20/20 Vision Guide to 2020 Event Planning

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Do you have a 20/20 vision on what your 2020 event needs look like? With the start of the new year, it’s time to get organized, set goals, and get ahead of upcoming needs. Start with these basic questions:

1. How many events are you planning?
2. What type of events are you planning?
3. How many attendees are expected at each event?
4. What’s your marketing budget per event?
5. How many events per quarter?

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Organize your events and needs in your 2020 event calendar template! We developed a template for you to get organized. Get (and make) a copy of your HoldMyTicket 2020 event calendar template now.

Other than getting organized on paper, you have to make sure you’re keeping up with all the twists and turns of planning events. With thousands of events happening weekly, how will you make yours stand out? Here are 10 of the best tips to give you 20/20 vision of your 2020 events:

10. Plan Early

You can never be over-prepared. The guaranteed success of events happens with promotion months in advance with digital advertising, traditional media buys, and online ticket sales. Planning ahead will give your event time to attract an organic following before you put your marketing dollars behind it. Save money and enjoy a larger ROI.

9. Get Dirty with the Details

The details are what make your event stand out! It’s getting harder to become more original these days and you need to figure out a sure-fire way to for your event to stand out. Communicate these unique details to guests beforehand and hype them up for the experience of a lifetime.

8. VIP is the real MVP

Don’t skip out on VIP experiences. Even though VIPs will only count for 10% of admission, they will generate an estimate of 25% in revenue. Make sure you’re giving them the experience they won’t regret spending the money on.

7. Automated Marketing

Automate your marketing! Whether it be with automated tweets when an event goes on sale, automated social media ads, or automated newsletters - you are guaranteed sales without having to do much work. Keep an eye out for an exciting new feature HoldMyTicket will be rolling out in 2020! Sign up for our email list and be the first in the loop.

6. Easy Ticket Purchases

Purchasing tickets should be an easy and quick experience for patrons. With HoldMyTicket, we provide your guests with the ability to purchase online, in our app, social media, or over the phone - all in a couple of minutes. Make sure you’re placing your short link to your event page and ticket CTA’s on all marketing materials.

5. Pre-Sales Help Sales

Release a pre-sale of your tickets in advance to gain traction to your event. Lower pre-sale prices and promotions are a huge incentive!

4. Pick the Right Vendors

Whether it comes to food, art, or local vendors - you have to make sure you’re picking a diverse enough group that will keep your guests walking from booth to booth. For vendors to push more sales and move quickly, it’s always best to encourage vendors to use credit card merchants and mobile pay.

3. Local Media

Write a press release and send it to your local media contacts. Don’t be afraid to call up your local reporters to give them a little more details of the event and see if they’ll feature it. TV and radio still bring in tons of awareness and engagement.

2. Short Waiting Lines

Make sure you have an entrance strategy in place. Nothing ruins the night more than a poor admission experience. Start by asking yourself the following questions: Do VIPs have their own admission line? Do you have enough ticket scanners post-security? Are there enough people in your box office to sell tickets? Remember with HoldMyTicket’s Swarm Box Office, anyone with a smartphone can join in and help scan tickets!

1. Customer Service

Having quick and clear customer service for patrons is a must! Make sure to include a clear and detailed cancelation and refund policy in your event details and checkout process. Our support team at HoldMyTicket handles everything from walking you through your account, walking your customers through questions and purchases, and making sure your event goes off with a bang!

Start filling out your 2020 event calendar template and crush some events this year! As always, your HoldMyTicket team is here to help you knock your event goals out of the park. Sign up for an account.

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Ho-Ho-Holden's Holiday Event Guide

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It’s Holiday Season and Holden’s here to give you some tips on having your event and your stress level stay merry and bright. The winter holiday season is a highly saturated market when it comes to events. Holden’s here to give you some tactics on your audience, social media, and event execution strategies.

Defining Your Audience

  1. When defining your audience for the holiday season, you should start by defining your event. Whether it’s a full Die Hard Christmas 5k or an event that fits into more of the traditional scheme, defining your audience is the first step to your marketing plan.

