Selling tickets online

Best Options?

[Lobo]

Got any ideas to throw in the pot on setting this up?

Is there an off the shelf option, or specific shopping cart..

Should I go for stand alone or integrated in to a tickting system (UK)

Just looking at the options ATM so any thoughts would be greatly appeciated..

[Quadrille]

I'd start by looking at the competition.

Speaking as potential customer, my experience is that 90% of sites are affiliates, usually ticketmaster or affiliates of affiliates of ticketmaster, even affiliates of affiliates of affiliates of ticketmaster. I wish I was joking, alas I'm not!

There's already many hundreds, probably thousands of sites - it's pretty competitive.

Markups look good; we buyers get ripped off by about 10% per transaction in various add-ons - but we're learning that the venue is usually the cheapest way to book ;)

Good Luck; despite my being negative, I hope that tells you something useful :)

[Lobo]

Oddly I just sent an email to ticketmaster but it is the in house system I want to focus on, linking up with affiliate databases is good, but just looking for the best option.

Anyone got experience of setting something like this up?

[aspdaddy]

What do you mean by the inhouse system? Its not too clear from the posts what you are trying to achieve.

To setup purchasing theatre ticket online, you just need a database of event availability (mySQL or MS SQL) and a payment system (e.g Protx, WorldPay) and some scripts to put it all together.

[Lobo]

It's very clear what I'm trying to do ..?

Set up a ticket payment system..

In theatre it is a specialised thing in that, you have to book seats, more like flight booking.. therefore be able to highlight seats in any order or block booking then purchase those exact seats..

Then that has to be instantly viewable by box office staff and any other outlet..

then you have returns and seats that are different prices, people have to be able to see what seats are available in real time..

any discounts.. know which seats have restricted viewing etc..

then make that available to any affiliates ...

It's not a straight forward shopping cart..

[aspdaddy]

Set up a ticket payment system..

Yeah that bit I got ;)

Which processes in the suppy-chain should it support?

Its a big area, from end-customer through various levels of intermediaries to the actual agents booking the gigs theres a probably more than few different systems involved and dozens of processes.

Its hard to say what system or approach is best without knowing the basic scope of the work and users of the system. These ecom setups for event sales arent all the same.

I would think the cheapest - not best approach would be to load availability into an existing system that handles your key processes and licence the use of it and then just build your own front end website.

[Lobo]

All theatres work pretty much the same mate..

If you are not familiar with the systems that are out there, then I'm sure it will seem daunting to you..

but the basics are as I've stipulated, yet there are only a few infrastructure set ups..

Much like flights, thousands of companies and affiliates, yet only about 4 systems which are actually used.. ie: amadeus, gallileo, sabre and worldspan..

So 1, I'd like to get a handle on the major theatre ticketing setups that integrate in to box office, afflilate ticketing and online sales..

and 2, if anyone has experience of setting something like this up, what are the pitfalls, what should I be looking for, what would you recommend etc..