E-Commerce & Website

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Overview

Your online booking pages are where audiences browse your shows, choose their seats, buy programmes and gift vouchers, and pay. This article explains how to brand your booking pages to match your theatre, choose how the booking journey works online and at the box office, collect the information you need from customers, add your policies, and link your website to your shows.

Brand your booking pages

Make your booking pages look like part of your theatre’s website, with your logo, colours and fonts.

Images

●      Upload Logo: Upload your theatre’s logo. PNG is recommended

●      Background Image: Add a background image, for example your auditorium or current season artwork

General settings

●      Header Height: How tall the header bar is

●      Header Colour: The colour of the header bar, for example your brand colour

●      Logo URL: Where customers go when they click your logo, usually your theatre’s home page

●      Font Type: The font used on your booking pages

●      Button Size: How big the buttons are

●      Font Colour: The colour of headings

●      Background Colour and Background Image: The background of your booking pages

Sales settings

●      Item Button Primary: The colour of the buttons customers click to choose a show or product

●      Item Button Secondary: The colour of those buttons when customers hover over them

●      Cart Button Primary: The colour of the basket button

●      Cart Button Secondary Colour: The colour of the basket button when customers hover over it

Click Save Website Settings when you are done.

Choose what appears on your booking pages

Go to Admin > Settings and open the Storefront settings section. Use the switches to control what customers and box office staff see:

●      Booking Switches: Whether events are available online, at the box office or both

●      Product Switches: Whether products, such as programmes and gift vouchers, are available online, at the box office or both

●      Package Switches: Whether season tickets and packages are available online, at the box office or both

●      Booking Description Switches: Whether show descriptions are shown online, at the box office or both

●      Booking Description Mobile Roll Up: Shorten show descriptions on phones, so customers can reach the booking buttons more easily

●      Auto Print: Whether tickets print automatically at the box office after each sale, or only when staff choose to print

●      Seatmap ticket table: Show a table of ticket types and prices below the seating plan

●      Seatmap Legend: Show a price key beside the seating plan, online, at the box office or both, for example showing which colour is Stalls and which is Circle

●      Marketing Question online: Ask customers a marketing question when they book, for example how they heard about the show

●      Storefront item date online: Show the performance date on each show button

●      Storefront item location online: Show the location name, for example Main House or Studio

●      Storefront Segmentation Online: Show buttons that let customers filter between shows, products and packages

●      Storefront list view: Show shows as a list by default. If set to No, shows appear as tiles

●      Password tickets online: Show the password box online, for password-protected tickets such as Friends priority booking. See the Promo Codes article

To change the web address of your booking pages to a custom one, submit a support case using the Help icon > Cases.

Collect extra information from customers

In the Storefront settings section of Admin > Settings, you can add extra fields to the booking process:

●      Custom Field 1, 2 and 3: Up to three extra questions, for example a school name for group bookings, a membership number, or access requirements

●      Custom Date: A date field, for example date of birth for a young people’s scheme, or a membership renewal date

●      Custom Date & Time: A date and time field, for example a preferred collection time

For each field, you can choose:

●      Whether it appears online, at the box office or both

●      Whether it is saved to the customer’s contact record, so you can use it for future bookings and audiences, or only against that order. By default, answers are saved only against the order

Custom fields saved to contact records can also be used to filter audiences in Contacts & Relationships > Audiences.

Choose how the booking journey works

Go to Admin > Settings to choose how customers and staff pick their tickets. You can set this separately for:

●      Back Office: Sales made by your box office team

●      Online: Online sales on desktop and laptop computers

●      Mobile: Online sales on phones

Choose from three layouts:

●      Section Table: All sections and ticket types are shown in one table. Best for shows with only a few ticket types, and for customers buying tickets in more than one section

●      Section Buttons: Each section has its own button, for example Stalls, Circle and Balcony. Recommended for shows with more than one section, as it avoids a long list of ticket types

●      Section Dropdown: Customers choose the section from a dropdown menu. Useful when there are lots of sections

Add your policies and questions

Go to Admin > Settings to add the following. These apply to your whole organisation:

●      Refund Policy, Privacy Policy and Terms of Service: Enter your policies in the boxes provided, for example your exchange and refund policy for cancelled performances

●      Customer Question / Order Note: An optional question shown when customers enter their contact details, for example Is there anything we should know about your visit? You can see the answers in your reports by turning on the answer column

●      Marketing opt-in question: Change the wording of the marketing opt-in question, for example Keep me up to date with shows and offers from the theatre. If left blank, the default question is used. A customer’s choice can be changed on their contact record

Link your website to your shows

Each event, location and category has its own web address, so you can link straight to it from your theatre’s website, emails and social media.

●      Go to Calendar & Scheduling > Events and select an event. The link buttons appear at the top of the page. Click one to open the page and copy its address

The links available are:

●      Booking URL: A link straight to one show, for example a Book Now button on the show’s page on your website

●      Location URL: A link to every show at one location, for example everything on in the Studio

●      Storefront URL: A link to your full booking pages, for example a What’s On or Book Tickets button in your website menu

●      Categories URL: A link to a list of shows with the same category tag, for example all your family shows, comedy or Christmas shows

●      Season Ticket / Package URL: A link to a season ticket or package, found by clicking View on the bundle

Products have their own links on their Product Info page. See the Products article.

Your booking pages can’t be embedded inside another website in a frame. Link directly to them instead, using the links above.

Tips

●      Match your booking pages to your website’s colours and fonts, so customers feel they are still on your site

●      Use Section Buttons for your Main House, so customers choose Stalls, Circle or Balcony before seeing ticket types

●      Turn on the Seatmap Legend so customers can see prices by area on the seating plan

●      Save custom fields to the contact record if you will need the information again, for example a membership number

●      Test the booking journey on a phone as well as a computer before a big on-sale