  2. Do you have last year’s admission data for your event? Check and see if you already have their emails or zip codes and you can re-target your past attendees. With HoldMyTicket’s Spark CRM, you can pull up past patron data in a matter of minutes.

  3. How far is your audience traveling from? Will they need lodging accommodations? You can think about partnering up with a local hotel to offer package deals and set up a partnered email marketing or billboard campaign.

  4. Is your audience local? We’re living in the age of digital, but traditional media buys like radio and tv still go a long way. See if you can partner up with your local news stations - they usually have advertising packages you can work with and will generally send a crew out and create the commercial for you.

Holiday Event Social Media Tips

  1. Upload your event to social media at least 1-2 months before the event. By doing this, you will increase your organic reach and have the ability to designate your marketing dollars to other avenues. Tip: HoldMyTicket’s platform will automatically upload your event to your Facebook page, website, and other RSS calenders with all your event details, ticket link, and event images.

  2. Post on your Facebook event page and Instagram at least once a week up to a month before your event. In the two-weeks prior, post in the event two to three times a week. If you have over 10,000 followers on Instagram, use your story swipe up feature to link tickets. Our best practices are to post two times a week to your story a month leading up the event and three to four times two-weeks prior.

  3. Work with promoters and local influencers to get their followings to purchase tickets. You can try to find local micro-influencers to see if they can post about your event. Sometimes you can get them to come for free tickets and swag, but sometimes you’ll have to negotiate a contract.

  4. Track people who are going to your site with Facebook Pixel or Google Tag Manager. When you place your Facebook Pixel on your site and set up event triggers (ex: event trigger for an abandoned cart), you can create “look-a-like audiences” and place ads to target those specifically who have visited your site or abandoned their cart. Tip: When uploading your event when using HoldMyTicket, you can add in your GTM and FB Pixel UI codes and we’ll connect your tags to our event ticket page.

Event Execution

1. Hire a Professional Decorator

If you’re throwing a Shop and Stroll, Holiday party, or anything that you envision garland for, hire a decorator! When you hire a decorator, you will never have to worry about being the one who’s going and purchasing hundreds of dollars in decorations at Hobby Lobby, hoping for the best when you climb the ladder in 20º, and then throwing a fit because you didn’t like the way it turned out. Your decorator should make your Holiday event look like a Christmas Carol. Bonus if they can do lighting too.

2. Heaters

If you’re having an outdoor event, make sure you have portable heaters around the area. You don’t want people leaving your event because they are too cold. If your event is indoors, double-check that the heat is working, but make sure it’s not getting too hot. Nothing is more uncomfortable than being stuck inside a room wearing your winter sweaters with 200 other people.

3. Weather Check

The weather can be spontaneous, so make sure you have a backup plan in case of bad weather. Make sure to include a weather disclaimer in your cancelation or return policy.

4. Think Outside the Box

The Holiday season is saturated with Holiday events. How can you make yours stand out? You can beat this by creating a niche event or something that you see your community getting involved with.

4. Delegate

Don’t take the whole event on your shoulders. Make sure you and your team have a list of tasks that each person needs to get done. Last-minute fires are bound to happen, but it’s best to stay proactive.

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Track Your Events & Venues in 5 Easy Steps!

Do you know the biggest turn-on for marketers? If you said data tracking, you’re right on the money. That’s why HoldMyTicket came out with a brand-new feature to track your visitors coming directly to your event or your venue!

With this new feature, you have the ability to connect your Google Tag Manager and your Facebook Pixel on each event and get the most out of your marketing budget. Are you part of the HMT fam? What are you waiting for? Sign up!

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Adding UA codes to your venue? Follow these simple 5 steps:

1. Login to your Spark account and go to your venues.
2. Click on the desired venue to want to track.
3. Scroll down to the Analytics section.
4. Add in your Facebook Pixel and GTM UA codes in the designated fields.
5. Save the venue and every event created under that venue will automatically have these UA codes pre-filled and enabled!


