How to sell dance recital tickets? This is a big question but finding the best answer isn’t that hard. The three main things you need to consider are time, energy/resources and money (it’s always about them, isn’t it?).
But really, we know how time consuming it can be selling dance recital tickets in a certain way rather than another. That’s why in this guide about how to sell dance recital tickets, we’ll show you the top 3 methods and the respective costs in terms of time and money. So, let’s start!
How to sell dance recital tickets
1. The “manual” method
Time consuming: High
Money consuming: Low
Energy consuming: High
Flexibility: Low
The manual method consists of three basic steps: 1) you take care of the tickets while paying a certain amount for the venue rental (oh, by the way, you can find cheaper venues prices by using platforms like Dancerents or Peerspace); 2) you print on paper the seat map of the venue and you make it available at your studio; 3) parents stop by, choose the seats they want and pay for them at the frontdesk
You also have to consider that you may need to provide to your frontdesk assistants a ticket template they need to edit and print everytime someone buys a ticket. You can also just print a ticket-sized piece of paper where you already wrote “SEAT NUMBER – FIRST AND LAST NAME OF THE ATTENDEE” or something like that. Like this, your assistants can directly write on them the selected seat and the name of who is purchasing it.
This method can really save you a lot of money but it’s also time consuming, energy consuming and not flexible at all. Customizing tickets will take even more time. If you have to print them at the studio you will consume also physical resources (paper, ink) and it’s a lot of work also for your people at the frontdesk. Tickets won’t look professional and the whole procedure neither. If you want to offer tiered seats, block the seat purchase for certain customers (for instance, those who didn’t pay the last tuition), etc, you will have to go through some troubles.
2. The “venue” method
Time consuming: Medium
Money consuming: High
Energy consuming: Medium
Flexibility: Medium
The venue method consists of letting the venue manage your tickets for you. Many venues will require an extra commission for this service, so get prepared. You will also need to keep in touch frequently with the venue office to make sure everything is going well.
Also keep in mind two other factors: some venues take care of the tickets in the sense that they use an external ticketing platform they are partnering with, who will probably ask your customers to pay extra commissions on their tickets.
In the worst case scenario, you will see your dance recital revenues reduced by the commissions applied from the venue for the service AND your customers slightly unsatisfied by the high price of the tickets. The most part of the venues has adopted the online sales system, while others still require the customer to go physically at the venue to purchase tickets.
This whole process will save you more time than the solution n.1 but you won’t have the full control over your event and some customers will end up being unhappy (that’s for sure).
If the first method was better on your customer’s end but worse on yours, this method is completely the opposite. Anyway, if you’re lucky you may be able to find a good partnership with a venue to get lower commissions or more control over your event.
3. The “platform” method
Time consuming: Medium
Money consuming: Low
Energy consuming: Low
Flexibility: High
The platform method consists of using an external dance recital ticketing platform to sell your tickets. Depending on the platform, you may have a medium-high flexibility and control over your event. For example you can track in real time your ticket sales, decide the template of your tickets or allowing customers to pay directly at the studio to get their tickets via email (print-at-home). As you can imagine, this can save you a lot of time and a lot of money, considering that these platforms usually take a very low commission on ticket sales.
All you have to do is basically go through a sort of interview (written or oral) to get your event set up for you. It usually takes up to 30 minutes. Going live instead, will take up to 3 days.
On your customers’ end, this method is the most convenient because they will pay a very small fee but they will be able to choose their seats online and purchase tickets online or at your studio (or even at the venue the same day of the show). This makes the event stress-free and saves you a lot of energy you can use for other things.
The best dance recital ticketing platforms are Dancefolio, Tututix and Dance recital ticketing. This may sound unusual, but we recommend to try them all to see who offers the best solution for your business in terms of price, service and quality.
You finally found your answers to the question: how to sell dance recital tickets? And we wish you good luck for the next shows! 🙂