When you create a redemption record to indicate that a specific voucher type is valid for a specific performance, you have the opportunity to enter one or more discount codes as well as set a minimum and/or maximum purchase per transaction.

Discount codes (also called redemption codes or promo codes) allow you to set up promotions that are only available to patrons who have been given the specific code. See this page for how to work with discount codes. Specifying a minimum or maximum purchase (or both) per transaction allows you to set up a variety of other promotions. We will look at a few examples here.

Group Discounts

Suppose your theater sells general admission tickets for $25 each, or $20 each for groups of six or more. You could set up one voucher type called “General admission” at $25 and a second voucher type called “General admission – group discount” at $20. If you want all group sales to be processed through the box office, then you would set the Availability field on the “General admission – group discount” voucher type to “Box office use only”. In this way patrons could buy regular $25 tickets online, but groups would need to reach out to the box office in order to get the $20 per ticket group rate.

However, you could instead set the Availability field on the “General admission – group discount” voucher type to “Anyone may purchase” and set the “Min purchase per transaction” on the redemption for this voucher type to 6. Now any patron will be able to purchase the $20 tickets online without help from the box office, but they will only be able to buy this type of ticket if they buy at least six at a time.

BOGOs

BOGO promotions, or “buy-one-get-one”, are where a patron pays regular price for one ticket and then gets a second one for free. You can offer BOGO promotions in Audience1st by setting both “Min purchase per transaction” and “Max purchase per transaction” on a redemption record to 2. The result is that patrons can only buy this type of ticket if they buy exactly two tickets.

Suppose you have a voucher type called “Reserved – balcony” with a price point of $20 and that sales for the Thursday performance are low. You could create a new voucher type called “Reserved – balcony (BOGO)” at $10 and set its Availability field to “Anyone may purchase”. Then you would create a redemption for the Thursday performance with both “Min purchase per transaction” and “Max purchase per transaction” set to 2. You could also add a discount code to the redemption if you wanted patrons to get the special deal only if they know the promo code.

Note that many people will think of a BOGO in this situation as paying $20 for the first ticket and $0 for the second ticket. However, Audience1st instead treats the BOGO as purchasing two tickets at $10 each. The net result is the same — the patron has paid $20 for two tickets. If you are concerned that patrons might find this confusing, then instead of a BOGO you could call your promotion “Get your tickets at half price when you buy two”.

Other Promotions

The “Min purchase per transaction” and “Max purchase per transaction” fields on redemptions can be used in other ways to offer different kinds of promotions. For example, you could offer family packs or small group and large group discounts.

You can also use the “Max purchase per transaction” in conjunction with a discount code to signal to patrons that they should not purchase more than a certain number of tickets at a discount price. (That is, they are discouraged from hoarding bargain tickets.) This is just a request, however, because the patron could simply break a large purchase into multiple transactions that each stay within the upper limit. (Use the “Max sales for type” field on the redemption to set a hard limit on the total number of tickets of a certain type to be sold for one performance; the “Max sales for type” limit applies to all sales and not just sales to one patron in one transaction.)

A Few Notes About Promotions in General

Theater staff are allowed to override many rules and limits in the system, and promotions are no different. Specifically, theater staff can sell tickets to patrons without providing a required discount code or meeting the specified minimum or maximum purchase per transaction. As a few examples, theater staff acting on behalf of a patron can sell group discount tickets to a patron when their group isn’t large enough, and theater staff can sell discounted tickets to a patron without entering the required discount code.

Also, remember that discount codes and minimum or maximum purchase per transaction are assigned to a redemption (the link between one performance and one voucher type that is accepted at that performance) and not to the voucher type itself. Suppose you set up a group rate voucher type and this voucher type is accepted at all performances of a show. Then suppose the show gets extended and you also want to offer the group discount at the new performances. When creating the redemptions for the new performances, be sure to enter the minimum group size in the “Min purchase per transaction” field on the new redemptions for the group rate voucher type. If you don’t, then patrons will be able to buy tickets to the new performances at the group rate even if they buy just one ticket.