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Tips to Avoid Pissing Off Police with this Event Ticketing System for...
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With the growth drive-in theaters have seen since the pandemic and the lines of cars waiting for entrance, it is no wonder that they came under the watchful eye of local police departments. The local police department might not care for your drive-in theater because of the safety concerns and the impact it can have on traffic when people are trying to enter your operation. And while drive-in theaters are facing plenty of challenges this year, adding pissed-off police officers to the mix won’t help. But by using the right event ticketing software or event registration tool, you can remedy some of the issues that the police might have with your drive-in theater, and you will likely increase customer loyalty in the process. Use Your Event Ticketing & Event Registration Tool to Avoid Disgruntled Police The law enforcement reaction to your business model is understandable with their concerns for local safety and preventing traffic back ups. Long lines into events can back up traffic on main roads and frustrate local police. These lines often require police to take time out of their schedules to direct traffic instead of doing other tasks related to public safety. So rather than complain about these inevitable reactions from police, why not take a moment to see what solutions are offered by your event registration tool? Event ticketing software like SimpleTix has several features built into the platform that can minimize some of the friction that officers face when dealing with the inevitabilities of drive-in theater operations. With timed entry, effective pre-sales, and deployment of mindful QR coding, you’ll be able to get your guest in the door faster, which will keep local law enforcement happy. Here are some ways to improve your drive-in theater and avoid issues with your local law enforcement. Get...
Solving 4 Event Ticketing Challenges With SimpleTix
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Selecting the right event management software does more than simply sell tickets. Your event ticketing solution should create a better experience for attendees and allow you to smooth out some of the most common event headaches. Parking Shenanigans Whether you run a pumpkin patch, an outdoor music festival, or a drive-in movie theater, parking is always an issue for your attendees. Traffic often slows down to a crawl even before attendees see your operation location, and agitation builds in your guests even before they set foot on your grounds. First impressions can often taint their impression of the event overall. The last thing you want to do is get off on the wrong foot! One of the main friction points of parking is paying the parking fee at the entrance gate. As cars stop to conduct this necessary exchange, many times a massive backup follows, which can leave unhappy customers. But with the right event ticketing platform, your guests can purchase parking passes directly in the app when they are purchasing their tickets. This helps on a few fronts; your parking operations run smoother and faster, leading to increased customer satisfaction, and the guests remove some of their pre-event anxiety at that purchase point. When your event attendees don’t have to worry about parking ahead of time, they can focus on the more fun aspects of event preparation. Let them worry about what they are going to wear, not how long they will have to wait in line to park. Pre-paid parking through SimpleTix is also easier to scan in at the gate when compared to paying for parking at the gate. No more fumbling for cash or dealing with declined credit or debit cards—it’s already taken care of! Guests just show the QR code on their phone, your gate...
3 Ways that Event Management Software Can Dummy-Proof Your Customer’s Experience
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Every event planner knows that you can’t completely dummy-proof your attendees’ event experience, but by leveraging the tools built into your event management software, you can remove many of the speed bumps and friction points. SimpleTix’s event management software eliminates the top three most common event ticketing obstacles: Making lost tickets easier to retrieve Reminders of event dates Easy merch redemption Take the pain out of refunds 1: Making lost tickets easier to retrieve Digital tickets are one of the industry trends that event managers are embracing. Paper tickets get lost, washed in the laundry, or forgotten. Customers don’t really have to keep up with a digital ticket, especially with SimpleTix. Tickets can be used in digital form on a phone or even a smartwatch If someone in a group loses or forgets their ticket, the gate staff can scan in the entire group with someone else’s ticket If a customer shows up without their ticket, gate staff can check them in manually with a simple name or email search A customer can have SimpleTix text them replacement tickets. 2: Reminders of event dates In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, it’s easy for a customer to simply forget the day of the event entirely. Even though this isn’t the fault of the venue or the organizer — and even though you still get to keep the ticket revenue — it’s a missed opportunity for on-site sales and an experience that could inspire word of mouth. SimpleTix gives you everything you need to keep your customers in the know and build excitement about your event. By default, SimpleTix will send a reminder message to attendees one day before the event, but SimpleTix lets organizers customize the dates and frequency of reminders however they need to. From the SimpelTix platform,...
SimpleTix v. TicketSpice: The Features Make the Difference When Picking Alternatives to...
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Bumping along on the hayride tractor, picking the perfect pumpkin, or standing around the campfire roasting marshmallows and sipping steaming cocoa—this is how your attendees want to interact with your farm! Instead, many guests spend their time messing around on a farm’s clunky and unresponsive ticketing webpage; wasting their precious time or experiencing enough frustration that they don’t even purchase a ticket. Choosing the right event ticketing software can make or break the experience of the attendees you host. The first point of contact you have with many of these potential, life-long customers is through your event ticketing app. As they move through the ticketing process, you begin the attendee’s farm event journey and start to nurture customer loyalty and the desire to share their experiences with their social network. When you begin to consider different Eventbrite alternative platforms, it is important to keep in mind the functionality you need to run your farm-based events. SimpleTix leads the alternatives to Eventbrite, and the features are what make this platform stand out. Eventbrite Alternatives that Play Well with Square. Not all ticketing solutions were created equal; the proof is in the features of the system. Some alternatives to Eventbrite have a bit of a rocky reputation among event planners and managers. For example, TicketSpice has made many promises to their customers that they just haven’t been able to deliver on. Unfortunately, these broken promises have led to integration hiccups for event planners seeking a top-performing Eventbrite alternative. Several of these speedbumps have involved compatibility with Square, and as of this writing, these issues haven’t been resolved, creating needless friction points and unnecessary workarounds. But it’s not just the farm event managers that have been slighted in these oversights. Customers have been affected as well. In today’s app-hungry consumer base, your event...
How 3 SimpleTix Super Users Leverage Their Event Ticketing Software for Successful...
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Earlier this month, we showed how SimpleTix super user Valas Pumpkin Patch rolled out their platform and took advantage of all the event ticketing options embedded in the software. Valas used SimpleTix as a cornerstone of their entire operation by managing merchandising, season passes, timed and peak/off-peak entry, and concessions within the SimpleTix platform. Farms and agrotourism attractions aren’t the only venues that can use SimpleTix’s robust set of features to create efficiencies, increase loyalty, and grow their businesses. Today, we’ll talk about how a few other SimpleTix superstars are streamlining their ticketing processes to drive more revenue. Santa Margarita Catholic High School Located in sunny San Luis Obispo County, California, Santa Margarita Catholic High School (SMCHS) takes full advantage of the myriad of solutions offered by its event ticketing software—and for good reason. SMCHS teams have won 64 California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) championships, 92 individual or relay CIF Championships, 201 league championships, and five state championships with 50 SMCHS athletes having earned the title of CIF Player of the Year. Their athletic programming is very popular with the student body, and the school needs a robust system that is easy for the attendees to use. But SMCHS’s event ticketing solution needed to be user-friendly on the back end too. Many of these events are assisted by student and parent volunteers that may not have a lot of training, and they need to be able to understand and utilize the platform. Ease of operation is vital to super users. The SimpleTix platform enables SMCHS to issue tickets to other events outside the sporting realm. Prom, the Homecoming Dance, and other dance events are ticketed through the platform, as well as registration for Mother’s Club, Dad’s Club, and other social functions. SAT prep classes can be registered and paid for through...
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...