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Valas Pumpkin Patch: How a Farm Attraction Became a SimpleTix Super-User
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Situated outside of Omaha, Nebraska, Vala’s Pumpkin Patch and Apple Orchard is a 400-acre farm that has been in operation for 38 years. A agro-tourism powerhouse, Valas sells over 80,000 event tickets each season and hosts a myriad of ticketed special events, from apple picking, horse rides, and gem mining to the crowd favorite, the Pigtucky Derby Pig Races. Valas also hosts and caters large group events like corporate retreats and family reunions, providing a robust menu of concessions and food packages. Their ticketing needs are complex, but Vala's used a host of SimpleTix features to drive revenue and deliver fantastic guest experiences. Online Ticket Purchasing & Ticket Types Vala's needed to offer several types of tickets, as well as season passes. SimpleTix helped enable this variety to ensure Vala's achieve the most value from each customer. General Admissions can be purchased as peak tickets (which can be used any day of the week), off-peak tickets(which can only be used Monday through Thursday), Friday-only tickets, Summer Season Tickets (which can only be used on Summer Festival weekends), and Halloween tickets. Season Passes can be used during the entirety of the fall season Season passes are a fantastic option, as attendees are required to upload a selfie to accompany their season pass, removing the opportunity for purchasers to loan their pass out to someone else. Both General Admissions and Season Tickets are available online and can be delivered as a text message at checkout, making the purchasing experience as easy as possible. Season Pass and General Admission Upsells Valas didn't want the hassle of jumping between several different software providers for ticketing, merch sales, and concessions. SimpleTix rolled all of these functions into one streamlined platform that all flows into one account. This makes it easy to report attendee count, ticket...
Unexpected Ways You Can Save Money With SimpleTix
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Have you ever been frustrated with online ticketing agencies that charge exorbitant service fees? Have you ever spent so much on concert ticket fees that you were unable to afford to purchase merchandise? If you’re an event organizer or merchandiser, have you ever lost money on gift cards for your event? If so, it might be time to abandon other online ticketing agencies and start saving money with SimpleTix, an Eventbrite alternative. Unlike other Eventbrite competitors, SimpleTix is designed to streamline the event ticketing process by saving event organizers time, steps, and effort. SimpleTix has one of the lowest, most competitive, and most straightforward price points in the industry. There are also special rates for agritourism venues, and there’s a fee cap of $9.99. There are no hidden fees, and their basic package is cheaper than the mid-level package that other Eventbrite competitors try to nudge consumers toward. Maximize Your Pre-Sales SimpleTix saves you money because it maximizes pre-sales. You won’t waste money overstocking, and you won’t lose sales because you’re understocked. The more tickets, merch, and concessions you’re able to sell beforehand, the easier it will be for you to order the exact amount you need. This minimizes waste, which means organizers will know how to plan exactly how much they will need to spend on drinks, food, parking, security staff, water stations, trash cans, and even portable restrooms.If you’re a customer, ticket pre-sales allow you to have more financial freedom to spend on snacks, food, beer, and merchandise rather than see your hard-earned money squandered on fees. Pre-sale tickets also give you attendees’ information beforehand so that it’s easier to upsell products like merch, higher-value tickets, or season passes. Pre-sale tickets are also easier to scan in–compared to selling tickets at the gate, which means less staff is...
Overcoming Staff Shortages with Alternatives to Eventbrite
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With the fall holiday season quickly approaching and several COVID-19 restrictions on in-person gatherings easing, now is the perfect time to start planning your end-of-year holiday events. But what can you do to ensure everything operates smoothly if you’re short-staffed? If you’re struggling to find employees right now, you’re not alone. Event organizers and the service sector have been hit particularly hard the last few years and are taking much longer to recover. In addition, job resignations in the last year alone have reached all-time highs—rising roughly 23% above their pre-pandemic levels. As the country continues to recover from the pandemic, the unemployment rate has approached a 50-year low—holding relatively steady at 3.6%. Since the labor market continues shifting towards workers and job seekers, many employers are now operating with a smaller workforce. These staffing shortages, while challenging, are not always avoidable. However, a few unique opportunities can present themselves in times like this. Fewer employees on staff for an event doesn’t have to mean long lines, delays, and frustrated customers. Keeping your current workforce intact and continuing to operate doesn’t have to come at the expense of the quality of service you’re known to provide or the overall satisfaction and retention of your employees and event attendees. With so much at stake, creating a more efficient work environment with an Eventbrite alternative allows you to work smarter, not harder. As employers look to find workers to staff events and serve their attendees, SimpleTix can provide opportunities to automate processes and improve your workflow. Work Smarter, Not Harder, with an Eventbrite Alternative Adapting to a shortage of available workers can be a real challenge for your business. Sometimes—despite your best efforts to weather situations like this—you may find yourself with concerns that you think can only be solved by employing a larger staff. This...
