Veezi - Multivisit Passes for Film Programmes/Festivals?

[Adam Towill]

Hey all.

For those of you who use Veezi (Vista's offering for small/independent cinemas) for their ticketing, how do you deal with the following scenario?

We're running a programme of X number of films, together as a programme. They're $20 each, except in a few rare circumstances. We're hoping to offer a 10 for $150 or something similar - give or take a few visits or dollars.

The problem is: Veezi says no can do - they're not set up to do it.

My current thoughts are: Create a set of gift card barcodes at a value of $150, and clearly brand the cards as for that particular programme. Additionally, include markings for stamping/hole punching, so customers can keep up with how many they've used. You can't restrict the use of a gift card to a particular programme - as in, a customer could theoretically redeem their $150 on anything - so it would rely upon staff using them correctly at the point of sale. We don't have online ticketing at this stage, so that wouldn't be an issue. This scenario means that the sale can be registered in the system as $150 on the day that it is purchased, and redeemed one by one across the course of the programme, which would mean that reporting would be accurate for both initial sales, as well as day to day balances and reporting.

My other thought is: Simply create a stamp card/punch card, and sell it as an item, rather than a ticket. At each sale, staff stamp or punch the card, and tap a button to issue the ticket, to the value of $15. This would keep reporting correct, but it would require additional work to reconcile uses of the card - for each $15 ticket sold with a punch card, end of day cash or card is going to be out by $15.

I'm not hugely thrilled about either option, and I was hoping that there'd be a cleaner, more official way of dealing with this, but given there isn't, do let me know what you've come up with to deal with the same scenario.

Thank you.

Adam

[Randy Stankey]

Sell them as ticket vouchers, not live tickets. The customer buys a voucher that they can use to buy a ticket for free. (They already paid for it.)

The reason for doing this is because it keeps your head counts right. If you sell live tickets, your computer will show the number of tickets sold, not the actual number of people in the theater. If you sell vouchers that have to be traded in for a live ticket, your accounting will be easier, as well. You'll know how many vouchers you sold, how much money you should have in the till and you'll know the actual head count and empty seat count, at showtime.

Your idea of a punch card is almost the same as a voucher system so, if that's what you like better, you can go with that.

[Adam Towill]

Your idea of a punch card is almost the same as a voucher system so, if that's what you like better, you can go with that.

That's sounding like the cleanest, least confusing method.

I jumped on there quickly to have a play with that, to see what options there are. If I go into Concessions > Add Item > Add Custom Item, I can make an item and set Item Class as Vouchers and Coupons. It warns me though: "Do not create ticket vouchers for redemption here. They should be created using the Add Ticket module. The item will be created automatically once the ticket has been created with a type of Redemption - Sold as an Item."

If I then go to Tickets > Ticket Types > Add Ticket, I can set the Ticket Type as Redemption - Sold as an Item. I'm guessing that means that we're not inadvertently linking into or affecting the Gift Cards/Vouchers system by using the Vouchers and Coupons item class?

I'm always reluctant to add or edit things in Veezi until I'm 100% sure about them, because a lot of the options are quite ambiguous, and it seems as though once you commit to something, it's incredibly difficult to go back and change/fix it.

Further to those options, there's the option of Is Package? If I set this overall item as Ticket Class: Other Vouchers, and give it a price of $150.. I could then create an "Event - Voucher" ticket that is $15 instead of $20, and add ten of them to this item? Or.. Can you add ten of the "Event - Standard" tickets that are priced at $20 to this item; the item will still sell for $150; and the redeemed value for each ticket that is claimed and declared to the film distributors is $15? (I'm thinking that: You can make a drink and popcorn combo, and it sells at the combo price, and you don't have to make differently priced entries for the drink and popcorn that will be included in the combo.)

This should theoretically satisfy:

Selling ten $20 entries for a discounted price of $15 per entry.
Sales of the voucher are reported as income on the day that they are sold.
The value of the entry ($15) is reported on the day that the ticket is valid for.

In terms of redemption of these vouchers, how is that achieved? I've only ever used the ones that have barcodes attached, and redeem them that way? We ended up only ever selling gift cards with variable value at the last place I worked at, so that is all I'm really familiar with. Trying to solve this particular circumstance is quite new to me.

I do rather wish that Veezi had more detailed documentation..

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

From my time managing a 4 plex and running a few special film "mini festivals", I have one question. Why? (OK, so I have more than one...)

What is "X" number of films? If it is less than 25 or more, you are creating an accounting nightmare and for what? Net losses of roughly $5 or more per CUSTOMER per show attended? (Using the numbers you provided)

You mentioned the hassles of punchcards and the difficulty of setting up "Veezi" to handle it. Is it worth the trouble?

How are you going to make up the lost revenue of offering the discount?

What size of crowds are you expecting, and how large are your auditoria? If we're talking in the thousands, PER SHOW, then it MIGHT be worth looking at. Anything under 500-700 per show, again not worth it.

How would the distributors of the films to be shown feel about it? Would you still have to pay the percentages based on full price tickets? (Further eating into YOUR profit margin.)

Bottom line is, most film festivals I ever ran (or went to) the ticket prices were actually HIGHER per show (to cover the extra staffing and other "perks" offered to patrons) or at best, available at the regular ticket prices. Festivals are also chaotic and stressful on the staff, concessions, janitorial, and facility due to the surge in increased patron traffic. (and speaking from a projectionist's point of view, even if you "films" are all DCP's, who's gonna cover all the ingests and playlists? Will you be bringing on extra staffing for the booth operations?)

Second, festivals tend to attract a very specific subset of moviegoers, who would not care or respond to a "voucher " program. The general public will not care and the extreme few who would respond to a festival-type of program would not make up for the hassles incurred.

It's your theatre and your business, so do whatever you want. But after over 40 years in film exhibition, and 5 years as management, I fail to see this as any sort of value, but more as a huge headache and money losing idea.

[Randy Stankey]

I'd say that the concept of a "festival" is kind of a moving target. A theater could play ten films in a row, all in one day or they could play thirty films, one per day, over the span of a month and they could still call each one a "festival." It's really all about how thinly you spread the bullshit.