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.

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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!

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.

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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!

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.

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.

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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

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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.

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

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

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

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.

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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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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.

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

• Get familiar with the terminology (Agents, Deal Types, Taxes, Income, and Expenses)
• How to Create an Offer or Template (Step-by-Step)
• Sell Tickets and Settle Up Using an Offer

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

We have a lot of updates for you...

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.

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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:

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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

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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.

Click here to learn how to use it.

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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.

Click here to for an introduction to ordering printed tickets.

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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.

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Cha-Ching!

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

We can’t get enough of Pokémon GO at HoldMyTicket. Seems like someone's always luring Pokémon here to the office. It's gotten us on our feet more often for a coffee break or a walk around the block. The hype of this game is still very real.

Procrastination aside...did you know Pokémon GO could also bring more people into your venue? Your spot could be THE spot to play!

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To explain the craze...

Image courtesy of Tumblr

Pokémon GO launched a few weeks ago for free on iPhone and Android. It achieved over 30 million downloads as of last week and now is in 31 countries. Check out these stats of the game blowing other social media apps out of the water.

Here's how it works: The player creates a character that walks around in a simulation of their actual surroundings. Pokémon roam around for them to catch, raise, and then battle. Everything is plotted on real-world locations, so the players actually have to be on foot. Here's the important vocabulary:

• PokéStops: Checkpoints at places of interest like notable buildings, art installations, and monuments around town. They're used to power up and collect special items that help players catch Pokémon and advance their trainer level.

• Gyms: Larger checkpoints where players battle their Pokémon. These places are less frequent around town and are generally well-known establishments within a community. Players tend to spend more time here. If your establishment is a Gym, you're in luck.

• Lures & Lure Modules: Items that can be placed on a PokéStop for a duration of 30 minutes to attract Pokémon who are hiding in the area. Lures are free and are earned from gameplay. Lure Modules, which are much more powerful, can be purchased in the app for 100 PokéCoins (99 cents).

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Pokémon for business?

Interestingly, there isn’t a marketplace for businesses to tap for ad placement yet. You have to set yourself up as a player and have access to the same stuff that any regular user buys.

Creatively, you can still market this way. You just have to play the game.

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Bring the players to you

Lures have about a 15-meter radius. If your venue is near any notable art installations or landmarks there's a good chance there is a PokéStop and players near you, and you can use a Lure.

Any players can see your username stamped on the Lure. It's a cool social element where you're acknowledged for your well-spent 99 cents. A word of advice: make your venue's name your username so people recognize you.

A technique called farming lets you utilize areas that have a lot of PokéStops to place multiple Lure Modules at once and draw an unavoidable amount of Pokémon into that area.

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Be open to the game. Offer rewards.

Fortunately, you're facing a prime audience for live events! You're drawing in young people who are already out and about. Especially if you're farming, players are doing some high-intensity catching. They're earning the break time to migrate to your establishment and enjoy your show.

• Use the hype of Pokémon to advertise, and don't forget the personal touch of your venue. Rock bar? "We only accept Rock types here"
• If you are near that Pokéstop, advertise it! Clear and simple. There. Are. Pokémon. Here.
• Offer incentives, like discounted entry or a free/discounted drink, to players based on their trainer levels. (For example, Level 5 is an achievable, but still exclusive level)
• If you have plentiful Pokémon inside: Do a photo contest at the event. Players have to snap the best shot of a Pokémon at your venue, then tag your venue on Instagram. Reward them later on your social media with tickets to another show, or see if the band would want to join in by announcing the winner onstage and do a meet & greet.
• If you're in a Pokémon dead zone: Mobilize. Place Lure Modules at other locations with high Poké-traffic and place offers there. Use a poster or flyer that has a QR code that leads to promo tickets. Spread the word via social media or newsletter: “We’ve placed some lures around downtown. Catch Pokémon and find our flyer. Scan the code for $5 off tickets! Valid from 7-10 pm tonight!"

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Hey tour guides, get in on this

Attention all walking city tours, trolleys, and nature hikes: Chances there are already Pokéstops on your tour! Do you focus on historical buildings, murals, or nature spots? So does this game.

