Access Control - Verifying Tickets
We often get asked about how to verify tickets. Will ticket theft or fraud be an issue? How to I make sure the tickets aren't duplicated? How do I verify the ticket is valid at the door?
We would say that for all our client organizations across the country and in Canada, we have never heard of ticket fraud being any kind of serious issue. It can help to consider this: for a person to try to steal a ticket to your show, they would need to walk into your building, present their ticket and walk past your staff, sit in a seats (which in the case of assigned seating is already probably owned by someone else) and watch your show for the full time, spend time at intermission trying to avoid your staff, then walk back out of the venue past your staff again. This is far more direct contact than any thief really wants. We find it's usually unlikely that local arts presenters will be targets of ticket theft. Obviously, if you're hosting the Rolling Stones, that might be different.
With that being said, here's how most of our client organizations handle tickets:
- The majority of our clients simply use the honor system, taking tickets as patrons enter the venue... even if doing general admission seating
- The second most common option is to print out the Door List report for your performance, just before you open the doors and check off patrons as they enter, comparing the ticket to your door list. This has the added benefit of giving you a list after the fact of who did and didn't attend.
- Lastly, if you have a large venue and you really fear ticketing issues, or if you want to get reports based on actual attendance, you can use our barcode feature, wherein you add the barcode to the ticket design and then acquire barcode scanners to attach to computers accessing the system at your venue entrances (one scanner per computer). The scanning screen displays the order as you scan showing you how many tickets on the order have and have not yet been scanned. It also displays how many tickets for the performance have and have not yet been scanned. Then a scanned tickets report is available for you to get statistics on attendance. For details on barcode scanner devices see Cardswipes and barcode scanners or Handheld Computers and Barcode Scanners if you need high-end devices for completely handheld use.
Barcode per Order vs Barcode per Seat
The system defaults to one barcode per order, when barcoding is used. So an order of 10 tickets will have one barcode that then can be scanned 10 times to mark each seat as scanned. Also, the scanning screen gives you the option to input the number 10 and just scan the barcode once to select all the seats on a 10 ticket order, for example. This default setting makes it easy to have multiple seats on one printed Letter sized ticket, thereby saving paper and adding convenience for your patrons.
In some cases your organization may need one barcode per seat instead. This is an optional setting that your client services rep can activate for you. Make sure this is done before setting up the new show - one barcode per seat cannot be activated once tickets have been sold or the setup has begun. Note that if this setting is activated, and you still have multiple seats on a single Letter sized ticket (controlled on the printable designs screen) the system will attempt to print that many barcodes on the single sheet, in a column. You can allow space in your ticket design to accommodate this, or you can switch the Letter sized ticket to 1 ticket per sheet so that each sheet has only one seat/ticket and only one barcode. Note that patrons then purchasing a larger order will have a large number of sheets for their tickets as well.
Ticket Printing Questions
What types of ticket printers will work with the system? -
First, when printing the Letter sized ticket design - either at home by patrons or if using this standard ticket design in your box office, any standard desktop type printer will work. We recommend a color printer when possible so as to see the colors of the images on your ticket, but if you will be printing these tickets rapidly, go for the fastest printer you can find.
For Box Office style tickets, such a thermal ticket printer produces (think tickets you get at the movie theatre), there are a number of manufacturer options. Boca Systems is definitely the most common and the leader in the industry. Practical Automations is a close second in thermal ticket printers. Thermal printers use no ink, and instead heat a print head which when it passes over the heat-sensitive ticket stock will produce the print on the ticket. With this in mind, thermal ticket printers ONLY print black and white. There is no color.
Thermal ticket printers are designed to print tickets very rapidly for active box offices. They also are workhorses. So while the printer itself is a financial investment, you will not be replacing ink cartridges frequently (a print head gets replaced every year or more) and the printer itself is usually built out of steel and may last for a decade or more.
The ONLY requirement of the system when shopping for a ticket printer, is to verify that it can print our ticket design which is a PDF file. So you can ask the manufacturer (it is recommended to speak the manufacturer, NOT a reseller with this question) "Will this printer print a pdf file?" This question encompasses
- acceptable file format the printer is able to receive
- the speed of the transmission to make sure the printer can receive this dense file information (check on the connection - USB cable connection or Network/Ethernet are preferred)
- do you need a special printer driver for your computer - Mac or PC
How long after a performance starts are tickets allowed to be printed
Tickets may be printed up to 12 hours after start time. This is to allow festivals with something like an all-day pass to be printed any time during that day for the patron to arrive at the event.