com.
Live Chat Comes to SimpleTix
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SimpleTix now enables you to engage more efficiently with your customers via its new Live Chat feature, which plugs in to your website and provides a high-availability real-time support mechanism for customers that need it, whenever they need it. It's another yet another feature, in SimpleTix's extensive list that makes it easier for event promoters to connect with customers and potential attendees. SimpleTix Live Chat allows you to integrate with a range of popular instant messaging clients, including desktop or mobile. This means your customer support team can connect with Live Chat platform while on the move and provide more responsiveness to meet your customers needs. Support personnel no longer have to be tethered to a desk; if they can take their phone,, they can support your customers. Every second counts when a customer is experiencing a problem, and sometimes a FAQ or an email back just doesn’t cut it. With Live Chat on your ticket site, users can immediately get the answers they need, improving your conversion rates and customer satisfaction. Potential customers are much more likely to become actual customers when you demonstrate your commitment to support by offering a Live Chat system. How does it work? It couldn’t be easier. You simply install a small customizable chat module onto your site, which remains visible in the bottom right hand corner of the screen should a user need assistance. If a customer runs into issues while attempting to place an order or select seating, they can access the module and initiate a chat session with an available support team member logged into the Operator dashboard. Once a team member picks up the support request, they can offer instant messaging assistance using Adium, iChat, Pidgin, Meebo, Gtalk - even via Gmail web chat. Our Live Chat platform integrates with...
SimpleTix Helps Promoters Be More Green
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Environmentalism is, well the new green. Promoters and event planners everywhere are moving away from printed tickets to e-Ticketing. Innovative e-ticketing solutions, like SimpleTix, are enabling these organizations to move forward with their green initiatives - making easier to reduce, improve operational efficiency, help the environment, build good will with customers and reduce or eliminate budgets related to paper tickets. While some companies simply make emotive symbolic gestures, SimpleTix is not just making promises. The company has invested in offsetting 1.65 metric tons of CO2 emissions. The non-profit said, “Thank you for your donation and thank you for being a leader in the fight to stop global warming. Your leadership protecting our environment is important today and for future generations. You are helping support the highest quality, third party validated carbon reduction and offset projects in the world that are fighting global warming now.” In addition, SimpleTix's platform offers features like: Mobile scannable tickets that eliminate paper ticketing entirely Email communications and electronic billing, which can entirely eliminate paper invoicing 15 templates that allow multiple tickets to be printed on a single sheet ofpaper. and SimpleTix is releasing new features each month that only add to the capabilities. Although the environmental impact of reducing consumption is important, that's not the only benefit. The other green it impacts is organizational cash flow. Using less paper and ink for printing tickers means operational costs are reduced. All expenses related to paper, ink, printing and other production cost can be substantially reduced, and in some cases eliminated with e-ticketing depending on how frequently your customer base requests a physical tickets. In addition to supply costs, not printing tickets or printing multiple tickets per page can also reduce costs related to shipping paper and ink or gas for picking it up. In addition to internal benefits,...
Tips for Promoting Your Event
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SimpleTix provides a full-featured and easy to use solution for e-ticketing. However, when conducting an event, your job doesn’t stop at providing a way to purchase tickets. Potential customers have hundreds of options to choose, so it’s important to make your standout from the masses. For your event to be a success, it is critical that you take an active and progressive role in promotions to maximize interest and ticket sales. What are the best ways to attract customers? Here are a few tips from SimpleTix to help you promote your event and make it a success. Event Website Maximize the value of your event website and online store. Every SimpleTix site features a home, contact, product, event and unlimited content pages. Each time you create an event in SimpleTix, the platform automatically creates an event page. Obviously, your SimpleTix online store can sell tickets - but it can do much more. Make your site engaging with rich content like news articles, photos and even video using SimpleTix’s unlimited content pages. You can also sell related products using event pages. If visitors are entertained and informed when they visit you event site - in addition to being able to easily purchase tickets and select seats - they are much more likely to recommend your site and event to friends or become repeat customers. Social Media Use social media to promote your event. Social media is hot, so why not leverage it to promote your events. Let attendees help spread the word about your upcoming event using the SimpleTix integration with social media platforms like Facebook. The event and product pages of SimpleTix sites feature social bookmarking that allows user to add your event to their Facebook page with just a couple of clicks. In addition to social bookmarking, SimpleTix’s e-ticketing...
Customizable e-Tickets: 14 New eTicket Templates!
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SimpleTix has announced yet another new feature in its innovative e-ticketing platform. The next version of the software supports multiple ticketing templates and includes over 13 pre-made designs for users to personalize their ticketing experience. The templates, designed using feedback from existing clients across multiple industries, allow users to select new layouts for tickets. The new templates address five different venue and ticketing situations including theater, cinema, musical events, sporting and wrestling events. Allowing users to select from multiple templates offers SimpleTix customers an opportunity to customize their event by selecting a layout that is perfect for their needs. The existing version of SimpleTix supports a single template, like most of the company’s competitors. The layout works well, for many situations but the new templates provide a number of enhanced features like: Templates with Boca ticket printers compatibility Printing multiple tickets per page – some templates support up to 5 tickets per 8.5 x 11 page Define banners for each event or the same for all events White label support for resellers Full localization support - layouts work with your website's language The new feature integrates directly into the admin panel allowing users an easy and seamless customization process. Users log-in to the admin panel, select their preferred layout and the user’s preferred design is instantly applied to the e-Tickets. SimpleTix has long prided itself in exceptional customer responsiveness and a comprehensive feature set that rivals much more expensive ticketing platforms. The platform already features support for: Mobile devices Multiple payment types Promotions Seating charts 40+ language Social media Site traffic analysis Customizable themes and many other capabilities. With new features, like customizable templates, added each month, more and more customers are choosing SimpleTix as their ticketing solution. The new support for multiple ticket layouts will likely be a very...