Managing Conferences through Theatre Manager

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#1

Hello Theatre Manager Hive Mind,

First off Thank You Arts Man team for creating this forum for us all to use, learn and build a stronger community.

Sorry if this is not in the correct section.

Vancouver TheatreSports is hosting the International TheatreSports Institute conference in fall 2019 and I am overseeing registrations. I would love to hear from others who have managed multifaceted, multi venue conferences through Theatre Manager. What worked well and what didn’t? What is your preferred method of sale? Flex Pass, Season subscription, individual events? We are looking at 200 - 500 participants with some sessions being closed and others open to the public.

I am open to all options thoughts and lessons already learned.

We have to offer special member rate packages in addition to Early bird rates and full priced packages.

Many thanks
Holly :smiley:

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#2

Hi Holly! Isn’t it amazing how quickly conferences get complicated from a sales standpoint? We’re definitely still learning and thus far haven’t dug into individual session/venue booking, so I’m afraid I can only speak in generalities. I suspect the best option really depends on how many choices a patron is making during the sale process. A pass is nice easy sale and could be setup for a patron to go in and make a controlled set of redemption choices after the fact, but it does require some patron education/guidance since it’s two-step. It’s probably the best option for a large set of options, though, since each individual pass can have its own set of redemption performance options and will result individual tickets for scanning if needed. If have individual tickets for each session isn’t important, then you’ll probably find a general admission package or individual event (perhaps with different performance options) to be the most patron friendly. If you want to give more details, I’m sure the Community can help brainstorm and test options!

#3

Thanks Sophia!
Yes it’s amazing how many layers are required due to precedents set by previous hosts.

  1. We will be running 3 evening stages with up to 6 daytime workshop spaces running simultaneously for a week long festival.
  2. Festival packages require a base price, early bird price as well as a special discount code for society members.
  3. Festival attendees will register for their selected performances and workshop sessions after registering for the festival. Preferably at their own leisure online

We are trying to make it as easy as possible as we will have participants from across the globe attending so ease of booking is important.

In order to accommodate all of the special discount options I was leaning more to the event/performances over passes. Then the members can be provided a discount coupon code to apply at the check out.

I have been thinking about the idea of running it all like a season subscription package, something we do not do here at all.

We use passes all the time, as we sell loads of online Gift Certificates that are setup for online redemption, so that process is pretty streamlined for us now with issuing security codes and redemption instructions. This is possibly an option for once they have purchased their package to issue a flex pass that they use to register for their session options.

I would love to hear what ideas, thoughts and comments the Community have.

#4

Hm, I’m thinking a subscription package might be very clunky for so many options. Could one event hold all your money and serve as the initial registration. Put your member discounts, etc there. After they’ve registered, they can be added to a mail list giving them pre-sale access to a bunch of free performances that represent your stage and workshop options. So, the event may be Day 1 Session 1 and the promotions have the names of the workshop options. They book one workshop option for that event and move on the next one. All “free” because the money lives in the initial registration event already. Just my initial brainstorm - please go poke some holes in that folks! (First one I see is that people don’t do them all, but I’m assuming you will be messaging these attendees anyway so can email explicit instructions and reminders as needed to get the per-registration you need.)

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