3 Reasons Why Timed Entry Ticketing Sucks & 1 Reason It Doesn’t...
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Over the past few years, timed entry has become an essential feature in ticketing apps like Eventbrite. Obviously, the pandemic necessitated timed entry as a way to control the volume of guest traffic and comply with social distnacing and other health guidelines. But even beyond the COVID context, timed entry can help protect your staff from being overrun. Knowing when visitors are coming allows venues to allocate resources appropriately, and setting capacity limits to each timeslot can ultimately create a better, less-crowded experience for guests. However there's an open secret about timed entry ticketing that organizers refuse to acknowledge: It sucks. Timed entry ticketing really really sucks. But it doesn't have to. Timed entry kills spontaneity Timed entry coordination can kill the anticipation, the spontaneity, or even the fun of an event. Maybe you and your friends want to have a meal—maybe a drink—and just chat for a while before attending the main attraction of the evening. Timed entry can kill all of the free-flowing ideas; all of a sudden you’re on a rigid, scheduled plan, with 45 minutes for dinner, 15 minutes for a quick drink, and a deadline to be at the gates of the event by 7:00 or bust! There’s not much pleasure or relaxation in that. Additionally, it’s hard to give a timed entry ticket as a gift. What if the selected time slot doesn’t work for the recipient’s schedule? Timed entry kills the spontaneity of a last-minute event surprise. Apps like Eventbrite may claim their timed entry feature offers more flexibility, but that's unlikely. If customers want to change their day or timeslot, they have to reach out to your staff who can alter the ticket details in your management system. SimpleTix allows customers to change their own ticket date and timeslot, but they...
Refunds Don’t Have To Be a Nightmare With Square Gift Cards
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Whether you're canceling an event or issuing a one-off refund, giving revenue back to the customer is the last thing any event organizer wants to do. Most event ticketing apps don't make it easy. Apps like Eventbrite use their own internal payment infrastructure, which makes processing refunds a long, drawn-out hassle. As a result, you're left facing an impatient customer who wants their money. They'll blame you if they have to wait weeks or months for their refund. What if you could issue a refund instantly, without actually losing ticket revenue? Square gift cards let you do just that: protect your profits and protect the customer's experience. It is almost impossible to foresee all of the situations that may trigger a need to issue a refund from your event ticketing platform. Events can be canceled for any number of causes beyond your control. Some examples include: Weather incidents Performer cancellations Equipment shortages Facilities or maintenance issues Health and safety mandates These are large-scale incidents that may lead to your event being canceled altogether, resulting in mass refunds. Other instances could arise on the individual level that may cause you to issue a refund. Perhaps an event attendee was dissatisfied because of issues with the facility or a negative customer experience. You may also issue a refund in the interest of public health if your policies state that a refund is permitted due to COVID-19 exposure. Or you may just have a very liberal policy with ultimate customer flexibility as to event dates, specific event interests, and so on. Whatever the reason, your refund workflow will not only be easier with Square’s gift card integration, but it will also be more customer-forward in orientation. And in the end, customer satisfaction with your...
The Best Event Ticketing Software Features for Your Farm Events
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With so many operational farms leveraging their acreage into functional event space, you need to have a flexible, user-friendly event ticketing platform that supports your events, concessions, merchandising, and other add-ons. The seasonal offerings you host may be varied and distinct, but at the core of it all is centralized event ticketing software. The best event ticketing platform will help you: Pre-sell concessions, merchandise, and other upsells Offer flexible ticketing options to your guests, like bulk ticket purchases and timed entry Sell season passes to frequent attendees Update your ticketing page for each new event Use your Event Ticketing Sofware to Manage Unique Ticketing and Upsell Opportunities By themselves, farms offer unique event experiences for members of your local community and tourists to the area, but there are time-of-the-year considerations for farm events, too. As an operations or event manager at a productive farm, you understand the changing of the seasons and the different expectations your event attendees will have throughout the year. No one picks berries in October, and pumpkins aren’t picked over in May. You need event ticketing software that is adaptable and customizable to all the different event types you may host throughout the year. With SimpleTix, event venues can offer varied ticket types and unique upsells that correlate to different experiences and special events. You can create as many different types of event tickets or upsells as you want. If timed entry or peak/ off-peak ticket pricing will work best with your event operations, the platform can accommodate that. Another example might be an add-on highlighting different campfire locations around the farm that offers food upsells like smores to your attendees. Maybe you want to rent blankets for your summer concert series, provide a make-your-own-lemonade basket, or offer priority seating in the field to view the...