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It’s HoldMyTicket’s 12th Birthday! Here Are 12 Reasons Why HoldMyTicket Rocks

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For 12 years, HoldMyTicket has been an industry leader for event management and ticketing solutions! We provide leading-edge ticketing software that offers an advanced customizable ticketing platform and mobile box office that can work on any device. HoldMyTicket has helped venues, promoters, casinos, sports teams, and enterprises nationwide sell millions of tickets online.

HoldMyTicket was founded in 2007 and headquartered in sunny downtown Albuquerque.


1. We’re Fun!

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We’re a huge fan of work hard, play hard. Man, and do we work hard. We know event planning can be stressful, but we’re here every step of the way to make sure you can play just as hard at your event.

2. You Can Sell Tickets 24/7

Sell tickets online with HoldMyTicket 24/7! Don’t forget that you can customize paper tickets, order stock tickets, and sell directly from your physical box office! We also offer ticket sales over the phone that are taken cared of directly by our team of support staff.

3. We’re Secure!

Like a ninja! We offer a completely secure checkout process that is PCI compliant. Ticket buyers can be confident that their credit card information will never be compromised.

4. Your Whole Box Office At Your Fingertips

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HoldMyTicket’s Swarm Box Office app was designed with our clients needs first and gives you the power of a full-service box office in the palm of your hands! Intending to work on any platform and consistently improving, Swarm Box Office supports iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and all web browsers. Download NOW from the App Store or Google Play Store).

5. We’re Efficient!

They don’t say we have ninja-like reflexes for nothing. Our team of in-house developers is consistently improving our platform to be a step ahead of your needs and technologies. Have an issue? Call or email our support staff, and they’ll quickly guide you through it with ease and understanding.

6. Manage Multiple Events and Venues

Our platform was designed to fit the specific needs of those who are booking events. We know that managing and publishing events can be time-consuming, tedious, and sometimes troublesome. We solved this issue by combining every aspect of event management into a single app, SPARK. Our platform is limitless to the number of events you can create or amount of venues you can manage! Build out each venue with its own default settings to expedite event creation.

7. We’re Trusted!

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How do we have a 95% retention rate? We have been proven in the industry not only to sell tickets but to take a vested interest in your business and events to make sure they’re successful. Why? Because building a mutual partnership has kept us in business for 12 years. Check out our 5-star review rating on Capterra.

8. We Do Offers & Settlements

Our booking tool expedites and legitimizes the ticketing agreement between the promoter or venue and talent. We’ve automated the process of developing and signing contracts, creating an event from an agreement, and settling up using your ticket sales.

9. We’re Accessible!

HoldMyTicket values our clients and their online event ticketing needs. Offering 24/7/365 support, our dedication, educational resources, and our team of ticketing specialists are just a few perks of entrusting us with your business. Ensuring that you and your team are 100% comfortable and knowledgeable of our online event and ticketing platforms is our #1 priority. Through our support line, we also provide over the phone ticket sales, online help, and grade-A customer service for your patrons.

10. Tons of Marketing Tools

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We provide built-in tools that empower your team to market, promote, and socialize your events from one dashboard! Leverage our email marketing and event messenger to engage with your audience and keep them up-to-date with any event news.

11. We’re Customizable!

Do you have a special event that requires out-of-the-box needs? Contact our team TODAY and see how we can make your online ticketing needs as seamless as possible.

12. Offline Ticket Scanning

Throwing a festival or an event that doesn’t have reliable wifi? No worries! With Swarm Box Office’s offline mode, you can continue checking-in patrons and scanning tickets and capturing real-time data to prevent the use of duplicate tickets.

Celebrate with us by creating your next event with HoldMyTicket!

HoldMyTicket is a full-scale ticketing platform designed with a mobile-first mentality. In a mobile-driven market, you have seconds to captivate a buyer and finalize the ticket sale on a mobile device. Most ticketing checkout processes are cumbersome, clunky, and not built for mobile devices. In addition, most require the creation of an account to complete the purchase, making the ticket buyer remember yet another username and password to purchase a ticket which is beyond frustrating. Unlike other systems that aren't keen on providing a better solution, HoldMyTicket aims to create the best experience for both its partners and ticket buyers.

