Scannable, Bulk Event Ticket Sales for Large Groups

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Joe Killian
Joe Killian
25 Likes Second Anniversary 10 Comments Name Dropper
in Blackbaud Altru® General Discussions

How are orgs handling bulk digital tickets for partners/corporate events?

For example, SponsorCorp gets 100 tickets for a program with multiple time-slot events and wants to give those out to employees, who can arrive during any time-slot.

A few thoughts are below. I suspect if the org creates the order, the ticket would have be tied to a conflicting event that spans the duration of the program.

Additionally, we have a third party integration that creates ticket serial numbers/bar codes immediately upon purchase, which is a huge time saver.

  • Use Event Registrant API to create 100 orders
    • Pros: Individual tickets can be sent to SponsorCorp for their dispersement
    • Cons: Untried
    • Neutral: tied to a single constituent record
  • Back office transaction to create 100 orders
    • Pros: Individual tickets can be sent to SponsorCorp for their dispersement
    • Cons: Time consuming
    • Neutral: tied to a single constituent record
  • Back office transaction for a single order of 100 tickets, then use Query to export the serial numbers, render in a barcode font, and create individual sheets via merge process (Query could be used for any back-office method to create a more “branded” look for the tickets.)
    • Pros: Transaction setup is fast; can easily brand the individual ticket pages
    • Cons: Trouble-shooting the order gets messy; Have to develop way to split the barcodes cleanly; untried
  • Allow for online registration with a promo-code
    • Pros: Self-Serve Option, captures attendee data, ticket tied to actual event time-slot
    • Con: Cannot limit the over-all number of tickets per promo-code; Altru does not have “unlock codes”, so there would need to be a ticket price reduced to zero with the promo-code
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Comments

  • Nikki Statler
    Nikki Statler
    Third Anniversary Name Dropper Photogenic First Comment

    @Joe Killian have you since tried any of these? If yes, any luck?? We have a similar issue.

    When a corporate partner wants to pre-purchase admission passes for their staff (to use at their discretion) we struggle with the best way to facilitate the sale in a customer friendly way that also keeps our attendance reporting accurate.

    • For example, Org B purchases 100 passes to give their employees as a thank you. They want to give them passes to use at their discretion.
    • We sell them 100 admissions through the ticket counter or back office, then we give them 100 admission passes to distribute.
      • These passes are almost always pulled from our promotional stock (we rarely have time to have something specific printed up) and when they are redeemed they are entered as free voucher, which both inaccurately increases our attendance on the day of the sale, and inaccurately records redemption of promotional passes.
    • The only solution we have surmised is to run them through web orders creating separate scannable tickets (one per order!!) so that they are only counted as attendance when scanned… that is not feasible for more than a handful and requires you to have permission to run their credit card for each order :(.

    I am sure someone has come up with a solution, and would love to know what it is. We have a voucher system worked through for our partners who offer passes as part of their client service packages, and it works great with monthly billing for passes used - no one is double counted and they only pay for what is used. But for someone wanting to prepay for a bulk lot, we have no solution. I would love to speak with anyone regarding a solution they have come up with.

  • Bryan Martinez Romero
    Bryan Martinez Romero
    Name Dropper First Anniversary First Comment Activity: First Reply

    @Nikki Statler
    Have either of you figured out a solution? Running into the same situation as well…

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