Click here, for quick reference information for Venues and Maps

Theatre map graphics or pictures are not required if the venue is used for festival (General Admission) or Traveling Troupe ticket sales. If the intention is to sell reserved seats visually, a graphic representation of the theatre will need to be drawn in a graphic application and then placed into Theatre Manager. At this time, Arts Management recommends using a PowerPoint slide to draw the graphic image as it allows for small file size, and images can be saved in the correct format for both PC and Mac use.

Optimizing Graphic Map Size

You can do a fantastic map with lines circles and colour using vector graphics and the file size will be 50K +/-. Adding a picture can jump the size to a megabyte without trying. Smaller file sizes result in faster performance transferring the maps from the database and building the suggested seat graphics for the web. Theatre Manager limits the graphic map file size to less than 500kb for PC's, less than 200kb for Mac's. Less is more.

Once you have created the graphic in PowerPoint, you can save it - as well as the SVG map - directly within the pricing map setup in Theatre Manager.

As noted earlier in this section, each Venue can contain multiple Pricing Maps.

To add a new Pricing map, click the New button in the Theatre window.



The Pricing Map opens. Click here for more information on the Pricing Map window.



1. Enter the Price Map Name and Capacity information.
2. Enter the Price Codes you wish to use on this Pricing Map.
3. Enable or disable the default Reserved Seating Search options you wish to use for this Pricing Map.
   • Click here for more information about Enabling seat search by section.
   • Click here for more information about Enabling seat search by Price Code.
   • Click here for more information about Enabling Pick Your own Seats online.

   The "Seats Placed" and "Seats Named" checkboxes will automatically populate when the map is complete.

4. When complete, click the Save button.

   

   You can now add the Graphic Map.

5. Click the Graphic Map tab.

   The Graphic Map tab opens. Click here for more information on the graphic map tab.

   

6. Drag and Drop your graphic onto the Graphic Map page.

   

   Click here for information on creating your graphic map in a program outside of Theatre Manager.

   

   You can now add your seats to the map.

When you use reserved seating, you need to place those seats on the graphic map in Theatre Manager. Prior to placing seats on the Pricing map, a graphic representation of the venue must be placed into the graphic map window. Click here for more detail. If the venue is non-graphical or will be used for festival seating (General Admission) or traveling troupe ticket sales, placing seats on the map is not required.

1. Click Setup >> Venue.

   The Venue List window opens.

   

2. Select the Venue, and click the Open button.

   The Theatre window opens.

   

   Click here to learn how to create a map if the map you want has not yet been created.
3. Choose the Map you want to add the seats to and click the Open button.

   

   The Pricing Map window opens.

   Click Here for a detailed description of this window and it's functions.

4. Click the Graphic Map tab.

   

   The graphic map window is displayed. You use the editing tools and the right-click menu tools to add your seats to the map.

5. Decide if the seats will be square or circular.

   Select the appropriate shape button .

   Round seats typically indicate "wheelchair" or ADA access seats.

6. Click Add Grid of Seats button.

   This will open the Add Block of Seats window to add a section of seats. The Add Seat button adds single seats to the map.

   

   Number of Seats	Enter the number of seats to be added. (It will default to the total number of seats remaining to be added to the theatre and will decrease as seats are added).
   Number of Columns	Enter the number of columns (left to right) to place the seats into a grid.
   Spacing Vertical	The number of pixels of vertical spacing (up and down) between the seats.
   Spacing Horizontal	The number of pixels of horizontal spacing (left and right) between the seats.

7. Click the Add button.

   This will place a grid (block) of seats in the upper left corner of the theatre map. Click on one of the added seats and drag the grid of seats into the appropriate place on the theatre map. Continue adding seats (grid by grid) until the total number of seats have been placed on the graphic representation.

   
8. Click the Save button.

   Save frequently while adding seats. If an errors is made the Revert button can be used to return to the last saved point.

9. Select a row or column or seats.

   Place the mouse above the upper left corner of the first seat to select, click and hold the mouse button and encircle the seats to align. Release the mouse to highlight the seats. To select multiple seats hold the <SHIFT> key and click on each seat.

10. Duplicate similar section of the venue as needed.

    	Duplicates selected seats.
    	Flips the selected seats vertically.
    	Flips the selected seats horizontally.
    	Rotates the selected seats 90 degrees to the left.
    	Rotates the selected seats 90 degrees to the right .

11. Align the seats.

    Once all the seats have been placed on the graphic representation, use the alignment buttons to ensure seats are straight within each row and column.

    
    

    Be careful to not align a group of horizontal seats to the left or right (or vertical seats to the top or bottom) as they will "stack" on top of each other, and then need to be deleted and re-added.