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Interview With A Ninja - Meet Holden Muhticket

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Holden Muhticket, HoldMyTicket’s loyal mascot, is a ninja who is dedicated to serve and inform you of all HMT’s tools, features, and releases!

Below is an interview with HoldMyTicket’s longtime mascot, Holden Muhticket, the ticketing ninja. Holden stands two nunchucks tall and weighs about 6,000 tickets (or roughly the same as 12 ticket scanners) and has certified ninja training in ticketing and event management. We sat down with Holden to get to know him a little better.


HMT: How did you start working for HoldMyTicket?
Holden: Well, it was like 12 years ago and I was enjoying some tea at a local coffee house in downtown Albuquerque. This guy, Wes Edling, started talking to himself about selling tickets online and I thought he was crazy (not because of the tickets, but because he was talking to himself). I looked at him funny and went over and asked him about what he was doing. I obnoxiously bragged about my intense ticketing training and he obviously begged me to help him. Twelve years later, we’re still going strong and selling tickets with over a thousand partners across the United States.

HMT: Speaking of intense training in ticketing and event management, what is that and how did you obtain such an honor?
Holden: Have you ever heard of the ancient training called Shinobi Hiden? Well, my training is very similar but called Shibobi Holden. This type of training is filled with javascript, python, nunchucks, customer service, interactive UI, and more technical terms you probably wouldn’t understand.

HMT: What’s your favorite feature HoldMyTicket provides?
Holden: Swarm Box Office, nunchucks down. We spent months and months building this app and are constantly making upgrades. We can now easily switch between multiple events at once, offline ticket scanning, will-call, kiosk functions, and so much more other cool features. You should check out the newest version available for download in the App and Google Play Store!

HMT: What do you do for fun?
Holden: Oh, geez. I’m a big component of “play-hard, work-hard.” When I’m not spending my weekends scanning tickets in for our clients, acting as tech-support or helping our support staff, I am a professional water aerobics coach. Twerking in a 5-foot pool is a lot better for the knees.

HMT: What’s something no one knows about you?
Holden: I am the uncontested, self-proclaimed “Best Ticket Ninja in the World!” No one has challenged this and I still have the trophy my mom made … I mean, the trophy I won fair and square.

HMT: What is one last thing you want people to know about HoldMyTicket?
Holden: Gosh. HoldMyTicket can really do it all — we don’t just sell tickets, we take care of most of your event needs — from event and patron analytics to custom seating charts to marketing tools. We can have it covered!

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7 Reasons to Use Swarm2 Box Office

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We are so excited to announce recent updates to our Swarm Box Office that is now available for free in the App Store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android! Swarm Box Office scans and validates tickets of any form, processes credit, cash, and comp transactions, assigns reserve seats, and communicates event attendance and sales reports in real time. If that’s not enough to impress you, see the list we created below of why you should consider using Swarm and HoldMyTicket for your next event.


1. Industry’s First Offline Ticket Scanning Mode

Throwing a festival or an event that doesn’t have reliable wifi? No worries! With Swarm Box Office’s offline mode, you have the ability to continue checking-in patrons and scanning tickets and capturing real-time data to prevent the use of duplicate tickets.

2. Switch Seamlessly Between Events

Running multiple events? With our Swarm Box Office update, you are able to seamlessly move in between and edit events. We’ve created a new top drop-down menu that displays all your events in one place! This new feature replaces the prior function of having to go all the way back to our main menu and refreshing each event -- saving you HALF THE TIME this previously would!

3. Seamless Camera Capabilities

The app can use a device's native camera for scanning barcodes (both QR and 1D), card reading, and also integrates with external hardware, such as laser scanners, credit card swipers, and thermal ticket printers.

4. Hardware Integration

Our software is compatible with the vast majority of ticketing hardware. We work with Magtek, and Unimag Card Readers, Linea Pro Scanners, BOCA Printers, Star Bluetooth, and Star Network Printers, USB Barcode Scanners, and more! Need hardware? Check out our shop!

