While the debate continues about the finer conceptual points of Internet ticketing, a large number of venues have quietly got on with it, making use of facilities from both ticketing system suppliers and specialist Internet agencies. The first choice that a venue has to make is whether to sell online or offline; in other words whether the Internet ticketing is linked directly to its computerised box office system with actual seats being allocated in real time, or whether the tickets are picked off from an allocation and actually booked later by the box office. Actually the customer is generally oblivious to the difference (being assured of best seats in both cases), however the offline option means you still need box office staff to process the bookings. And here we get to another key issue ? how much the customers should be paying to book over the Internet. Some sites change an additional fee per ticket and tell people up front: Dundee Rep (http://www.dundeereptheatre.co.uk) for example charges 60p ticket, Oxford Playhouse (http://www.oxfordplayhouse.co.uk) appears to be swallowing the fee. Only one site I?ve seen has reached the nirvana of cheaper tickets via the Internet. Sadler's Wells charges £2.20 transaction fee for phone and in-person bookings, but only £1 over the Internet (although others might regard this as equally iniquitous!) 
In general venues still don?t seem to have designed their online ticketing systems from the customers? point of view. Some sites with real time ticketing feel a little unfriendly, suffering from a combination of sluggish response, lack of £ signs (that?s what GBP means) and a rather fearsome Data Protection disclaimer where your only option is not to buy at all! If you don?t have a seating plan in front of you (viewing it on an earlier screen doesn?t count) choosing between price band A, B, C and D doesn?t mean a lot. For example, Greenwich Theatre (http://www.greenwichtheatre.co.uk) is gloriously bucking the trend by letting me choose between ?top price seats?, ?A little further back? and ?bargain seats at the front and rear?. Corn Exchange Newbury (http://www.cornexchangenew.com) illustrate rather neatly the sorts of things which can go wrong. From their home page it seems I can choose ?events?, which gives event info but has no direct link to buying tickets, or choose ?tickets? and plough through a rather bald list of the date/time/show name/venue (I thought I already knew the venue) and as most performances were showing twice, I was hard pressed to know which to choose! Increasing Internet ticketing volume is not just about having the facilities: its about making it work smoothly from the customer?s point of view ? and I suspect this requires input from both venues and system suppliers. Beth Aplin of Catalyst Arts is an arts management consultant specialising in box office, database and process management t: 07977 521045 e: beth@catalystarts.com
Published: 18-06-2001