Overview

If your venue is using a General Admission schedule and needs to transition to a Timed Ticketing Admission schedule to limit capacity, the following article outlines considerations and steps.


TABLE OF CONTENTS



Considerations When Transitioning to Timed Entry

Ask the following questions for the most efficient and streamlined transition process. These questions cover options in the Event template that may change while transitioning from General Admission to Timed Ticketing Admission.

  • What is your policy on rebooking existing future orders? (Reference Article: Rebooking an Order in ACME Backoffice)
  • If you are using ACME Access Control (AC) devices to scan in guests, what is your new policy on rebooking guests who show up too early or too late for their selected time? (Reference Article: Configuring Events to Allow Auto Rebook at Access Control)
  • Will you use some sort of unique identifier internally to differentiate between tickets sold during restricted access and the original General Admission event?
  • Do you need to update language or visitation rules to reflect the new limited capacities? 

Converting to Timed Entry - A Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1 - Turn off the POS and WEB sales channels on all schedules in your original General Admission Event template (to restrict sales to these channels.


Important Note: Be sure that the time zone on your local computer is the same as your venue's when publishing. Failure to do so will result in your event start times becoming offset by the time difference.




Selling Tickets for Online Purchase Only 

Step 2 - Turn Sales Channels On and Off to Update Available Sales Channels for Ticket Purchases


To allow guest to only purchase tickets online, you can edit your current Event Schedule on your Event Template. This is the easiest way to "deactivate" your original event with minimal steps. It also allows you to easily "reactivate" the event template in the future.


 


 Create a New Event Template

Step 3 - Using your original General Admission Event Template as a baseline, create a new Event Template


When creating a new Event Template using an existing template as the starting point, it is important to review and/or edit the new template.. The values in the new template are copied from your original General Admission template, but  there may be some values you wish to change for new timed entry version. Following are suggested items to review/edit:

Description Tab

  • Review/Edit the template's name in the top left side of the screen
  • Review/Edit the description section
  • Review/Edit the confirmation email language 
  • Review/Edit the custom fields on the Details tab

Pricing Tab

  • Review/edit the price list
  • On the General tab, Review/Edit the options that control ticket sales windows and expiration date
    (Note: If you are not using ACME Access Control the Ticket access control section can be skipped.)
  • On the Members Rules tab, Review/edit the entitlement limits for members buying into this event. [link to article?]
  • On the Coupons tab, Review/edit the available coupons for this event


Important Note: Be sure that the time zone on your local computer is the same as your venue's when publishing. Failure to do so will result in your event start times becoming offset by the time difference.





Create Timed Entry Schedules

Step 4 - Create Timed Entry Schedules (Reference Article: Creating a Timed-Entry Event with a Standard Schedule)

Follow these steps for any many schedules as needed.


Also reference article Moving from Timed Ticketing to General Admission Hours.


Updating the POS Configuration to Include a New Timed Entry Event

The template can be prepared and left in a draft mode until needed. Once the template is published it will be available for sale on any sales channels selected in the schedules. 

The following tasks should be completed before your re-opening but after publishing the template. These options will facilitate a smooth, uninterrupted experience for your guests online and for the visitor services staff at the Point of Sale.


No additional configuration is needed directly in the POS app. The devices assigned this POS Config will receive the updated tile configuration the next time a user logs into the software.


Using a new template means any direct links to the original general admission event, schedule, description page, etc, will no longer work. If you have deep linked to these pages in the past, it is important to update the links. For a seamless guest experience, replace the original event's links with the new events. Follow these steps to navigate out to the main eCommerce event list view to collect the URLs. 

  1. In Backoffice, go to Settings > Company Profile

  2. Click the Consumer page link in the middle of the screen


Other Resources