5. Compatible on Any Device

From MAC or PC desktop to any Android or iOS tablet or mobile device, Swarm is compatible with all! Take your ticketing into the cloud and work along with multiple devices and create a seamless experience not only for fans but for your staff and volunteers.

6. Stability Improvements

Our development team has worked tirelessly to eliminate bugs, improve performance and reliability, and stay up to date with the latest and greatest technologies of our mobile box office. We’ve updated themes, user interface, experience, frameworks, reduced memory consumption, and user efficiency improvements. Let us handle the event stress for you with our seamless capabilities!

7. Kiosk Capabilities

Wish your patrons could purchase tickets at your venue at any time of the day? With our kiosk functionalities, your guests can purchase tickets directly from a kiosk - saving you money and creating a hassle-free experience for patrons.

DOWNLOAD TODAY!

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HoldMyTicket is a full-scale ticketing platform designed with a mobile-first mentality. In a mobile-driven market, you have seconds to captivate a buyer and finalize the ticket sale on a mobile device. Most ticketing checkout processes are cumbersome, clunky, and not built for mobile devices. In addition, most require the creation of an account to complete the purchase, making the ticket buyer remember yet another username and password to purchase a ticket which is beyond frustrating. Unlike other systems that aren't keen on providing a better solution, HoldMyTicket aims to create the best experience for both its partners and ticket buyers.

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Announcing: Swarm2 Mobile Box Office

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The team is proud to announce our newest app release, Swarm2.

We've heard all of your feature requests for Swarm, and decided it was time for a revamp to make it functional for every type of event environment. We believe Swarm2 is the solution to all of your box office needs.


What's different:

Use Swarm2 on mobile and desktop. Both versions share all of the same capabilities, with a virtually identical layout. Now you don't need to alternate between devices in order to perform different operations, and there's only one app to learn. Here's a comparison of the original Swarm app on desktop, on mobile, and Swarm2:

Feature Swarm (mobile) Swarm (desktop) Swarm2 (mobile and desktop)
QR-Code Scanning x x x
Barcode Scanning x x x
Will Call Checkin x x x
Cash Sales x x x
Credit Sales x x x
Card scanning with camera -- -- x
Card swiper integration x x x
Comps, Reserves -- x x
Discount Codes -- -- x
Promo Tickets x x x
Ticket Upgrades -- x x
Refunds -- x x
Auto- and Manual Printing x x x
Auto- and Manual Cash Drawer Kick x -- x
Printer Management -- x x
Printing over Network x x x
Printing over Bluetooth x -- x
Flashlight for Low-Light Scanning -- -- x
Offline scanning x -- x
Attendance Stats -- -- x
Ticket Inventory Reports -- x x
Available for iOS x -- x
Available for Android -- -- x
Available for Mac -- x x
Available for Windows -- x x
App Themes & Personalization -- -- x
Account and Password Management -- x x
Personal Sales Reports x x x
User Management / Sales Reporting -- x x
All-Event Customer Search -- x x
Guest List Management -- -- x
Customer Relations Management -- x x
Tags and Notations -- x x
Survey Data -- x x
Comp-Ticket Releaser -- x x
Convert to Sale for Comps/Reserves -- x x
Past & Future Event Lookup -- x x
Best-Available Seat Selection x x x
Manual Seat Selection -- x x
Seat Exchanger -- x x

We wanted to make Swarm available to everyone, and we don't want you to have to have extra hardware if you want to make a simple sale or check someone in. We've also put everything that used to be desktop-only into the mobile app, so regardless of where you are and when, you can get s*** done.

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Check it out, we're at Times Square!

Thank you for being a user of HoldMyTicket. This app is built for you, so what are you waiting for? Get your upgrade on.

