# Goodbye Tixato, hello... who?



## AsherSB (Dec 9, 2015)

I noticed today that tixato was shutting its doors, no longer taking new customers and discontinuing support summer 2016. My theater never moved to the platform, but we were planning to soon, and I know many other small theaters are now out in the cold. Right now we use brown paper tickets and a notebook to track sales and payments, with at the door payments made using square. It's a bad system made worse by often unreliable volunteers, and we need an upgrade. Now, without Tixato, the question is who next? Ticketing can be hard world to navigate, with few providers offering both rich feature sets and reasonable prices, they did both. Any suggestions for a new platform?


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## TheaterEd (Dec 10, 2015)

I'm moving back to http://seatyourself.biz/
Pretty quick responses on customer service and comparable prices to tixato. I just made the move to tixato for our show last October, and our next show won't let us use tixato anyways, so I guess I was already prepared for this....


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## kevinatblinn (Dec 10, 2015)

ArtsPeople (formerly Ticket Turtle) has worked out well for us. Good customer service. No surprises in pricing, unlike some others out there. There's three plans, we go with 75 cents flat rate for each paid ticket no matter how much the ticket costs. CC fees are standard, or you can use your own gateway. Important to us is that free events, comp tickets, and other free tickets are free. We could use them for retail sales, but those get charged a 75 cent per transaction fee too, which is really steep and requires a hefty minimum at the concession stand to make up that fee. We print tickets with a Dymo label maker on name-badge stock I get from Amazon.
Kevin (At Blinn)


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## AsherSB (Dec 11, 2015)

Seatyourself seems like brown paper, but with less control. As for ArtsPeople, I looked at it a while ago but I didn't try it because it didn't list prices, so I assumed they'd be high. How user friendly is it? I can set up the shows, but for sales it needs to be simple enough for volunteers and easy online, but it's definitely an option.


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## MarshallPope (Dec 13, 2015)

We recently switched to eTix from Ticket Sage and have been quite happy with it.


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## kevinatblinn (Dec 13, 2015)

AsherSB said:


> Seatyourself seems like brown paper, but with less control. As for ArtsPeople, I looked at it a while ago but I didn't try it because it didn't list prices, so I assumed they'd be high. How user friendly is it? I can set up the shows, but for sales it needs to be simple enough for volunteers and easy online, but it's definitely an option.


I have found Arts People to be user friendly for me. Reports are sometimes tricky, but that may be my math skills and not their's. It's definitely easy online. We sell tickets for all events starting at www.blinn.edu/boxoffice, and you can do direct-to-show links like those starting at www.blinn.edu/performingartsseries. We use a dymo printer with name badge stock for our tickets.


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## James Gardner (Dec 14, 2015)

When we had the theater open, through July, we used Arts People (ticket Turtle) for almost two years. We had our own credit card account and machine, so we tied the account to that.

Once you go through the training, setting up shows, performances and special pricing is easy. We had difference rates, for different performances (previews, opening night, etc) we also had Season Passes, comps and cast pricing.

Tickets were printed on a Dymo Printer using the stock purchased from the supplier that they recommended. We actually had a company that sponsored our tickets and purchased the ad space on the back of each ticket to we had custom ticket stock with our logo already printed on it.

All in all, it was a very slick system that was easy to use, and their customer service was great.

Jim
former Box Office Manger/Tech Director, Steps Off Broadway


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## SHCP (Dec 16, 2015)

We use Arts-people as well. Very good customer service and reasonable prices.


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## TheaterEd (Dec 17, 2015)

Gotta be honest. It bugs me that Art-People won't list their price structure.


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## James Gardner (Dec 17, 2015)

When we setup with them I was told the reason they don't list their pricing on the website, and only give it out after speaking with a Rep. is because they have numerous different price plans and different setups, that can get very confusing if they are not explained. Especially if you start getting into using your own credit card account and not theirs.

Just my $0.02

Jim


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## chausman (Dec 17, 2015)

James Gardner said:


> When we setup with them I was told the reason they don't list their pricing on the website, and only give it out after speaking with a Rep. is because they have numerous different price plans and different setups, that can get very confusing if they are not explained. Especially if you start getting into using your own credit card account and not theirs.



However there are many people who are fully capable of understanding how those kinds of plans work and being able to look through some of the pricing structure helps them determine whether that might be an option for them or if it simply won't work, before "wasting" each others time. I've got a surprising amount of experience with how the payment processing world tries to operate and that's a pretty poor excuse IMO.


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## James Gardner (Dec 17, 2015)

Point taken, Chase. I understood it as well, being an Accountant. 

I was just point out what I had been told.


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## TheaterEd (Dec 17, 2015)

I agree with Chase on this one. The people who want to know your pricing are also looking at the pricing for the many other sites. If arts-people is comparatively priced, I would consider the move, but I'm not going to even inquire when I have another site that works just fine for me. 

My experience from checking the prices the last time I was looking indicated to me that "if you have to ask, it's too much". Every place that I had to actually contact was more expensive, and at the end of the day I want my ticket money to go back into my program, not a third party. That is why I liked Tixato. No hidden pricing, and the cheapest I could find. 

