Backstage Manager Knowledge Base

Sales & Payments

Locations

Navigate to: Menu > Sales & Payments > Locations

Overview

Locations are the building blocks of Backstage Manager. They describe your actual buildings and every space inside them where you hold performances, rehearsals and events, or where you sell things: your auditoriums, studio, rehearsal rooms, foyers, bars and shop. Add your locations before you add events, products or anything else for sale, because events, tickets and products are all linked to a location.

Your locations

Start with your actual buildings, then add the spaces inside them. For example, a theatre might set up:

●      Buildings: The main theatre building with its address, and any other sites you use, such as a second venue, a production workshop, an off-site rehearsal space or an outdoor summer stage

●      Performance spaces: The Main House, the Studio Theatre and the Foyer Stage

●      Rehearsal and meeting spaces: Rehearsal Room 1, Rehearsal Room 2, the Green Room, the Education Room and meeting rooms for hire

●      Bars and catering: The Main Bar, the Upstairs Bar, the Circle Bar, the Café and an interval ice cream kiosk

●      Retail: The box office shop and a merchandise stand

Adding rehearsal rooms, studios and meeting rooms as locations means you can schedule rehearsals, workshops, classes and room hires against them in Calendar & Scheduling, so everyone can see when each space is in use and you avoid double booking.

Two kinds of location

When you add a location, choose the kind that fits how it will be used:

●      Booking location: For spaces where events take place, such as the Main House, Studio, rehearsal rooms and meeting rooms. Events, performances and room bookings are set up against these

●      E-Commerce location: For places where you sell products, such as the Main Bar, Upstairs Bar, Café, kiosk or shop. Linking products to the right location means interval drinks, programmes and merchandise are recorded against the bar or stand where they were sold, so you can see how each one is doing

Add a location

●      Go to Sales & Payments > Locations and open Layouts

●      Choose whether it is an E-Commerce location or a booking location

●      Enter the location name and address, for example Main House, with your theatre’s street address

●      Add the sections within the location (see Sections below)

●      Choose a layout type, or start a new layout with Mixed Layout, and use the tools provided to draw it

Layout types

●      Seated location: A space with a seating plan, where customers choose their own seats, for example your Main House with Stalls, Circle and Balcony

●      Non-Seated Location: A space with no seating plan, where customers buy a ticket for an area rather than a seat, for example unreserved seating in the Studio, a standing gig in the foyer, a cabaret night with tables, a workshop in a rehearsal room, or an outdoor performance

●      Mixed Layout: A space with both reserved seats and unreserved areas, for example a seated Circle with standing in the Stalls for a concert (see Mixed locations below)

Sections

Each location can be split into as many sections as you need. When you create tickets for an event at that location, you can set different ticket types and prices for each section.

●      Main House: Stalls, Dress Circle, Upper Circle, Balcony and Boxes

●      Studio Theatre: Unreserved seating, or Front Row and General for a thrust or in-the-round layout

●      Access seating: Wheelchair spaces and companion seats, so they can be priced and managed separately

●      Premium areas: A premium band in the centre Stalls or a hospitality box

To add a section to a seating plan:

●      Edit the seating plan and select category

●      Highlight the rows that belong to the section

●      Click the edit sign and name the section, for example Dress Circle

●      When you create an event at this location, you can set a separate price for this section

Mixed locations

A mixed location has both reserved seating and unreserved or standing areas, for example a concert with seated Circle tickets and a standing Stalls.

●      Create a seating plan containing all the reserved sections, and a separate non-seated layout with all the unreserved sections

●      Create a new event using the seating plan, and set up everything for the reserved sections

●      On the event’s information page, click Add Time and add the unreserved sections with the same date and time as the seated performance

●      Edit the settings in Times and Pricing:

●      Set Custom Select Text to the wording customers will see, for example Select Section or Choose where you’d like to be

●      Set the select option to Buttons or Dropdown

●      Set the Custom name for each item in the table, for example Seated Circle or Standing Stalls

●      When customers open the event online, they choose between these options before booking

Help customers find their section online

For a mixed location, a picture of the auditorium helps customers see which section is which.

●      Give all seated sections one colour on your plan and all standing sections another, for example blue for seated and red for standing

●      Take a picture or screenshot of the plan

●      In each section’s name, say which colour it is, for example Seated Circle (blue), and use the Buttons option

●      Upload the image somewhere it can be linked to, and copy its web address

●      Open the event and, in the description, click Source and paste in: <img src="IMAGE_URL" style="height:auto !important; width:100% !important" />

●      Replace IMAGE_URL with the web address of your image

●      Click Save. The picture now appears in the event description online

Seating plans with several levels

For auditoriums on more than one level, such as Stalls, Dress Circle and Upper Circle, you can draw each level as its own floor on a section-based seating plan, up to nine floors.

●      Create a new section-based plan, or open an existing one

●      Draw the first floor, for example the Stalls

●      Click the + button on the floor picker in the bottom right corner of the canvas to add the next floor, for example the Dress Circle

●      Repeat for each level. The + button appears again each time you start drawing a new floor

If you already have a plan with each level drawn as a separate section, add a floor, copy and paste the section onto it, then delete it from the original floor. Click Preview in the top left of the designer to check how it looks to customers, and adjust sections or floors if needed.

You can also create an exploded or flat seating plan, with the sections spread out, from an image of your auditorium.

Tips

●      Set up every space you use, including rehearsal rooms and meeting rooms, so your calendar shows the full picture of your building

●      Add each bar, café, kiosk and shop as its own E-Commerce location so you can compare sales between them, for example the Main Bar against the Upstairs Bar on a busy night

●      Name sections the way your audiences know them, for example Dress Circle rather than Level 2

●      Set up access seating as its own section so it can be priced and held correctly

●      Check your seating plan with Preview before putting any event on sale