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Author Topic: Point of Sale Systems, what do you use? Dan Biegner Film Handler Posts: 13 From: Northampton, MA USA Registered: Dec 2010 posted 02-21-2011 02:38 PM                     Not a big fan of TicketPro & PrintTix. We have a small theater and only have four total POS stations (2 ticket, 2 concessions, although one we use for both, although you can't ring up tickets and concessions on one computer, which they have told us they will change it so we can ring both up on one screen, but this has been in the talks for months and I'll believe it when I see it.) Crashes all the time. Often puts the amount tendered as the total number of things being sold (which causes all sorts of problems). And having two box offices open can actually lead to overselling the theater. And they hardly ever get back to us in a speedy, reliable fashion. RTS is pretty ok. I liked it better than TicketPro. First theater I worked at though, we used the good ol' fashioned paper and counting method! Had numbered tickets and just kept track of starting ticket numbers and ending ticket numbers of each day and did the same thing with stock! Old school.  |  IP: Logged Geena Phillips Expert Film Handler Posts: 198 From: Norcross, GA / USA Registered: Apr 2006 posted 07-11-2011 03:33 AM                        Vista POS (no relation to Windows Vista; in fact, you can't run it in Windows Vista!) is horrifyingly bad.  |  IP: Logged David Zylstra Master Film Handler Posts: 432 From: Novi, MI, USA Registered: Mar 2007 posted 07-11-2011 08:32 AM                     Our Vista POS is perfectly fine, and I recall there is a way to make the client software work under Windows Vista (we jumped right to Windows 7 skipping Vista completely). I have used several other POS systems in the past and I would rank Vista at or near the top of the list.  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 07-11-2011 02:44 PM                        I've been using Venue by Retriever Software at both of our company's cinemas for 12+ years. It's a fairly dynamic system with good reporting. The one downside is the selling terminals still run on DOS so there isn't much flexibility with hardware; however, they are in the process of writing code for Windows. Tech support is usually very responsive and the system is pretty stable. One nice thing is the terminals will run in stand alone if there is an interruption in the network. Retriever also offers on-line ticketing, digital signage, a corporate module for pulling together data from multiple locations, and credit card processing. I have been using RTS at our drive-in for about 4 years now. I really don't care for it. I find RTS to be overly complicated for setting up new concession items - and getting it wrong can create cash shortages that don't really exist. I also find the reporting to insufficient. I understand RTS is fairly responsive about building custom reports, but I haven't tried this yet myself. One area where RTS wins over Venue is hardware. Because RTS is Windows based, you can pretty much use any off the shelf hardware. For example, I am running my box office with a mouse and keyboard after the touch screen died. Unfortunately, RTS stations will not work if there is a disruption in the network. I have also found RTS tech support to be responsive and helpful. The first theatre I worked for used the old Pacer system. While that system was clunky and inflexible, I have a certain affection for it after spending a lot of time learning how to use it. But I would never actually want to go back to it.  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 07-11-2011 05:19 PM                     quote: Justin Hamaker The one downside is the selling terminals still run on DOS so there isn't much flexibility with hardware; however, they are in the process of writing code for Windows. If you're planning on using newer computers, you could first test out how the old DOS-based software does running on freedos (which can be installed on newer hardware quite easily).  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-10-2011 10:44 PM                        We got a new computer with Windows 7 in our office last month. We experienced quite a few problems while running RTS -- the system would lock up and then crash, giving the "blue screen of death." The problem seemed to get worse as time went on. I called RTS Support twice about the problems and they were their usual selves: Unfriendly and acting like it was a big pain in the butt to take a phone call. (Their sales people are as nice as can be but the support...not so much.) They said, "It must be a Windows problem." Our computer dealer (who is also a friend of mine) did everything from swapping out the hard drive and memory, tweaked a bunch of settings, etc etc. We finally left the computer with him for a week during which he ran exhaustive checks on the system and found no problem with the computer, but found that RTS had a "memory leak" due to some cause which I couldn't fathom what the #%$@ he was talking about. He was able to fix it but I don't quite understand the exact process he used. I'm not going to post his explanation here due to the private-email rule. (If anyone is having this same problem with Win7, PM me and I'll send you his detailed explanation.) Bottom line, we got the machine back, all is well again, and I'm thinking once again about switching to Sensible Cinema. (Our RTS license is up in December.) I've got their trial version here and am just starting to fiddle with it tonight. I really do like the look of their interface a lot better than RTS and from the surface, it looks like a good program.  |  IP: Logged

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