Ticket printing?
October 16, 2013 8:09 AM Subscribe
A local non-profit I'm with holds monthly events and sells tickets. Right now the tickets are printed in bulk. We have full price tickets, student/senior tickets, and comp (free) tickets. We'd like to have more flexibility to introduce different price points as test runs and easily track how they go. We'd also like to be able to keep better tabs on the comp tickets, by differentiating tickets given to volunteers versus comp tickets given to sponsors, for example.
Right now every kind of ticket in the same class is the same. That is, all regular tickets look alike, regardless of the event they're for. All comp tickets look alike, regardless of who they're given to.
I'm open to different suggestions, but the first thing that came to my mind was purchasing a printer and printing our own tickets for every show.
Here is what I'd like any system to have:
Any particular systems you can recommend? Print shops that can POD small runs of tickets for very, very little? Other ways to tackle this problem? Caveats? Etc?
Right now every kind of ticket in the same class is the same. That is, all regular tickets look alike, regardless of the event they're for. All comp tickets look alike, regardless of who they're given to.
I'm open to different suggestions, but the first thing that came to my mind was purchasing a printer and printing our own tickets for every show.
Here is what I'd like any system to have:
- The ticket will remain legible for several months (we give comp tickets to volunteers and want them to have the discretion to use them for different events)
- The ticket can include a grayscale image of the event poster (optional but preferred)
- Paper/stock that has some sort of antiforgery element (optional but preferred)
- Cost of less than 5 cents per ticket to print--the lower the (much) better
Any particular systems you can recommend? Print shops that can POD small runs of tickets for very, very little? Other ways to tackle this problem? Caveats? Etc?
Response by poster: EventBrite isn't really appropriate for this particular problem. We need flexible and cheap physical tickets to sell and hand out in a variety of contexts. We are happy with our online ticketing system and our at-the-door credit card processing system, which seems to be what EventBrite offers. There are real constraints behind the need for physical tickets. EventBrite looks like a good solution for a different problem.
posted by jsturgill at 9:20 AM on October 16, 2013
posted by jsturgill at 9:20 AM on October 16, 2013
The cheapest way to do this is to design your own tickets and print them on a standard printer in black and white, and then emboss each one as a security measure. The embosser isn't cheap to buy but if you do something generic like your org's logo or name something, it doesn't date and can be multi-use.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:21 AM on October 16, 2013
posted by DarlingBri at 9:21 AM on October 16, 2013
You can also have a printing company take white cardstock, print a color on one end and perforate the papers so that you can tear them into strips. Then your organization can print on the tickets and tear them when it's time to give them to recipients. Not the most elegant solution, I know.
But you could do Blue for tickets that were purchased. Red for Comp tickets. The embossing could be done on the end with the color, but would have to happen after you printed the run. If you're using a laser printer, the greyscale poster image could be printed under the ticket text.
Some ideas for what you'd print on tickets to know what was redeemed:
Ranges of numbers. Volunteer ticket ranges all start with V. Now you can also keep track of how many volunteer tickets are floating around, and who they were given to. Donation (in kind) tickets all start with a D and you can now tell which organization they were donated to. And who hasn't redeemed theirs.
Tickets purchased as part of a package could start with a P and single tickets could start with an S. Again, you could see whose packages are going (partially) unused.
posted by bilabial at 9:53 AM on October 16, 2013
But you could do Blue for tickets that were purchased. Red for Comp tickets. The embossing could be done on the end with the color, but would have to happen after you printed the run. If you're using a laser printer, the greyscale poster image could be printed under the ticket text.
Some ideas for what you'd print on tickets to know what was redeemed:
Ranges of numbers. Volunteer ticket ranges all start with V. Now you can also keep track of how many volunteer tickets are floating around, and who they were given to. Donation (in kind) tickets all start with a D and you can now tell which organization they were donated to. And who hasn't redeemed theirs.
Tickets purchased as part of a package could start with a P and single tickets could start with an S. Again, you could see whose packages are going (partially) unused.
posted by bilabial at 9:53 AM on October 16, 2013
I suggest you look at laser/inkjet printed tickets, which would give you total flexibility to try different things until you know what works. It looks like the perforated card stock for tickets comes in at about 6 cents apiece, plus ink cost and printer wear. The consecutive numbering (on the linked example) gives you some anti-forgery protection. So I think this meets all your criteria except cost, but I think a 5-cent target is going to be hard to hit. But, what's a few cents per seat on a full house?
posted by beagle at 10:35 AM on October 16, 2013
posted by beagle at 10:35 AM on October 16, 2013
Response by poster: No one has any experience with thermal ticket printers?
posted by jsturgill at 8:38 AM on October 17, 2013
posted by jsturgill at 8:38 AM on October 17, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Dansaman at 8:42 AM on October 16, 2013 [1 favorite]