Below is an excellent guest post article from Mike MacPherson, Director of Sales and Marketing at VBO Tickets, about how the company revolutionizes how ticketing and big events are remerging in a post-COVID world. Mike shares his insights on how large venues can use their services to benefit guests in all aspects, from ticketing to merchandising. They serve large venues such as arenas, theaters, concert halls, and more. Check it out, and if you are a part of a large venue who is trying to figure out all of the strategies for ticketing and safety then I definitely recommend reaching out to VBO Tickets!
Tips for Reopening Events After a Pandemic
When I started VBO Tickets, most people took live events for granted, but the Covid-19 pandemic changed that. After being locked down for months, we all know the value of a night on the town. During the pandemic, we provided the tools to help you broadcast your events via video streaming. Now, our advanced ticket sales can help you safely reopen your doors to patrons.
VBO Tickets puts customer solutions at the forefront
Headquartered in San Jose, California, our advanced ticketing platform serves clients across the country. The software we offer through VBO Tickets can integrate seamlessly with your websites to create and manage your events wherever they are located.
VBO Tickets is more than a ticketing software; we are a total ticketing and event engagement solution.
Since going to market in 2012, we’ve been able to meet the needs of performing arts venues, concerts, theatres, educational institutions, sports events, museums, festivals, and comedy clubs. We are obsessed with providing unmatched customer engagement in an effort to learn your needs and deliver tailored solutions. As an event planner or venue owner, we partner with you to streamline processes, boost productivity, and grow revenue streams.
The most significant challenge facing our event planners today is the post-pandemic regulations for reopening. By focusing on your needs, we’ve evolved to offer a customizable platform capable of handling every aspect of social distancing and capacity regulations. We enabled you to power through the pandemic, and now we’re ready to partner with you as you reopen.
How to maximize social distancing through advanced ticket sales
Social distancing guidelines may have you wondering how to approach your events’ ticket sales as you reopen. You will find the process smooth and manageable when you sell tickets in advance through a platform such as VBO Tickets.
Before opening your ticket sales, you can use our platform to designate a preset number of seats to remain empty around each group of seats your patrons purchase. When viewing your venue’s seating map in VBO’s ticket-buying interface, your customers can select any number of adjacent seats. Once those seats are purchased, your other customers will instantly see non-selectable seats to the left and right of these seats on their computers and phones.
How to set venue capacity limits through advanced ticket sales
As an event planner, you’re probably also attempting to find ways to comply with limitations on the number of people you can allow through your doors. As you learned with social distancing, you’ll also discover that setting capacity limits is most easily accomplished by advanced ticket sales.
When organizing your event through VBO, you can adjust the number of tickets you sell to comply with capacity mandates. Let’s say your venue holds 200 seats, but you can only admit an audience of 100 patrons. In this case, your customers will see a message at the top of your venue’s seating map in VBO’s ticket-buying interface explaining the limited seating and the number of seats that are still available. Once your patrons have purchased the number of tickets you set for the event, your site will close ticket sales.
How to Control crowds at merchandise tables and concession stands through advanced ticket sales
Another logistical concern you are most likely encountering as you reopen events after the pandemic is how to allow your customers to purchase food and merchandise safely while at your venue. People crowding around your concession stand or merchandise table is a legitimate health risk. VBO Tickets enables you to make merchandise and food available to your patrons ahead of time. Your customers can make these purchases as they buy their tickets online. You can deliver the purchased items directly to their seats at your event.
How to use Advanced ticket sales for outdoor events
You can avoid most of the headaches around reopening by relocating your event outdoors. Our seat map building tool typically creates indoor assigned seating venue maps, but you can use it to design outdoor venue maps just as easily. First, create your outdoor background graphic with a personalized picture of your venue. Next, use our seat map tool to generate a customized seating arrangement for your event.
How to use Timed ticketing systems to improve traffic flow
As many businesses and venues reopen, they are encountering a new normal that includes stricter patron flow monitoring. Timed ticketing can enable you to sell groups of tickets with specific entry times. This allows you greater capacity control. Many museums and tour operators already use this type of entry system. Now restaurants, retail stores, salons, gyms, and community pools are also looking into how timed ticketing can keep their clients safe and businesses compliant.
As an event planner, VBO Tickets allows you to make available timed tickets for each time slot visible to your patrons in an easy-to-read grid. On your website, your customers will see real-time, color-coded updates. Blue shows times you still offer a high number of tickets, yellow indicates times your tickets are running low, and red means your tickets for that time slot are sold out.
Advanced ticket sales will give you the tools to navigate the challenges of social distancing, capacity control, merchandise sales, and traffic flow. We know you have needs specific to your venue and brand. We are also aware the reopening regulations are bound to change in the coming weeks. Our personalized solutions at VBO Tickets can help you plan ahead and pull off the events everyone has been waiting so long to attend.
Thank you so much Mike for sharing your insights and knowledge with us! I hope you got value out of reading this!