Some clients want to be able to allow different patrons or patron groups to be able to purchase tickets in a pre-sale situation, ahead of the general public.
Some cases for when this might be done:
1) Member benefit - members allowed to purchase ahead of public as a perk of being a member.
2) Special offer - allowing a specific group to get their tickets early, such as sponsors, or a featured community segment
3) Season pass holders - to enable them to select their seats as a benefit of pass purchase, ahead of single ticket buyers
There are likely other scenarios as well.
To accomplish these things, the system offers the following options for pre-sales:
Giving out a link to specific people that is not yet available on your website:
The simplest method is to simply give out a purchase link that you have not yet made public. So if you're website doesn't yet have a link to the main ticketing page, you could put your shows on sale and then give out that link to selected groups to make their purchase early.
The same is true for any of our other standard public page links. Selectively offering them through communication, when the link is not yet on your website, makes it exclusive.
Season Pre-sales public page:
When you set up new shows for sale with a future season start date, those shows will appear for sale on the pre-season public page until the season start date, at which time they will appear on the main ticketing public page. So you can use this link on your website or in marketing email to allow pre-season purchase. See the Public Pages screen linked from the Home menu for this URL address.
Subscription public page:
Prior to season start date, the subscription buy path public page will present subscription packages for sale to the upcoming season
Passes public page:
Prior to season start date, the passes public page will present season passes for sale to the upcoming season
Members purchase tickets to a new season ahead of the general public:
Using our donation/membership system, if you input a date for "members only until" on the Seasons setup screen, active members, with a membership level marked "qualify for pre-season" on the membership setup screen will be able to purchase tickets to any show on sale in that season until that date. Non-members will receive a message for members only purchase until that date.
Show Specific link (Special version):
Along with the standard show specific link that can be used to link from your website or an email directly to purchase a specific show, we also have a "special" version that will allow purchase of that show, even if that show has a future on sale date. Giving this link will allow people with it to make their purchase, even when that show is not yet on sale to the general public. See our doc on Linking to Public Pages for instructions.
Performance Specific link (Special version):
Along with the standard performance specific link that can be used to link from your website or an email directly to purchase a specific performance, we also have a "special" version that will allow purchase of that performance, even if it has a future on sale date. Giving this link will allow people with it to make their purchase, even when that performance is not yet on sale to the general public. See our doc on Linking to Public Pages for instructions.
(Note on above methods: Of course, with all of the above methods, a person can pass the address to others enabling them to buy also. But generally, the goal ultimately is to appear to offer exclusivity or special privileges, while working toward the ultimate goal of selling all your inventory. So generally this is not a problem.)
Creating pricing rules that are tied to membership or a marketing list:
A lesser used method of restriction for purchase is to create pricing rules so that the ONLY pricing that can apply to tickets requires the patron to be an active member, or be part of a marketing list(s) you've set up. By doing this the system will confirm, when they log in, that they qualify for the restriction. The downside of this is that the patron will have created their order and all selections before they log in, and before they get the error that pricing rules can't apply to their tickets. The error is not specific to any pre-sale situation, it simply tells them that pricing cannot be applied, and to call the box office with questions. So having very clear messaging from the beginning about the pre-sale restrictions is strongly advised to avoid patron confusion and frustration.
For all options related to linking to the system public pages, see: Linking to Public Pages
Keywords: pre-sale, advanced sale, privileged sale, restricted sales