Nurses Night at the ballpark. Mr. Allen’s Retirement retirement bash. Acme Corporation day on the Boardwalk.
Group ticket sales can be a great way to boost revenue for your event or attraction. They can help fill seats on slow days, introduce new fans to your venue, and even increase merchandise sales.
Before we dig into the benefits and how-tos of Group Sales, let’s clarify what they are exactly.
The type of group sales we’re talking about today should not be confused with bundled tickets, where you might offer a discounted price for purchasing a minimum of 10 tickets, for example. Passage’s Group Sales feature allows you to block off a section of seats from public sales, and provide a private link to members of the group who can then purchase tickets individually. They’re great for professional appreciation days (e.g. First Responders Night), large birthday parties, school field trips, family reunions, and corporate outings.
Why offer Group Sales?
When you offer a group a dedicated area just for their members, they’ll help spread the word about your event for you. It’s free marketing!
Group Sales can help you fill up seats in your venue as well. If you are typically sold out on Fridays and Saturdays, for example, offer Group Sales packages for Sunday-Thursday events; you might get dozens of extra folks through the door on a date that’s usually slow. Not to mention the extra revenue from concessions and merchandise sales.
Speaking of merchandising, groups will often purchase custom t-shirts for their members to wear during the event. If you’re able to support custom merchandise requests, you can bring in additional revenue from that large group order.
You can offer Group Sales at a special rate (which only those group members have access to) or at your normal ticket price. It’s up to you!
Ready to set up Group Sales for your event?
Here’s how to do it.
Use the Group Sales option found under your Bundles tab to reserve a selection of seats for the group.
Setting up a group sale will hide that selection of seats from the public seating chart so that these seats are only accessible to people that use the custom, private link provided for the group.
If you are not using assigned seating charts for your events, you can use private time slots to offer group sales or special pricing.
Set up a group sale by clicking the Bundles tab in your admin area, selecting the Group Sales option, then clicking the New Group Sale button. This will bring up the Group Sales settings:
- Group Name: For your identification on the admin dashboard.
- Event: Select the event by name to pull up its time slots. Then, choose a time slot to pull up the seating chart.
- Select Seats: Click into the section(s) on your seating chart and select the seats you want to be reserved for the group. Then, assign the custom price level by either choosing an existing option or creating a new one. If creating a new price level, click “Save Price Level” before continuing.
- Valid Start Date: Set the date and time for these group sales to go online.
- Valid End Date: Set the date for these group sales to no longer being offered.
- Max Per Order: If you need individual customers to be limited to a certain number of tickets, enter that number here.
- Password: If you want to add an extra layer of security, enter a password here. This will require users to submit the password before accessing the reserved seats.
Clicking the “Save Group Sale” button will make it live. After saving the group’s custom sale, a private URL will be shown above the Group Name. You can click that link to test that it’s working as you want it to, or copy the URL to forward it on to the group.
Now, your Group Sales are ready to rock and roll. You can create as many Group Sales pages as you like, and you can even have multiple group areas reserved on the same day for your event.
If you need help setting up Group Sales, reach out to our support team. We’d be happy to do the leg work for you.