You and GO share the goal of shedding a new light on a city or area, which is great! Just embrace that, at moments, the group's attention may shift from the history of this 100 year-old building to the Zubat in the tree next to it.

• Make sure everyone can play. Invest in a mobile hotspot and get everyone on your wifi.
• Carry a mobile USB charger so players can charge their phone if they're running low on battery.
• Help them level up and pause the tour when a rare Pokémon appears.
• A member of the group’s egg just hatched in its incubator? Celebrate!
• Pokémon GO PLUS, the game's bluetooth accessory, is releasing at the end of this month. If you’re really feeling generous purchase one and reward the person with the most Pokémon caught by the end of the tour.

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Pokémon nights

Pokémon courtesy of deviantart and Pokémon Wiki*

If you’re fortunate enough to have a PokéStop or a Gym on location, make that your event! It's a perfect theme for your more low-key event coming up - maybe your weekly karaoke night.

• Promote: Add a Pokémon-themed twist to your usual flier and make it known that this is a special event for players.
• Place Lure Modules for the span of your event. They can't be scheduled, so set a reminder for yourself to place a new module every 30 minutes.
• If you really want to go all out: decorate, serve a themed drink, use your projector to stream related videos.

There you have it: a Pokémon party at your venue.

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You are not too late to use this game for your business!

Pokémon has brought a new twist to in-app marketing - you’re sharing goods (like Lures) and adding value to customers (like Trainer Levels) in a virtual space (Pokémon GO), while advertising on the ground.

The Pokémon Go community is still an expanding variety of people. What better way to increase your customer base, personalize your venue, and build a rapport with existing and potential event-goers.

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TL;DR

Spend 99 cents and attract new customers, or keep them entertained during your show!

Image courtesy of rebloggy.

It's been a long time coming...many months of hard work and sweat to bring our users a whole new shopping interface. We will fully shift HoldMyTicket.com to our new design on March 1st, so read on to learn about what to expect:

Shopping cart

Customers can now add tickets to their cart and continue shopping for different events before checking out. After adding tickets to your event to their cart, they'll see the option to proceed to checkout, with some of your events recommended below. If you don't have any more published upcoming events, they'll be directed straight to checkout.

Users can continue shopping around, add more time to their cart and edit its contents from any page on HoldMyTicket.com.

Now that users can shop to their heart's desire, transactions occur per venue. That is, if they're buying tickets for multiple events, especially for events at different venues, they can choose their preferred ticket delivery method for each ticket type, and be charged separately for each venue, while only submitting one purchase.

Transactions

Charges that occur on HoldMyTicket will be transparent and easy to understand. Before submitting an order, a user will see the amount they will be charged, plus the way the charge would appear on their bank statement.

If you utilize HoldMyTicket's Stripe merchant account to handle your online sales, a credit card statement for tickets to your show would appear as "HldMyTckt - your venue name."

If you have your own merchant account through Stripe, you can now change how the statement would appear per venue in your Venue Settings. Under Venue Preferences scroll down to Payout Preferences:

*Note that while this will affect the credit card statements for most users, it will not necessarily be effective 100% of the time. The customer's bank has the ability to override the way that a transaction appears, regardless of the settings you choose for your own merchant account.

New look for your events and checkout

Your event page:

The new design includes an image header at the top of your page with your flyer to the right. A user can see the event description and select their tickets all on the same page.

The header will use the background image you upload in event settings in Spark, under the "Event Page" section.

If you don't upload an image here, it will take the default Checkout Page Masthead you have uploaded in your venue settings, under Branding/Identity, giving all of your events at your venue the same header image.

If you haven't uploaded an image in either of these places, the event page header will give a map to your venue.

Also enjoy the new design of checkout:

Any errors that might occur at checkout - a missing required field, invalid billing information - will give users an easy-to-understand error message to help them quickly solve the problem and get their tickets.

Upsells

The new interface now offers upselling like it never did before, and it keeps users looking at your events.

