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Description Tab

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The Description tab of the Pricing Map contains the key information about how the pricing map will be used to sell tickets. It contains the map data, size, valid price zone codes, how it can be used online, and how searching for seats can occur.

Pricing Map Name and Capacity
Pricing Map Number System generated number for the specified graphic map.
Internal Pricing Map Name The internal name is only be visible to internal Theatre Manager users. You can use this to designate things like 'venue - 2 price zones' or 'venue - summer season' to distinguish between uses of the price maps
External Pricing Map Name External name for the map and visible to patrons on web and ticket faces.
Active Indicates if the map can used or not and if it is to be used for reports.
Physical Seats This is the maximum number of people that can fit legally into the performance space. For some events, not all seats may be sold to the public.
Reporting Capacity The seating capacity of the theatre to be used in reports. The venue may have more seats than are allowed to be sold. The Reporting Capacity allows you to generate reports against what you are able to sell as opposed to what you have in the venue.

To be clear: the reporting capacity is almost always the same as the physical seating capacity. You can make it less than the number of physical seats. If you do this:

  • It is typically because you have standing room or pit seats that are on the map, but you are not going to sell -- and generally they are held
  • your reports will show you at 100% capacity when you hit the reporting capacity. You can have greater than 100% sales in this case if you sell more than the reporting capacity. Everybody knows there are still seats to sell, but you will look full.

When might it be different?

The feature is really only intended to be used if you have a scaled house for actor equity purposes and equity lets you sell your venue at a lower size. You would be holding these 'standing room' tickets -- which equity has allowed you to have for overflow crowds only. If you need the extra seats, you then pay actor equity rates for the expanded venue site to use all seats for that performance.

Online Availability is affected by this number

Online Availability is based on quantity to report for 100% sold out. The 'Buy' button in online sales counts all holds in the equation.

The performance is 100% sold out online when SOLDS PLUS HOLDS >= QUANTITY TO REPORT

eg.
  • If:
    • there are 600 seats in house
    • quantity to report is 200. (meaning you are 100% sold out at 200 tickets)
  • Then:
    • If you hold or sell any combination of 200 tickets, you are considered sold out ONLINE even though there would be 400 available seats in the house.
    • If you decide to increase the reporting amount, then you will only have that many more tickets to sell.
    • Box office is not limited by this number - they can sell as many as you want
Note: Reporting Capacity includes all holds in its calculations of 100% full. Optionally, you can specify that it excludes social distance holds (typically the letter 'q'). Doing so means:
  • these holds would not be counted in the total sold online.
  • which allows using the reporting capacity to limit online sales to a specific amount of seats
The pricing map setting is the global default and can be overridden on a per performance basis
Where else can this be used as an effective sales strategy?

If you have a general admission venue where you should only have 300 seats, then you can set the available capacity at 350 and the reporting capacity at 300. This will limit online sales to 300.

However, at the box office, you can 'oversell' the event - like airlines - based on your own calculated no-show factor.

Price Codes Enter the allowable base price zone categories. It is suggested to have no more than 5 or 6 base price zones in any theatre if possible and best if they do not overlap.

Some times you many need to use a two sets of pricing zones in your venue. eg:

  • A-Z for regular ticket price zones
  • 1-9 for subscription price zones - which may overlap the regular price zones since subscriptions are typically based on a different starting price
Best Seat Plug-In The number of the plugin used for searching for seats in this theatre.
Theatre The Venue Map to which this Pricing Map is associated.
Reserved Seating Web Search Options
Enable seat search by section A checkbox to allow use of the Best Seat Search tab contents by online patrons.
Enable seat search by price code A checkbox to allow use of the Price Code Search tab contents by online patrons.
Enable pick your own seats A checkbox to allow use of the Pick-your-own search online. For this to be enabled, you must have:
Reserved Seating JPEG map size
Height Pricing Maps are created by dropping an SVG file onto the Graphic Map tab. They are converted to a JPEG automatically for display purposes by the TM server.

SVG images, by definition, are scaleable vector graphics. It mans that they can scale up or down to any size you want.

  • On the web - this is handled automatically by the web pages which constrain the area that the map is displayed for pick-your-seats.
  • At the Box Office, you need to decide what size of image area in which you want the constrain the SVG map to be displayed (value is in pixels).

    Most monitors are 72, 96 or 144 pixels per inch (as in current retina displays). If you want the SVG image to be displayed in an area in the sell window 4.25 inches high on a retina display, then enter 612 = 4.25 * 144 pixels.

Width This is normally blank if you want the SVG map converted to a JPEG with the same ratio in the X and Y coordinates (eg, if the SVG is converted 150% size in height, the width will be converted by the same ratio.

However if you want the SVG to have a different scale factor for width, you can specify a pixel width in this fields.

Other Fields and buttons
Notes Notes for the venue.
SVG ToolTip Format You can add tooltips for seats in the online pick-your-own seat process to assist patrons data about their seat selections. You can put any combination of:
  • text - if that will help the user
  • keywords - such as {section} or {note}. Right click on the field to see a list of the valid keywords and pick it to insert the keyword
  • New line characters - if you want to vertically space the text as per the example above separating {section}/{row}/{seat} and {note}
Examples:
  • {section}/{row}/{seat} -> shows section/row/seat like 111/A/101
  • Section: {section} Row: {row} Seat: {seat} -> shows section/row/seat like Section: 111 Row: A Seat :101
  • Seat {seat} in Row (row) -> shows like Seat 101 in Row A

The keywords are below and can be in any order in the tooltip format

  • {door} - uses the door column from the seat names table
  • {section} - uses the section name column from the seat names table
  • {row} - uses the row column from the seat names table
  • {seat} - uses the seat column from the seat names table
  • {note} - uses the note column from the seat names table, but only if the Use column is set non-zero.
Insert PPT File Most graphic maps are created using Powerpoint - and you can save the source file as part of the database by either dragging the .PPT document onto the button, or clicking the button to find the map. Once the PPT is in the database, you can export it in the future if you want to make changes to the other graphic maps.

If the button says 'Insert PPT File', then you have not yet imported one. If the button says 'Update PPT File', you will be replacing the original version with the new version.

Insert SVG File Online maps are displayed using SVG graphics. Pick your own seats also uses the same map. This is created from your PPT and merged with seat locations used at the box office so that the online and box office maps look quite similar. However, because they are separated, you have the opportunity to make more stylized maps online.

If the button says 'Insert SVG File', then you have not yet imported one. If the button says 'Update SVG File', you will be replacing the original version with the new version.

Reserved Seating Map Status
Seats Placed on Box Office Map Indicates if all the seats have been placed on the graphic image. This is required for reserved seating sales through the graphic inteface.
Seats Placed on SVG Map Indicates if all the seats have been placed on the SVG image. This is required for pick your own reserved seating sales through internet
All Seats Have Been Named A flag indicating of the seats have been named for the theatre. This is required for a reserved seating event to take place in the theatre.