Ticketing question

[Abunai]

This may be (probably is) a stupid question, but this will be my first year as a commercial haunt so bear with me.

I have arranged for online ticketing and, based on market research, expect about 1/3 of my ticket sales to come from there. The people show up, we scan their ticket to verify it's genuine, they get in the queue line.

So, 2/3 of the ticket sales should be at the haunt. The people show up, give us money, they get in the queue line.

For what reasons would I need hard-copy tickets from a printing company?

I can see having a certain number of hard-copy tickets to have for give-aways and the like, but I certainly shouldn't go out and order 2/3 of my expected attendance in tickets from the printing company, should I?

[son-of-sam]

Hard tickets

Why I used them was to keep track of ticket sales so I would not get ripped off( I did not take my money at my haunt personally). The stubs is how I made sure the money added up with the stubs (the front door man would rip the ends off put them in a container and I would collect at night). I would agree the two years I was open I bought more tickets then I sold but did not cost me much so it was no sweat off my back. Also had them numbered

[mrfoos]

This will be our fourth year, and I still do not think we're established enough to warrant online ticket selling. As son-of-sam said, we use those physical tickets for ease of identifying paid customers. We don't even pay for our tickets; we find local businesses that sponsor them. One side is our ticket info... the backside is a discount to a local restaurant. This also makes it easy to give out free tickets for marketing purposes or exchange for donations/services. I work in the I.T. field during the day and have zero interest in creating more points of failure.

Summary: When still small... K.I.S.S.

[RJ Productions]

You said people give you money and get in the question line.... and they want to go to the bathroom? Someone wants to go to the car and get something.... how do they get back in line? Someone else just walks up and gets in line.... without a physical ticket you are asking for Big
TROUBLE.

Also don't count even a 1/3 of sales from on line first year. People don't know who you are, why would they trust an event they never heard of and no one they know has gone through for an on line ticket...?.

[drfrightner]

Whomever is telling you this is wrong. When you look at ALMOST ALL EVENTS that happen in America today everything virtually almost EVERYTHING is pre-sold ONLINE! So the goal should be 100% not 1/3.

There are people out there selling 1/10th (reason they don't know what they are doing).

There are people out there selling 1/5 (reason they don't' know what they are doing).

They should have attended my seminar back at Transworld Show.

Selling tickets to ongoing events like a haunted house opposed to a game that will happen only at that time or a concert once and gone yes they are different... people aren't stupid they know they can buy at the door. However most people's buying habits lead them to buy online... hey look at Amazon.com enough said.

We are selling now 50% online and that number grows every single year... We expect this year alone to sell 60% online!

As more and more people go towards timed events, blah, blah they are seeing the value of online almost ONLY!

I think within two or three years we'll be at 75% ONLINE!

We have a ticketing service www.fearticket.com

Maybe I'll do another seminar about this topic next year because I did get a standing ovation, and was told by virtually everyone it was the best seminar at the entire show. I'm not bragging I'm simply saying that when you FOCUS your time at the tradeshow on learning how to improve something that actually helps your business, rather than going to some how to scare seminar... people leave and feel like HOLY COW I CAN MAKE MORE MONEY. How many people left a seminar about detailing their haunt and said 'OMG I CAN INCREASE MY REVENUE 5 fold'?

Ahhhh NO ONE!

I got the reaction I got because people left that room feeling like WOW with little effort we can increase revenue ... you need to listen to people who know what they are doing and focus on getting that information acted into your operation.

Larry