To manage which events you upsell and when, use the new Promoted Events tool in your Event Overview. Choose specific events to be presented to your ticket buyers, and choose how many. Otherwise, upsold events will simply be organized by tags, which you can also take care of in your Event Overview.

Improved interactive seating charts

Seating charts now enable full screen view. On both Web and mobile, users can make no mistake in understanding your venue's arrangement and choosing the exact tickets they want.

Now a user can click into one section then click straight into another without having to zoom back out.

Selecting seats places tickets in a drawer on the left, where the user can choose the ticket type they want, if you have set up different ticket types (such as child, adult, or member rates) to apply to the same seat.

No more impossible-to-tap seats on the mobile site. Mobile users can pinch and zoom on their screen to make that seat as big as they need in order to tap it.

Reserving seats is also more reliable: Browsing and clicking seats does not claim a seat until clicking "Add to Cart." When you have multiple people using your seating chart at once, as soon as one user adds a seat to their cart, that seat will disappear from view for all other users on that page.

Try it out, let us know!

As always, nothing helps us more than your feedback. We are excited to apply our new design to your event pages and improve the overall experience on HoldMyTicket. We owe our knowledge and development to the needs of our users, so keep helping us help you!

The HMT Team got together last weekend for our traditional team "outing." This time we stayed in the office, and we witnessed...

THE

BEST

K.O.

EVER

Nov. 14's UFC 193 matchup with Albuquerque's own Holly Holm and (then) world champion Ronda Rousey made our hometown explode with excitement and "burque pride." Nothing excites burqueños more than food, beer and a win by one of our own that changes UFC history!

Here are a few bets that went down between Holm and Rousey supporters:

• Not one, but two bottles of Jameson
• A car wash
• Coffee duty for a month
• A bottle of tequila priced at at least $100

That same night, the Sunshine Theater had a show just a few floors below our office. You can usually feel any noise as mild as a sound check when a show is getting started, but when Rousey took that end-all kick to the head, HMT shook the building.

Holly's name will be chanted around this town and our office for a long time!

It's been another busy month here at HoldMyTicket. We have just launched some new features and improvements to the HoldMyTicket platform for you to enjoy. Here we go:

Spark is now Mobile Friendly!

Whew! Its been a long time coming, we finally made SPARK user friendly on your mobile device. Now you can get reports, edit tickets, and manage all of your events from your phone without pinching and zooming or yelling and screaming. Take a look at your account on your phone, we think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Mobile eTickets Revamped

We made some slight modifications to the mobile eTicket allowing for faster loading, better readability, swiping between multiple tickets, and optimized size of QR code. Next time you see a customer come in with a mobile ticket, be sure to take a look!

Calendar Subscriptions

We made it easy to subscribe to other iCal feeds, whether they are public or private. You will just need to know the URL of the iCal feed, and it will appear alongside your events in SPARK. This is helpful for getting a list of holidays or internal office events. If you want to subscribe to US holidays, use this URL: http://ical.mac.com/ical/US32Holidays.ics

SPARK Inline Notes, Announcements, On-Sales

Now you can easily toggle the scheduled event announcements and on sales within your view of your upcoming events. Just toggle the buttons in the upper right of the list to see when things are going to be announced and sales are turned on. If you have created internal notes within SPARK, they will also show here as long as they have been tagged with a date. This is really useful if you want to create reminders for upcoming events and tasks.

User Guides

We fully revamped and organized our user guides making it easier than ever for you to learn about our latest features and best practices. The search feature is a great way to find exactly what you are looking for. We plan on adding more and more guides as we can. Please feel free to request new user guides you would like to see. Go ahead and take a look at our Docs to learn something new!

Embeddable Widgets

We just added three new embeddable widgets to give you more options when it comes to displaying event information on your websites:

• Just announced!
• Now on Sale!
• Event Tickets

HoldMyTicket Video

We are excited to share our new video. We feel it shows the culture and type of company we have become over the years. We want to thank all of our clients for the support and encouragement. Thanks to the guys at Marble Street Studio, they did a fantastic job!

You can see the video here.