One thing to keep in mind though is that I am at the high school level and don't need a well polished product, just one that will get the job done and not confuse my customers. YMMV


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## kevinatblinn (Dec 18, 2015)

Huh. When I went with Arts People, I swear their pricing was online. Arts People is cheaper than Tixato if you're doing direct deposit (75 cents + CC fees at Arts People, 99 cents + 1.9% per ticket + CC fees at Tixato.) At least at my pricing structure. I wonder if new accounts would have a different pricing structure than I do?


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## SHCP (Dec 18, 2015)

You really need to talk to Arts people I think. Tixato said that one thing they did not anticipate was just how unique the needs are of each customer are. There is really no "one fits all solution". I don't use Direct Deposit, but I do use their merchant system and my pricing structure is different than yours. I imagine there are just so many different options that it is difficult to have a standard.


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## kevinatblinn (Dec 18, 2015)

SHCP said:


> You really need to talk to Arts people I think. Tixato said that one thing they did not anticipate was just how unique the needs are of each customer are. There is really no "one fits all solution". I don't use Direct Deposit, but I do use their merchant system and my pricing structure is different than yours. I imagine there are just so many different options that it is difficult to have a standard.


Tim, was your comment for OP or someone else?


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## TheaterEd (Dec 18, 2015)

kevinatblinn said:


> Huh. When I went with Arts People, I swear their pricing was online. Arts People is cheaper than Tixato if you're doing direct deposit (75 cents + CC fees at Arts People, 99 cents + 1.9% per ticket + CC fees at Tixato.) At least at my pricing structure. I wonder if new accounts would have a different pricing structure than I do?


If you used stripe with Tixato it was $.25 per ticket + cc fees. Seatyourself is $.50 per ticket plus CC fees. But I would consider Arts People at that price if I decide to start printing my own tickets.


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## SHCP (Dec 18, 2015)

kevinatblinn said:


> Tim, was your comment for OP or someone else?


Really just in general. The company has been very good for my High School, and worth looking into IMO.


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## dthomas32308 (Dec 19, 2015)

Anyone have experience with Vendini? A community theater near me uses them and wondering if anyone else has any insight with them?


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## kevinatblinn (Dec 19, 2015)

TheaterEd said:


> If you used stripe with Tixato it was $.25 per ticket + cc fees. Seatyourself is $.50 per ticket plus CC fees. But I would consider Arts People at that price if I decide to start printing my own tickets.



Stripe costs 30 cents plus 1.9%, is that right? So the Tixato fee would end up being $.25 + $.30 + 1.9% fee? Or is the total fee just the $.25 + fees and nothing additional paid to Stripe?


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## Scarrgo (Dec 20, 2015)

We just stated using Vendini, I do not know the price structure as it is above my pay scale, but they have been pretty easy to work with, support has been good.
We use our computers (macs) and a bocca printer, their tickets.
We use High School students as box staff and they catch on quickly
again ymmv

Sean...


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## TheaterEd (Dec 21, 2015)

kevinatblinn said:


> Stripe costs 30 cents plus 1.9%, is that right? So the Tixato fee would end up being $.25 + $.30 + 1.9% fee? Or is the total fee just the $.25 + fees and nothing additional paid to Stripe?


I went back and looked more closely. Stripe is 30 cents plus 2.9%. the 2.9% is the CC companies fee. That seemed to be pretty universal no matter what company you go with. So with all in, by using tixato I was paying $.25 per ticket + $.30 and 2.9% per transaction as opposed to seatyourself which was a flat $.50 per ticket and 2.9% transaction.


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## BobHealey (Dec 21, 2015)

dthomas32308 said:


> Anyone have experience with Vendini? A community theater near me uses them and wondering if anyone else has any insight with them?



I've got some experience with them. Fees don't seem unreasonable, but I'm just the computer person. Reserved seats require flash, and there is a fee for each time the seat map needs an edit (Only they can do that). General admission only has the per ticket fees.


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## Alec Gonzalez (Jan 25, 2016)

I work with Vendini ticketing, we typically create a pricing structure that is custom tailored to the organization. If you go to http://www.vendini.com there is a bunch of info you can look over, and if you're interested you can request a free interactive demo of the system.


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## Patrick Spike (Jul 28, 2017)

Hi Asher, I found your post here today and thought I'd respond. I actually work for Arts People. The pricing actually has not been listed on our website since it can be configured in a number of ways that best suit the individual organization - online vs box office tickets, etc. Our pricing is one of the best in the industry for the comprehensive system we provide, so if you're interested I'd encourage you to visit our website and submit a request for more information, or email [email protected]. Our sales team is no-pressure and work with people to help them find the best solution for their organization based on your needs. Hope this is helpful! 


AsherSB said:


> Seatyourself seems like brown paper, but with less control. As for ArtsPeople, I looked at it a while ago but I didn't try it because it didn't list prices, so I assumed they'd be high. How user friendly is it? I can set up the shows, but for sales it needs to be simple enough for volunteers and easy online, but it's definitely an option.


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