App Store for iOS | Google Play Store
Windows Download | Mac Download | Web App for Desktop

Some Useful Links:
Our Official Swarm2 Website

User Guides: How to Scan with Swarm2 | How to Sell on Swarm2


Swarm2 Mobile Box Office and Spark Event Manager are products of HoldMyTicket. Sign up and start selling tickets with us today. holdmyticket.com/sell

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Press Release: Swarm2 Mobile Box Office

The first official announcement of our newest box office app, Swarm2, is out, and the buzz is very real. Check it out:

HoldMyTicket Unleashes New Version of Full Service Box Office for any Mobile Device
Event Management and Ticketing Company HoldMyTicket brings its mobile box office software to concert venues, festivals, performing arts centers, guided tours, casinos, universities, and sports venues nationwide

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., June 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- HoldMyTicket LLC announced today that it has rolled out a significant update to its mobile box office solution - Swarm, which is currently used by over 750 organizations and powering millions of events nationwide. Recognizing the importance of a 'mobile-first' experience, HoldMyTicket offers a robust yet easy-to-use mobile box office solution. "We're excited to provide a mobile box office solution that can be used for any type of venue or event," said Wes Edling, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of HoldMyTicket, "By packing tons of features and focusing on a beautiful user experience, we are confident that Swarm 2 is the best mobile box office available."

See Swarm 2 in Action!

Swarm 2 (available for free in the App Store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android) scans and validates tickets of any form, processes credit, cash, and comp transactions, assigns reserve seats, and communicates event attendance and sales reports in real time. Swarm 2's offline mode ensures that your event operates smoothly, even without a reliable network. The app can use a device's native camera for scanning and card reading, and also integrates with external hardware, such as laser scanners, credit card swipers, and thermal ticket printers. The result is an overall expedited event-entry process.

"Providing the best event experience for everyone is what drives us every day, whether you're managing an event or simply looking to purchase a ticket - we want to make an impact on that experience," said Wes Edling, "There is a problem with the way existing ticketing companies interact with their clients and ticket buyers - fees, user experience, and outdated software all play a factor."

HoldMyTicket is a full-scale ticketing platform designed with a mobile-first mentality. In a mobile driven market, you have seconds to captivate a buyer and finalize the ticket sale on a mobile device. Most ticketing checkout processes are cumbersome, clunky, and not built for mobile devices. In addition, most require the creation of an account to complete the purchase, making the ticket buyer remember yet another username and password to purchase a ticket which is beyond frustrating. Unlike other systems that aren't keen on providing a better solution, HoldMyTicket aims to create the best experience for both its partners and ticket buyers.

"Our goal is to continue building a ticketing company that both our partners and end-users love," said Eric Griego, HoldMyTicket's Vice President of Business Development. "Every partner of ours leverages HoldMyTicket differently, we don't fit a square peg in a round-hole. We understand that each venue or event has different needs but one ultimate goal - to sell tickets. Our team and software accomplish that."

Looking ahead, HoldMyTicket is expanding their membership offering, digital wallet capabilities, and strategic partnerships.

About HoldMyTicket
HoldMyTicket is an event management and ticketing company headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For 10 years HoldMyTicket has helped venues and promoters nationwide sell millions of tickets online. To learn more about HoldMyTicket, visit https://holdmyticket.com/sell. Follow us on Twitter: @holdmyticket

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We're updating our look. New ticket stock is in!

it's live!

We just restyled our printed tickets!

We've made hard tickets more informative, with a more classic look. The ticket comes pre-filled with all of your event details, and with room for four more lines of your own text, or an image that you can upload yourself.

Seating details are now optional, the QR code is bigger, and the stub has more core event details, including the ticket details (under advanced options in the ticket editor).

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Can't wait to have some of these in hand?

Click here for tips on how to order printed tickets today. Or, if you have a BOCA or STIMARE ticket printer from HoldMyTicket and some of our original ninja stock, contact us when you're running low so we can schedule a transition for your box office.


This update aims for better legibility, easier scanning, and more flexibility for you. We'll be releasing more and more updates, so keep your eyes peeled for new developments. We hope you enjoy the new design!

