It's never pleasant to have to cancel an Event. Below are a list of steps to follow that assist with the Refund or Exchange process.
Step | Purpose |
Step 1 | Take the Performance(s) off sale
If the Event has cancelled, its important to make sure patrons can no longer purchase tickets to the Performance. Tickets can still be refunded when the Performance is no longer available for sale. However the Event should not be closed as this prevents financial transactions and the refund process.
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Step 2 | Run a Tickets Sold by Price Code and Promotion report.
Often a count of the number of tickets sold is requested after the refund process has taken place. Generating this report will provide a count and breakdown by promotion for future reference. |
Step 3 | Run a Revenues by Payment Method-Ticket Based report.
This report will tell you the number of tickets sold based on Payment Method. If the Promoter will be charged a percentage fee on credit card transactions, this report will determine the value of tickets purchased on cards. |
Step 4 | Any other Sales reports traditionally used for settlement.
Each organization varies in their process for completing a settlement. Generate all reports traditionally required as a part of the settlement. Once the tickets have been refunded this information is no longer available. |
Step 5 | Run a Transaction History List report.
We recommend generating this report using the criteria Ticket Count-Times Printed. Run the report once with a count of 0 and PDF or print the resulting report. Run the report again with a count of 1 or more and PDF or print the results. This will give you a count of the number of tickets printed. If the Promoter is responsible for paying a fee per printed ticket this report will provide your count on the final page. It will also provide a list of patrons who purchased the tickets. |
Step 6 | Generate a Mail List of patrons who purchased to the Event.
Generating a Mail List before refunding the ticket will provide a list of patrons who need to be contacted regarding the cancellation of the Event. It can also be helpful in contacting patrons should the Event book again in the future. |
Step 7 | Contact Patrons to inform them of the cancellation.
There are several methods that can be used to contact patrons. Using the mail list above you could:
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Step 8 | Refund tickets and process the credit owed to patron.
There are several methods that can be used while refunding tickets to the patron. The options are listed below:
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Step 9 | Exchange the Tickets.
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When a decision to cancel an event is made, there are lots of moving pieces to manage. The box office is focused on how to handle patrons who have purchased tickets to the cancelled event. Take a moment to decide on the best practice for the organization before starting any exchanges or refunds.
Things to consider when facing overwhelming task of managing large amount of ticket transactions for patrons:
Refunding patrons with multiple events like season subscribers is a good place to start. These patrons can be further divided into refund sub groups for en mass refunding: