Monday, October 12, 2015

Ticket Buying Hell

Okay, more evidence of why staff and board members and members of the press should go through exactly what the public goes through to buy tickets.
  1. The organization's web site doesn't have a choose-your-own-seat option.
  2. The box office's hours are during weekday working hours only.
  3. Even if you call during those hours, you get an answering machine (and you hear about how to buy ticket on line - see 1 above).
I'd really like to see this concert, even though it's at a logistically difficult time for me, but my companion has some specific seating needs and the seating software didn't make the right guess in 10 tries. Also, the concert is selling poorly enough that there's a two-for-one offer. Maybe, just maybe, people aren't buying because they are having problems buying - and the first rule of selling tickets is "Make it easy for people to give you their money."

5 comments:

CruzSF said...

Hmmm. I think I know which concert you're talking about. I've received a couple of the 2-for-1 offers via email for this event in the last 7 days.

Lisa Hirsch said...

I think I have gotten three!

I did eventually manage to buy my tickets - and several administrative folks have heard the Irontongue Challenge: buy tickets the way your customers do! Feel the pain!

Drew said...

Every time you bring this topic up, an angel gets its wings. I don't know which group this is but I'd be curious to know if they control their box office or if they are forced to use whatever their venue requires.

If the latter, then it is the venue that needs to heed your advice but I would pay real money to see Tessitura bring you in to give the keynote for their next conference.

...but I wouldn't hold your breath ;)

Lisa Hirsch said...

Ahahaha!

The organization is not using Tessitura and can't afford to do so. The venue is large and used by multiple organizations, one of which has a choose-your-own-seat option for the venue and for the other venues that it uses.

So I believe the original organization controls its own box office.

Drew said...

It's good to see the venue allows users to bring their own ticketing solution to the table; having said that, it is too bad the group in question here opts to use one that is so user-unfriendly.