Find the right ticketing system for your theatre or concert hall

Switching to a new ticketing system for your theater is not the most difficult thing in the world. But it’s not a leisurely stroll in the park either. You don’t want to do without your historical data, so your old data has to be imported. A professional partner is the be-all and end-all when switching systems.

Points such as the acceptance of your employees towards a new system as well as the reorientation of your customers in the front end must also be taken into account. Your visitors will have to familiarize themselves with buying a ticket in a new way and long-time employees may need a little more convincing to want to work with the new backend.

So before you start choosing a new ticketing system, be clear about your requirements, or those of your company, and take your time to look around the market. It often helps to carry out a comprehensive market analysis and get to know new, perhaps previously unknown companies and functionalities. We live in a time of rapid developments, in which young companies in particular often make rapid leaps in development. Therefore, take a good look and be clear about what is important to you and your environment.

Your requirements are clear, you have researched the market and found your new ticketing software. Now it’s important to talk to your current ticketing provider. Check whether they can meet your needs and are willing to listen to you. Perhaps the new feature you are looking for is already on the roadmap of your current ticketing system provider. If your current provider can meet the requirements you have for a modern theater ticketing system, there is no reason to move!

However, you may also feel that you have exhausted all the options offered by your current ticketing provider. Perhaps you have been working together for many years and your ticketing provider sees no reason to develop something new, because after all, it has worked so far? Or maybe you simply want to breathe new life into your ticketing software and are looking for innovative, modern and, above all, sales-boosting functions.

If this is the case, it’s time to consider other systems and take a closer look.

Beware of errors! Avoid making this mistake when choosing new ticketing software for your theatre.

One of the biggest mistakes promoters make when choosing a theater ticketing system is to simply follow the recommendation of another theater. Sure, it is beneficial to hear that another theater is generally satisfied with the ticketing provider. However, such a recommendation usually says little about the functions and features of the ticketing software. Choosing a system that fulfills the ticketing functions you need is more important than anything else.

So the first step is to think about what you are looking for in a new ticketing system for your theatre.

Take part in conferences such as INTIX, for example. This is the world’s largest gathering of the ticketing industry and brings together the world’s best ticket providers to present their software. If you prefer something smaller to start with, we recommend the annual Ticketing Business Forum.

This is where the ticketing industry has been meeting for 8 years now to exchange ideas, listen to exciting presentations and showcase companies. A major advantage of this conference is that it now encompasses the entire ticketing ecosystem and also covers topics such as digital marketing, pricing, analyses and CRM.

You can find further inspiration by simply taking a look at various providers of ticketing software for theaters, as recommended in the first section. Of course, you will find these first and foremost by searching via Google or other search engines. Many providers of ticketing software provide a comprehensive description of their functionalities on their respective websites.

If that’s not enough for you, just take a look at our Demo Shop. There you will also find many different functionalities integrated into the various theater ticket stores.

Based on these impressions, you can certainly get an initial idea of your individual requirements. You are sure to find out more requirements if you take a closer look at your current processes.

Take some time to do this, get your team and all the ticketing interfaces within your theater together and think about what is good and what should be better. Take a critical look at your processes and ask yourself the crucial questions.

1. Do we want an inhouse ticketing system or do we need a ticket vendor?
2. Is it better to put our own brand in the foreground with a white label ticketing system, or would we rather link to a third-party ticketing portal?
3. Does the ticketing system need to offer seat selection and booking?
4. Do we want to collect donations?
5. Can we increase our revenue through cross-selling, such as the sale of merchandising items or drinks?
6. Do we want to scan theatre tickets at the entrance?
7. Do we want control over advance booking fees?
8. What are our best distribution channels? Sales at the box office? Our online store? Or advance booking offices?
9. Is there an opportunity to increase our income through live streaming offers?
10. Are our current ticket sales modern and up-to-date and do they meet our customers’ needs?

You may also find other functions that you like as part of your market research. Or you may have your own ideas and functionalities in mind that you would like to see, but which are not yet available from any other ticketing provider. We at egocentric Systems, for example, are always interested in feedback from our customers and adapt the development road map of our ticketing system to the wishes and ideas of our customers.

One thing is for sure, this process should create a set of requirements that you should share with potential ticketing vendors via a traditional RFP process.

Our advice here is always to simply contact the system provider and ask openly and straightforwardly whether they can implement the requirements you have for your ticketing software. Pay close attention to the answers. If a system can’t do what you need, or you have the feeling that the company is just making promises, there is no point in continuing the conversation with this ticketing provider. Then it is definitely better to move on and check out other providers.