7 Ways to Sell More Merch at Your Haunted House
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Across the nation, haunted houses are major fall destinations, and there’s a reason that nearly every haunted house attraction has a gift shop or a merchandising stand. While event ticketing to your haunted house is certainly an important revenue stream, on-site purchases like merch and concessions really fill out your haunted house's bottom line. Thanks to SimpleTix's deep integration with Square, haunted house operators can manage all of these revenue streams through one convenient, streamlined platform. We help haunted houses deliver exceptional experiences every year, and we've picked up a few logistical tips that can help you score even more sales this Halloween season. 1. Make sure your attendees exit through the gift shop. While your initial impulse might be to situate your gift shop at or near the entrance of your haunted house, don’t do it. It may be high-visibility to customers starting your attraction, but when they exit your haunted house, they’re unlikely to trek back to the beginning to pick up some merch. Their focus is on the parking lot. Show them the creepy, must-have souvenirs on their way to the car, while the shivers are still running down their spines. 2. Design your gift shop as a walk-thru affair. Instead of creating another labyrinth, lay out the flow of the guests in such a way that they have every opportunity possible to interact with your merchandise. The more your attendees can look at, touch, pick up, or try on, the more likely they’ll be to make an impulsive purchase. A wall of merch along an exit path or a table of goods is a close second, but your sales will surely increase with more points of contact. 3. Offer plenty of merch options for customers to choose from. A wall of t-shirts has a certain curb...
Your CRM as an Event Planning Tool: 4 Insights
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Dedicated event management software will likely be one of the first tools your nonprofit considers as it will equip you with the features you need to host your event. Ultimately, your nonprofit CRM software will work alongside other tools, like your ticketing software, to create a more holistic event management strategy. To help you understand your CRM’s role in nonprofit event planning, this article will explore four specific aspects of event management that it can help with, including: Event Marketing and Communication Registration Pages and Guest List Creation Volunteer Management Follow-Up Planning As the central hub of your nonprofit’s tech stack, your CRM will likely also be integrated with a number of other tools that will help with your event planning—maybe even including your event hosting software. Make sure all of your event management tools are integrated so data from one solution will easily flow into your CRM, making it the one-stop location for all of your event planning. 1. Event Marketing and Communication Even the most well-planned event will only be successful if supporters know about it and buy tickets. Your CRM’s communication tools are essential for your event marketing campaign, allowing you to reach out to all of your supporters at once to promote your event. Additionally, your CRM’s donor data will enable your team to identify and target a specific audience for your event, leading to more effective marketing appeals. For instance, using your CRM, you can: Create personalized messages. When you’re trying to attract a crowd of guests, it can be easy to think of your potential attendees as a crowd. However, personalizing each message to address them by name and reference their personal interactions with your nonprofit can go a long way toward convincing them that your event is something that uniquely fits their interests....
Plan Your Haunted House With This Square-Integrated Ticketing System
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With over 4,000 paid Haunted House events in the nation, it is easy to see that these attractions draw serious crowds—and revenue. Haunted houses can be complex attractions. Operators should strive to engineer every part to add to the spooky ambiance and raise the tension. But friction in the ticketing process, lines at the gate, and bad logistics can kill the vibe for visitors. With the right ticketing platform, you can solve several problems with one convenient tool. Reducing friction with this Eventbrite alternative Make ticketing simple The ability to buy tickets online is a game-changer for any attraction. It's not uncommon for haunted house proprietors using SimpleTix to wake up to several hundreds of dollars in overnight sales. But it's great for customers too. They can buy at their convenience when they're in the mood to buy, and if they need to change their day or timeslot, they can do it right within the app. Streamline the line While anticipation is a vital element of a spooky experience, long lines can stall the excitement. Mobile tickets can be scanned in a blink, whether they're on a phone, a print-out, or even a smartwatch. If tickets were bought in a group, your gate staff can scan part or all of the group in with just one scan. Hype up your haunted house With SimpleTix, you can dig into the analytics of your ticket purchasers and send them waivers, promo codes, and survey questions from inside your ticketing platform. You can also keep them informed about things like parking, weather updates, and other information. Early Bird Tickets and Instant Payouts Haunted Houses tend to see a large volume of early bird tickets. SimpleTix, unlike other Eventbrite alternatives, will pay those purchases out instantly. With this instant remuneration feature, event organizers have...