Sincerely,
The HoldMyTicket Team

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Advanced Ticket Options

Did you know there's a lot more you can do to your tickets than just give them a name and price? We have a long list of advanced options that let you attach promos or discounts, write up ticket decriptions, track sales, and a lot more. Go down this list for a brief summary of each advanced option. You might find one (or a few) to be exactly what you need for your event!

While editing your event, scroll down to the tickets section. Above each ticket you've set up you'll see four or five tabs.

Click the Advanced Options tab. If you don't have any tickets set up yet just click the "+Add Ticket" button to get started.

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Promo Code

A promo code hides this ticket online, but adds a button asking, "Have a Promo Code?" to the online tickets page. There a user can enter the code and release the ticket. This is a great way to offer secret tickets for your members or subscribers. Read up on Promo Codes in our extensive doc.

promo-code


Coupon Code

Coupons are how you can offer a discount on your ticket. They are different from Promo codes in that a coupon just changes the final price of a standard ticket at checkout, rather than hiding the ticket. If you already have coupon codes set up for this event, you can check the Coupon Code box and select one of your codes. Otherwise, save your work, then open the event overview and click coupons at the top of that window. Review our Coupon Codes doc on exactly how they work.

coupon-codes


Ticket Sales Start & Stop Date/Times

When you're setting up online ticket sales, you must choose when all sales for the event start and when they stop. The Ticket Sales Start & Stop Date/Times advanced option lets you set on-sale dates and times per ticket, which is a great way to make a limited-availability ticket, like if you are setting up early bird pre-sales or a price increase over time. Check out our doc on scheduling ticket sales for more details.

ticket-sales


Ticket Details

We recommend taking advantage of this feature if you have multiple ticket types or any type of ticket that includes more than just admission alone. This is how you can write a description on your ticket so ticket buyers understand what they're paying for and how it differs from your other ticket types. Text you enter in this field will appear directly under the ticket title on the checkout page.

ticket-details


Ticket Max Purchase

By default, HMT's online checkout offers a maximum of 10 tickets that can go in the cart at a time. It helps prevent scammers/resellers from being able to buy tickets in bulk in order to re-sell them. Check the 'Ticket Max Purchase' box if you want to increase or decrease this quantity. For example, if you have large parties registering for your event who would want the entire group under a single purchase, a higher maximum would be useful. If you have a high-demand event that you think will sell out quickly, it's not a bad idea to limit purchases to fewer tickets at a time to make sales a little more fair for everyone.

tickets-max-purchase


Survey

A survey is a great way to collect extra information from your online customers that you wouldn't otherwise get from checkout. If you already have surveys set up, you can check the Survey box here in Advanced Options and select one of your surveys. This is a great way to get important information like meal choice for a catered event, or collect data for future promotions, like a multiple choice question, "How did you hear about this event?"
Using this advanced option, you're applying the a survey to a ticket instead of to the whole event. This means that buyers will have to fill out a survey for every ticket they are purchasing, instead of once for the entire purchase. If you only need only survey response, regardless of the quantity of tickets in a purchase, skip this option and scroll down to the Surveys section on this page. We have more details about creating surveys and getting the data here.

survey


Mandatory Purchase

This option makes it mandatory to have this ticket in the cart in order to put any other ticket types in the cart. For example, if you are offering an admission ticket and an add-on ticket for early entry into your event, you can make your general admission ticket mandatory for accessing the early entry upgrade.

mandatory-purchase


Reusable Ticket

A ticket may only be scanned once, unless you use this option. The single-scan allowance is how you prevent people from redistributing or copying your tickets. But, there may be a time that you need someone to be able to be scanned in more than once. For example, if your event staff or volunteers need in and out privileges but you still want them to be scanned in as they enter, the Unlimited Scans option would be the perfect solution.
If you have a multi-day festival and want to offer an all-access pass, this is actually not the best solution for you. Check out our doc on Event Grouping to see how to set up admission for every type of buyer.

reusable-ticket


Badge

Would you rather offer badges instead of tickets? This may be perfect if you have a multi-day event and want your all-event passes to look different from the single days, or if you just want a certain group of attendees to have something a little special. Check this box and you'll be able to create your badge using the Badge Builder in the event overview. We recommend you check out the Reusable Ticket description above. You might need it for your badges.

