Teachers and administrators have a lot to take care of in their primary roles, before considering additional tasks such as ensuring the school musical and graduation are memorable events for all involved. The time commitment associated with planning these events is often underestimated and can even come out of their after-school hours. While everyone wants to make sure that the event is a success, leveraging technology can significantly reduce the commitment needed, which allows for more time spent on what matters most, teaching.
Trends in Online Ticketing
The online event ticket sales industry grew by almost 13 percent from 2012-2017—and that number is still growing. In a technology-driven world, it’s not surprising that the online event ticket sales industry has grown significantly in recent years. People are busy, and in today’s all-digital environment, consumers have different expectations.
With these trends in mind, there is a clear need for an easy, digital solution to sell tickets for school events. The right event ticketing software will streamline processes, relieving the burden of event planning for schools. This is especially helpful for schools without a full-time event planner, as the work typically falls on teachers. With the help of a ticketing solution, you can ease the event planning process from start to finish and customize the feel of the event to best fit your organization.
Key Considerations When Selecting an Event Ticketing System
There are many important factors to consider when choosing an event ticketing system for your school. We’ll take you through a few of the key considerations and why they’re important.
Select a Platform That’s Built for Schools
One of the most critical things to look for is an event ticketing platform that was designed specifically with schools in mind. There is an opinion that schools are just like other industries and can simply be sold a product designed for another industry that doesn’t necessarily address many of their needs.
InviteRight software solutions were built not only with schools in mind but also with the input of teachers and administrators along the way. Our solutions allow for student lists and data to be integrated from your student information system (SIS) as well as many of the other tools you’re already using.
For events such as graduation, students with outstanding fees are flagged in the system and prompted to resolve those debts before they are eligible to participate. This incentivizes students to pay off debts in order to be able to attend the milestone events of their high school career.
Ease the Payment and Reconciliation Process
When considering an event ticketing system for schools, it is important to look for a system that offers safe, secure payment options and the ability to easily reconcile payments with the accounting department. The best practice for an event ticketing solution is to directly connect with your school's accounting software in addition to your SIS. With this type of solution, you can remove excess manual processes for migrating data and reduce the man-hours required to reconcile accounts.. This assists in payment tracking and significantly reduces the burden of the payment and reconciliation process, allowing school staff to follow transactions per registrant and issue adjustments, refunds, and cancellations if necessary.
Find a System That Improves the Customer Experience
Some systems have features that both greatly unburden the event organizer and improve the customer experience—and that’s exactly what you’re looking for. Seemingly small tasks such as deciding where to seat guests, organizing text or email reminders for attendees, or coordinating the sales of memorabilia often require a larger time commitment than anticipated for the organizer. Look for an event ticketing solution that has the ability to include a seating map, where guests can choose their own seats. This, coupled with capacity limits for the venue, makes event seating a much easier process to manage for the organizer while improving the experience for the purchaser.
Select a Solution with Customization Options
It’s also a good idea to look for a system that offers opportunities for you to customize your end-user’s buying experience. For example, with the ability to customize forms and emails, you can incorporate your school’s colors and mascot with ease. The ability to dictate custom pricing options, such as early-bird specials and presale tickets, is a great way to drive ticket sales for your event. Systems that allow for donations to be made in addition to the ticket purchase can benefit your school’s extracurricular programs. An option to make partial payments can also benefit student populations and increase overall attendance to school events.
One of the most helpful features to look for is custom reporting capabilities. With the ability to generate custom reports, you can access the key metrics that matter most to your organization, such as session attendance, invite responses, payment information, and more. You can create, export, and share custom reports with supervisors and other members of your team to streamline the event reporting process.
Look for a Cost-Effective Solution
Budget is always an important consideration. When you’re searching for an event ticketing system for your school, look for cost-effective solutions that charge a one-time fee up front and a small fee per ticket sold. This is a much better model than paying monthly or annually for the use of a platform, as it won’t lead to wasted dollars for schools with few events per year.
In Summary
There are many reasons why an event ticketing system can be a game-changer for your school. With that said, it’s important to look for a solution that offers the key features that will help streamline the event planning process. Overall, make sure to look for a cost-effective ticketing system that eases the payment process, unburdens the event organizer, offers customization options, and was ultimately built with schools in mind.
Are you curious about event ticketing systems and how they can dramatically improve event planning at your school? Schedule a free demo to learn more about InviteRight and how our platform eases the process from start to finish.
