Decision Point: How will you issue tickets?

There are five ways to issue tickets:

Send Invitations to Buy Tickets to your known supporters

• Best option for combination Gala/Online/Mobile events as guests can be invited to both buy tickets and bid without having to create/remember logins and passwords.  
• Invitations provide a personal link to the Online Ticket form, with the user's personal information pre-populating the buyer fields.
• Requires User Records with email addresses for potential ticket buyers (can be migrated from a past event site or uploaded from a spreadsheet).

Sell Online

• Best option when contact information for potential guests is unknown or cannot be uploaded/imported into the software. 
• Most efficient when credit card payments can be processed online. (Recording check/cash payments as they arrive negate the staff time saved by selling online.)

Enter Internally (from RSVP/Order forms)

• Most often used to issue complimentary Sponsor and/or Volunteer tickets.
• Since guests do not have an opportunity to create a password when their ticket is issued, access to their account is limited to the links provided in emailed invitations to Advance Check-in, Online/Mobile Bidding, and/or Self Check-out.
• If the majority of tickets will be entered manually, migrating potential guest data (from previous event site) or importing it (from a spreadsheet) can reduce data entry. 

Import Ticketed Guests

• Most often used when tickets have already been sold outside of the software OR to pre-load $0 tickets for potential guests at free events.
• It is often easier to enter complicated tickets manually than to prepare the data in a spreadsheet for import. Plan to to import existing individual/couple tickets and manually enter table tickets.
• If fewer than 50 tickets have been sold, it is usually faster and easier to manually enter the tickets than to prepare a spreadsheet for import.
• Multiple imports are fraught with potential problems, so once an import is complete additional tickets must be issued online, internally, or at check-in.

Sell At Check-in

• Recommended for incidental sales only.  Issuing the bulk of your tickets in a noisy, chaotic environment is difficult and often results in long check-in lines.  

Many events use a combination of the above to issue tickets. Most common: Majority of tickets are purchased via Invitation to Buy Tickets or directly Online; Sponsor and Volunteer are entered internally; and a few tickets are available at Check-in for unexpected guests.