Renewals

Navigate to: Menu > Ticketing Integration > Renewals

Overview

Renewals let your loyal bookers keep their seats from one season to the next. When you set up a renewal, Backstage Manager holds the seats your season ticket holders or subscribers bought last time, so they can rebook the same seats for the new season before those seats go on general sale.

For example, if a subscriber sat in Stalls row E, seats 1 and 2 for every show in your 2025/26 season, a renewal holds Stalls E1 and E2 for them across your 2026/27 season. You then send them a personal renewal link by email, or renew them at the box office when they call or visit.

Renewals work well for:

●      Season ticket holders and subscribers renewing their seats for a new season

●      Regular bookers of an annual show, such as the pantomime, rebooking the same seats each year

●      Friends Members or patrons you want to give first choice of their usual seats

Create a renewal

Go to Ticketing Integration > Renewals. In the first panel, New Renewal, set up your renewal:

●      Choose the previous booking you want to renew from. If you are renewing a season ticket, choose the season ticket booking, for example 2025/26 Season Ticket

●      Choose the areas and ticket types you want to include. Only include the sections and ticket types you want people to be able to renew, for example Stalls and Circle Adult and Concession season tickets, but not the Balcony if you are reseating it

●      Choose the booking or bookings you want to renew into, using the New Bookings list. You can tick individual performances or click Select All, for example to include every performance in your new season

●      Click Renew Tickets in the top right

Only sales made up to the moment you create the renewal are held. Anyone who buys after that won’t be included, so create the renewal once your previous season has finished selling.

When the renewal is created, a Renewal Complete message shows how many seats were renewed successfully and how many were conflicted. Each conflicted seat is listed by area and seat, for example Back E-1 Conflicted.

A seat is conflicted when:

●      It has already been sold in the new booking, or

●      It is already included in another renewal

Each combination of performance and section can only be used in one renewal. Even if the contacts or tags are different, you can’t include the same performance and section in two renewals. Plan your renewals before you create them, for example one renewal for the Stalls and another for the Circle.

Existing renewals

Once created, your renewal appears in the Existing Renewals panel.

●      Click the info button in the From column to see the areas and ticket types included in the renewal

●      Click the info button in the To column to see the bookings the renewal has been mapped to

●      Click View Contacts to see everyone included in the renewal, listed at the bottom of the screen

Renewals are only issued to the original ticket purchaser. If one person bought seats for themselves and a friend, the renewal goes to the person who bought them.

Send renewals by email

You can send renewal links to everyone in a renewal at once, or to one person at a time. Before you send, you need an email template for your renewal invitation.

Create your renewal email

●      Create an email template, for example Renew Your Season Seats, in Email & Promotions > Template Designs. You can design it in the visual editor or paste in your own HTML

●      Include a link to your storefront with [renewal_link] added to the end of it, for example yourstorefrontlink?v=1[renewal_link]. This is what opens the customer’s personal renewal, so every booking link in the email must include it

●      If you forget to include [renewal_link], you will be alerted when you save the template

Send to everyone in a renewal

●      In the Existing Renewals panel, find the renewal

●      Choose your template under Select New Template

●      Click Send Renewal Links

Send to one person

●      In the Existing Renewals panel, find the renewal

●      Choose your template under Select New Template

●      Click View Contacts

●      Find the contact using the search fields

●      Click Send Contact Renewal Links

Renewal emails are sent as soon as you click the send button, so check your template and your renewal before sending.

Renew at the box office

When a season ticket holder phones or visits the box office to renew, you can process it for them.

●      Go to Ticketing Integration > Renewals

●      Click View Contacts on the renewal in the Existing Renewals panel

●      Find the contact using the search fields

●      Click Renew

This opens the box office sales screen with a bar across the top showing that you are processing a renewal. Click the Info button on the bar to see the seats and ticket types the customer had before. Place the order as normal. The customer is already added to the order, so you don’t need to enter their details.

Renew online

When a customer clicks the link in their renewal email, they are taken to your online booking pages. The performances included in the renewal are available to them, with their held seats. They book as normal, and their contact details are already filled in when they reach the basket.

Tips

●      Set a clear renewal deadline in your email, and plan when held seats will be released for general sale

●      Create renewals as soon as your new season is set up, before any tickets go on sale, to avoid conflicted seats

●      Check the conflicted list after creating a renewal and contact those customers to offer alternative seats

●      Send a test to yourself before sending renewal links to everyone, and check the link opens the renewal correctly

●      Use the Orders Report in Reports & Insights to see who has renewed and who hasn’t, and send reminders