Employing Waiver Best Practices With Apps Like Eventbrite
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Things like insurance, liability, and risk management comprise the less fun aspects of throwing an event. They’re not only essential to the safety of your guests at your event, but they also protect your organization from legal entanglements. Waivers are a major component of this aspect of event planning. Many event organizers require their guests to sign waivers before they can enter the premises due to any inherent risks involved in the event. Requiring a waiver has become more prevalent throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as events became possible transmission hotspots. Asking your guests to sign a waiver may seem like a hassle, but collecting digital signatures on e-waivers can ease the burden of requiring this documentation. Often apps like Eventbrite allow you to easily wrangle digital waivers for your event. There are many factors to consider when adding a waiver to your event. Using an Eventbrite alternative like SimpleTix to distribute your electronic waivers facilitates a smooth process for both you and your guests. Table of Contents: What is a waiver? Why should I incorporate waivers into my event? How can apps like Eventbrite facilitate the waiver process? What is a waiver? A waiver, also known as a release form, is a legally binding agreement between two parties. In the context of an event, this document outlines the possibility of risks at the event and explains that by signing the document, the event attendee understands these possibilities and agrees not to sue should any damages occur. For example, an event organizer may ask guests to sign a waiver at a haunted hayride on a farm. The event organizers there will be lots of children running and jumping around hay bales. If a child is injured while playing, the waiver protects the event organizer from any litigation surrounding the child’s injury....
See How a SimpleTix User Created a Bloomerang Integration Using Zapier
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Whether you’re hosting a film festival, concert series, or launch party, event ticketing is an important part of the big day. Successfully selling tickets to your event ensures you have an excited and lively crowd to enjoy the results of all of the hard work you did to plan and pull off your event. But event ticketing software can help streamline your work behind the scenes, too. SimpleTix offers dozens of native integrations that make it easier to manage your operation, event, or attraction. By saving even the smallest step, you can repurpose hours of manual administrative tasks toward things that matter — like making your event unforgettable and allowing your staff to elevate the guest experience. Our integration with Zapier puts the power in your hands. With Zapier, you can create custom integrations between SimpleTix and almost anything else — from Zoom to Zoho, from Quickbooks to Constant Contact, and beyond. The best part: Zapier users can use integrations created by other SimpleTix users, so our network of integrations is constantly growing. Recently, a unique client used Zapier to create an integration between SimpleTix and donor management platform Bloomerang, with fantastic results. KANEKO’s Journey to Automation KANEKO is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded with the mission to explore creativity through the multidisciplinary scope of art, science, education, urban planning, entrepreneurship, and philosophy. KANEKO regularly hosts artists, performances, and exhibitions at their institute located in Omaha, Nebraska. They use the event ticketing software SimpleTix to sell tickets to their various exhibits, installations, and performances. KANEKO will present the Oscar-winning virtual reality experience Carne y Arena by acclaimed director Alejandro González Iñárritu throughout June 2022. Since the prestigious presentation will most likely attract new potential members for the nonprofit, KANEKO decided they wanted the ability to communicate further with guests after their experience....
Minimize Lines at the Gate with Event Ticketing Software
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Event ticketing software helps you get more people to the gate with digital ticket pre-sales. But once attendees purchase tickets, you still must find effective ways to manage crowds the day of your event. The right event ticketing software helps you streamline and optimize gate entry, minimizing lines and easing the burden on your staff. Different venues and events will have attendees flowing through different entry points from different parking lots at different times, and it’s essential to be prepared for any entry management scenario. Managing gate entry with event software has many benefits, including: Keep attendees happy with a positive, smoother entry experience. Enable staff to scan pre-sale tickets and do their jobs more efficiently. Protect the health of staff and attendees with no-contact QR code entry. Facilitate fast and easy Square-enabled day-of ticket sales. With digital pre-sales, know who’s coming and help staff prepare better. Use timed entry to decide who arrives when and reduce crowds at the gate. Entry to an event is usually the first point of contact attendees have with you and your staff. Minimizing lines by streamlining ticket scanning and day-of sales makes for a good impression. Happy attendees are more likely to buy tickets from you for future events, and giving staff the right tools helps them do their job more effectively. Event ticketing software helps you achieve these goals and minimize lines at the gate. Here’s how. Table of Contents: Prepare Better with Digital Ticket Pre-Sales Timed Ticket Entry Reduces Lines Use Mobile Ticket Scanning to Avoid Entry Bottlenecks Square Partnership for Fast, Easy Day-Of Sales Prepare Better with Digital Ticket Pre-Sales In today’s digital economy,...