Facility Scheduling Replacement II?

[Casey]

Hi Leah,
I tried to respond to your post but kept getting an error stating I needed to choose a status. I saw no status to choose. So I clicked on Accpet answer and then tried to post and it said the topic was closed. So started this. My question to you given your answer is:

Thank You. In thinking about the ticketing program solution. I’m thinking that in theory we could create a ‘ticketed’ event for all available time slots, for all venues we have (batting cage 1 batting cage 2, etc.). So if a batting cage is open from 8am till 8pm and we say each ‘event’ is a 1/2 hour time slot, then in theory these would be available to be purchased and then if we say only 1 ticket is available, once that’s sold, the event essentially becomes sold out so no one else can buy a ticket?

The reminder emails are usually soemthing required because people book a time slot, forget to show up and then figure they don’t have to pay. However, if the ticket system integrates with a credit card system and we take payment for the ticket, if they don’t show then that’s their problem and at least we provided a way for them to add it to their calendar via those ical links, etc..

Sound good, or sound way too gludgy? How hard would it be to create those events en mass? And I’m thinking if we have say 10 venues with 24 time slots (8am to 8pm 30 minute events) we couldn’t put them all on one calendar, each venue may have their own calendar?

If this does sound feasible that would be great, if not, then please just tell me it really would be ugly. However if it is feasible, if you could give me the name of the ticket system and commerce system you think would be best that would be great.

Thank You!
Casey

[Leah]

Hi Casey,

My apologies about the forum reply. We’ve been experiencing this issue and are working on a fix. I appreciate your flexibility in the meanwhile!

If I understand your ticketing description right than yes, I believe it would work. You could make one event with many tickets, and label those tickets with the specifics including the time (for example, batting cage 1, 3:30-4pm). You could make only 1 of that ticket available, and if someone bought that one ticket it would read Sold Out. But the other tickets (batting cage 2 3:30-4, or batting cage 1 4-4:30, for example) would still be available. The event (the 8am-8pm event called Baseball) would not say sold out unless every ticket was sold. Would that work for you?

Sound good, or sound way too gludgy? How hard would it be to create those events en mass? And I’m thinking if we have say 10 venues with 24 time slots (8am to 8pm 30 minute events) we couldn’t put them all on one calendar, each venue may have their own calendar?

I’ll admit, it’s not the most elegant way of doing it… but I don’t know of another option. We have yet to see a good bookings plugin out there. Someday it might be us, but for now we have the tickets available. In the end, it’s really up to you whether this solution would work for you and your users.

Creating events en masse is not too hard- you can use a post duplication plugin to make them, or you can make them in a CSV file and import them, then add tickets. In either case, you’ll likely need to do some work on each event to get it how you want it.

Do note that you can’t use multiple venues in one event- so for example, your event couldn’t take place at Batting Cage 1 and Batting Cage 2- those would have to be different events, which gives another layer of complexity. Events at different venues can share a calendar, however. Does that answer your questions?

Best,

Leah

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