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Email Sales Alert

Is this a ticket that requires your attention? Check this box and enter your email address (limited to one recipient) and you will be emailed every time someone purchases this ticket. This is great for example if you have a VIP ticket that requires a lot of customer care before the event.

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Confirmation Page Text

This is a feature you can use for the whole event, or use this advanced option for unique text per ticket. Write up your own custom text to appear on a ticket buyer's online confirmation page as well as their emailed purchase confirmation.

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Offers & Settlements

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The Offers & Settlements tool in the SPARK Event Manager is how you can create, email, and settle deals with artists and their agents. *

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Choose a Guarantee-Versus or Guarantee-Plus offer, and account for ticket sales, additional income, taxes, and expenses, calculated based on fixed amounts or percentage of sales. You can also compose templates to speed up the process for similar future bookings.

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Create the event in Spark directly from a confirmed offer. As soon as ticket sales have stopped, a final settlement will be generated for you, accounting for your online and box office ticket sales. Email the settlement back to the agent or print it out on the spot.

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Add simplicity and structure to your talent agreements, forget the math and human error, and make counting ticket stubs a thing of the past.


Offers and Settlements is integrated with HoldMyTicket's SPARK Event Manager and SWARM Box Office. Get started with HoldMyTicket today.

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Client Newsletter: Embeds, Events messenger, & more

We have a lot of updates for you...

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We're improving the before, during, and after of your event ticketing. Our most recent updates are going to help you better promote your event, track your sales, relate to your customers, and, wait for it...get paid.


Promotional tool alert: All new ways to post your event

We're announcing some beautiful new tools that will help you market your tickets with precision:

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The improved Embed tool lets you:

  • Generate links that will track your sales by source
  • Reduce clicks to checkout by linking to activated promo or coupon codes
  • Generate a "Buy Tickets" button or link for your site, with customization tools, like color, text, and size
  • Generate code for an embeddable widget, listing your tickets, prices, and descriptions
  • Download QR codes of various sizes for your print marketing
  • Embed your entire event page on your site - sacrifice nothing!

See our help doc on using the embed tool.


Pre-event prep: New and improved event messenger

Sold all the tickets already? You may be familiar with our event messenger - the best way to contact your ticket-holders with important information before your show.

We know you appreciate your show-goers and want to provide the best experience possible, so the messenger just got more personal. You can now input the buyer's name and their eTicket link into the email. Help them feel taken care of, and feel assured that more of your customers will reach the front of the line with their tickets in hand.

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Selecting email recipients is more precise than ever. You can filter ticket-buyers by ticket type and delivery type, and save a draft or schedule a delivery time for your email.

Learn more on using the event messenger here.


Brand New Event Comparison

Improve your next event by keeping track of how sales went last time, and the time before that, and before that.

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View any two to five event reports in our new event comparison format. Ticket sales and page view timelines for each event are laid on top of one another, and you can view all other details of your event report - sales by transaction type, by face value, by channel - side by side. At a glance understand how your marketing compares across events.

Learn more about how it works here.


Sales Tracking and Audit Subscriptions

Our event tracker had a bit of a makeover. Now you can more easily share your sales numbers with affiliates while maintaining the privacy of your Spark account. The interface also lets you subscribe yourself or others to event audits, emailed daily.

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Click here to learn how to use it.


More updates you may have missed...

Improved printed ticket ordering

Ordering printed tickets is now hassle, delay, and head-scratch free. The new order form helps you manage your ticket's availability and ticket text, with more powerful cart management and a Pay Now or Pay Later option.

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Click here to for an introduction to ordering printed tickets.


Good-Bye, paid direct deposit

No more $3 E-Payment Process Fee. Direct deposit payouts are now completely free. Enjoy receiving every cent of your earnings, no strings attached.


Cha-Ching! 1e63be39f4241ee27454e316b4ee3cb3

Turn up the volume at the bottom of Spark and hear your sales come in. Sounds sweet, doesn't it?

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