The key purpose of the act is to provide equal (neither better, worse, nor different) ability to buy tickets through all avenues and see events. This means you may be affected by this act in the following manners:
You may also want to put a legend on the map for 'Price A', 'Price B' and 'ADA seats' so that it is equality and abundantly clear where each area is.
There are four columns that require special attention for ADA seating:
Notice in or example, there are only 3 ADA seats in this area (seats 982, 983, 984) but the ADA act requires that companion seats be available as well - up to 3 companion seats per ADA seat subject to availability. If you make them in the same row, add the caption ADA to the Best Avail Area for sufficient seats to meet your ADA requirements.
These seats should always have a higher Best Seat # than the actual ADA seats. This way, in cases of sellout, you can sell those seats to able-bodied person (they do not have to be saved for companion seats)
If you place a '#' at the end of a
best available area, it has a special meaning.
It causes MT to make two passes of the seats, offering a subset preferentially before offering the rest of the seats if nothing else is left. |
Theatre manager has a feature called
Associated Seats that can be useful for ADA seating setup.
If you associate a group of ADA seats as the primary seat and companion seats, then booking one of them will automatically hold the others for the same patron until you manually release them. |
An ADA requirement includes identification of the ADA seat and what it may mean to the patron (see sample to the right). For a patron requiring accessible seats, it should be clear what they selected. Conversely, you can also direct those who selected the seats in error to find some others.
You cannot prevent anyone buying ADA designated seats -- because the ADA act stipulates that anybody, ablebodied or not, can buy them on behalf of another. Fraud detection must be done after the fact (according to the act).
If you have multiple accessible sections, you could call them ADA1, ADA2, etc. and provide an individual search for each one.
However you may need to change your seat map so that the pricing of any seats in the ADA area match the proportion of seats in the entire house. For example, if your venue has:
Note that our reading of the act does not state that all accessible tickets purchased by one person need be at the same price. That could mean that the accessible seats could be set up explicitly so that their prices match an exact proportion of the ticket prices in the rest of the venue.
There is also a fairness reading of how to set prices according to the act. If all your accessible seats are amongst your 'A' tickets, then you must follow the proportional pricing approach and make some price 'B' and 'C' seats available.
If all your accessible seating is amongst the 'C' area due to how the venue was constructed, then you will need to make the accessible seating at a 'C' price because you cannot arbitrarily charge more just to maintain proportionality. The principle cited in the act is that the price must be the same as if an able-bodied person was to purchase a ticket in that area.
Once you have decided how many accessible tickets you want at each pricing area as appropriate for your venue, you enter that into the venue setup under the 'Seat Names' tab. Look for the column named 'Price Codes' and enter the Price codes against the ADA accessible seats - see the sample below.
Specifically, you will see in this venue that only 3 seats are marked ADA (982,983,984) and they have been given price codes A (seat 982), B (seat 983) and C (seat 984) as per proportionality and seating area for this venue.
If you do hold seats that are released periodically, you will also need to hold accessible seats in proportion to the public seats that are held back. (eg, if you hold 10% of a house for later, you need to hold 10% of the accessible seats). The interpretation of the act is very specific that the venue can exclude from the held count those seats count held for promoters, actors, and others held under contract.
Implementing this in Theatre Manager is quite straightforward.
You can, however, use a feature in Theatre Manager web sales process to require people, at time of checkout, to read terms and conditions prior to accepting the credit card and completing the sale. Theatre Manager records that the person has validated reading the conditions.
In those terms and conditions, you may put a policy wording that is supported by the act such as people 'attest' that they need the ADA seats if they purchased some and that they agree they may be moved under circumstances provided for in the act.
You may also want to put wording about scalpers, secondary sales, a link to your your box office policies, etc in the terms and conditions. Theatre Manager records that people clicked the checkbox on the web detail screen.
Requiring people to 'accept terms and conditions' of the sale is done by:
Section (f) is about ticketing, applies directly and is reproduced below.