    
    

    	Aligns the selected row with the top most seat in that row.
    	Aligns the selected row with the bottom most seat in that row.
    	Aligns the selected column to the left most seat in the column.
    	Aligns the selected column to the right seat in the column.

    
    

    Ensure seats are evenly spaced and distributed using the functions described below.

    	Evenly distributes the selected seats horizontally.
    	Evenly distributes the selected seats vertically.
    	Opens the Distribute Seats Window allowing the selected seats to be distributed both horizontally and vertically.

    A few handy tricks when placing seats: Create a "ruler" out of 6 horizontal seats to use as an alignment guide for vertical columns. Do the same using 6 vertical seats to align rows. This allows you to easily align two seats directly over the last block of seats, two "spaces" representing an aisle, and two more seats directly over the next block of seats. Now you have perfect aisles. When placing seats individually in a horizontal line, place the first (and only the first) seat at the correct height. Place all subsequent seats in that row slightly below the correct height. Then use the alignment tool to bring all the subsequent seats up to the level of the first (and only) perfectly placed seat. The same is true for vertical placement (left and right). If your rows are offset (Row A has 17 seats, Row B has 18 seats, Row C has 17 seats, etc.), once you have the seats roughly placed, select the first seat in every other row by Control+clicking on them, and aligning them to the left or right. Then redistribute the seats in that row based off the perfectly placed first seat. While it may be enticing to place the seats in an arc if your venue is set up this way, because the Box Office will be selecting the seats by drawing a line through them or a box around them, arcs make it difficult to select seats in a single row. The best way to place the seats is always in a straight line. If you have side sections that are identical but oddly shaped (each row is a different length), build one section, then highlight it completely and use the duplicate tool, then the flip tool to add the opposing side.

    
    
12. Click the Save button.

    When all seats are placed the next step is to arrange the seats in a logical order so Theatre Manager can connect each seat to its name. Click here for information on reordering logical seats.

    

13. Select the seat(s) that you want to hold on the graphic map. Then click on the hold tool, and select a letter code to hold the seat(s) with.
14. When you are done, choose the Save Button.

Once you have placed all the seats on the map, the next step is to set those seats into a specific order so that the system can assign them the physical seating descriptions.

Each seat has its own number called a logical seat. The logical seats start numbering at 1, and continue through to the physical number of seats in the theatre. This is analogous to having a serial number stamped under each seat.

Since there are no two theatres, arenas, or performance spaces that are exactly alike, it is very difficult for Theatre Manager to automatically know what the seat names will be in the real world. Each seat in the Map is assigned a logical seat number, and those numbers can be arranged as needed. Once they are in a sequence that is easy to predict, each logical seat number is assigned a name. For example:

• Logical Seat # 1 would really be called Section Right, Row A, Seat 1.

  The "serial numbers" just need to be arranged sequentially, and then named in the same sequence.

1. Click the 123 button on the left of the map.

   

   This shows each logical seat number, in the order that the seats were laid down. The number might be difficult to see, depending on the resolution of the monitor. Zoom in on the map for a closer view or hold the mouse over a seat to see its logical seat number.

2. Select a section of seats to reorder.

   This is done by clicking the mouse outside of a section of seats, holding down the mouse button and dragging a box around the section. Hold the Shift key on the keyboard while dragging a box to select multiple sections.

   If there are multiple sections in the space, it may be easier to reorder the sections one at a time. If the space is arranged in rows and columns, and is roughly rectangular, it can be reordered all at once.

   The reorder routine works horizontally and vertically, so seats must be in even rows and columns to work correctly. If a seat is above another seat, it will be assigned a non-sequential number based on the direction that is being reordered from.

   For venues that have seating on angles, each row may need to be reordered individually to ensure each seat within each row gets the next sequential number.

3. Click the Reorder button.

   

4. Enter the first seat number for the section being reordered.

   If reordering the first section, start with seat # 1. If reordering a section, after having already reordered other sections, make sure the seat number is the next sequential number from the last seat in the section previously reordered. This will ensure logical seat numbers are not taken from seats that have already been reordered.

5. Decide which direction to reorder the seats.

   Seats can be reordered starting in one corner, horizontally then vertically, or vertically then horizontally. Select the starting point from the sets of radio buttons surrounding the yellow square. The note inside the yellow square will indicate the direction Theatre Manager will sort the sequence.

6. Click the Reorder button.
7. Repeat steps 2 through 6 to reorder any other sections.

   Once the seats have been reordered, you are ready to begin naming the seats. For more information of naming seats click here.