How to Avoid “Musical Chairs” During Walk-In

Make sure the right butt gets into the right seat!

• Scan Tickets at the Door
  • The first and most crucial step is that you should always make sure to scan tickets at the door ahead of your event. There are a few important benefits:
    • Security – scanning tickets lets you know who is in the venue and what percentage of ticket-buyers actually attend the event
    • Chargebacks – if someone files a chargeback with their bank, you can prove their ticket was used by showing a scan report and win the claim
    • One person per seat – someone with a ticket for a different night might accidentally slip past a ticket-taker who is manually checking tickets 

• Remove any duplicate seat numbers
  • In your venue, you should make sure that you do not have any duplicate seat numbers. For example, if your venue is a traditional proscenium auditorium, you likely have 3 sections; Left, Center, and Right. Each section should not begin with Row A Seat 1. 
  • Left should be odds (1, 3, 5, 7, 9), the right should be evens (2, 4, 6, 8, 10), and the center section should be in the 100s (101, 102, 103, 104).
    • PRO TIP: The more sections in your venue, the more variations of numbers you should use, for example, large venues like Radio City Musical Hall use 100s, 200s, 300s, etc, and have rows from A-Z and AA-ZZ

• Make it easy for your audience to find their seat quickly
  • Rows should be alphabetical and Seats should be numerical. This quick visual differential helps your guests easily identify which character is the seat and which character is the row.
  • Skip over rows I and O. Did you ever wonder why most seat maps go A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P? It’s because depending on the ticket font those letters may appear as numbers. To avoid this potential confusion, many venues will skip those letters for the rows. 

Following these 3 simple tips will ensure a smoother walk-in for your house manager, ticket-takers, ushers, and box office staff.

Happy ticket-taking and see you next Tuesday!