Whilst Print-at-Home PDF tickets may seem an ideal way to minimize time and effort in processing, printing and mailing out tickets, there’s a few points you need to be aware about such tickets.
The main problem with PDF tickets is that it’s all too easy to simply photocopy or reprint a PDF ticket. Whilst this may not be so much of a problem with reserved seating events, (since two people obviously cannot occupy the same reserved seat) it’s a major problem for general admission events. Even if the PDF ticket is printed with a customer's name and address, there are a number of PDF editing programs which can quite easily edit names and addresses using the same font type and size as the original, making it impossible for a person checking tickets to easily recognize a forged ticket, even if they were to check the ID of a person entering the venue.
The normal solution is to print all PDF tickets with bar codes, (which is done by default with InterTicket) but of course this requires tickets to be scanned at the entrance to the venue. And generally speaking, the scanner must be connected to the live database through an Internet connection. With InterTicket, it is possible to download the bar codes to a file before the event, so the scanner then validates entry based on the bar codes in the downloaded file rather than the online database. But naturally this is somewhat more inconvenient as it would mean shutting off ticket sales before the bar codes are downloaded.
Print-at-Home tickets also rely on the customer owning a suitable printer, which may not always be the case. Of course the customer could take the file to a print shop, but it then turns purchasing a ticket online into a somewhat tedious process. So if offering the option of Print-at-Home PDF tickets to your online customers, it’s always best if possible to offer an alternative such as mailed tickets or exchange vouchers.
PDF tickets offer an excellent opportunity for value adding – by printing sponsor’s logos or messages, offering discount coupons, making special offers or simply notifying patrons of upcoming events. Of course you can also add additional helpful information such a locality map, parking restrictions etc.
The inbuilt ticket designer in InterTicket lets you completely customise your PDF tickets with any text, images, logos or graphics you require, and you can even assign different ticket designs for every event should you wish.
Online customers can also be given the option of receiving an emailed voucher. In this case, the customer receives an e-mail containing a unique voucher number, which they bring to your box office prior to an event. The box office then exchanges the voucher for actual tickets.
Of course the e-mailed voucher could be copied just like a PDF ticket, but assuming you only printed one set of tickets, the second person presenting the duplicate voucher would be denied the issue of any tickets.
Just email us or call the number shown our contact page.
Anyway… last night was our first show using the Tickets system, and all-in-all it went stupendously!!! I’m glad we found you. You are very nice to work with.
In the UK, other ticketing software was very expensive - for us the Tickets program is perfect. The customer service is second to none.
