Theatre Management Software

[Will Perkins]

Hi all,

 

I've been doing some research for a all in one, theatre management package. Does anyone know of any such software?

 

I guess, as a short list the software should be able to:

 

- Manage theatre bookings (hirers)

- Tickets

- Other room bookings (rehearsal rooms etc)

- Allow a staffing schedule to be in-putted for general easy viewing (maybe with features such as who the duty manager is that day/night etc)

- Hold a central database of patrons to the theatre and their info for mailshots etc

- Organise casuals/their pay

- Maybe do the accounts too, although this might not be such a hot idea.

 

You get the jist anyway, that's just a few things I've come up with off the top of my head. I suppose this would need to be driven by a server interface too, so information could be accessed by many, at the same time.

 

Over to you guys! Thanks in advance!

[andy_s]

A lot of people seem to like ARTIFAX. I've not used it so can't offer a personal recommendation. Not cheap. a few £grand.

 

Also try googling "event management" rather than "Theatre Management". there are systems aimed at conferences, hotels etc which might fit needs and budget.

[Bryson]

It may be better these days, but a few years ago a venue I worked at bought ARTIFAX. It was awful.

[andy_s]

It may be better these days, but a few years ago a venue I worked at bought ARTIFAX. It was awful.

yep, we decided against it, mainly because we thought it would take so long to pay for itself (this was about 4 or 5 years ago as I recall). What didn't you like about it?

[scott199]

Greetings! This is my first post on here; you don't have to be posh to be privileged!!

 

I'm currently based as Technician to at Salisbury Arts Centre in Wiltshire, where we have just invested in a software package by the name "PatronBase".

 

 

I've seen evidence of the following:

 

- Ticket sale (in-house and online)

- Manage theatre bookings (hirers)

- Other room bookings (rehearsal rooms etc)

- Hold a central database of patrons to the theatre and their info for mailshots etc

 

Primarily a ticketing system however has a whole host of pretty interesting add-in modules which we hope to be really useful down the line too... "Venue Manager" springs to mind..

 

 

pop a message for questions and I'll see what more I can find out; in the meantime I advise a peek towards their website: PatronBase

 

 

 

Best;

 

Mike

 

 

Hi all,

 

I've been doing some research for a all in one, theatre management package. Does anyone know of any such software?

[Bryson]

It may be better these days, but a few years ago a venue I worked at bought ARTIFAX. It was awful.

yep, we decided against it, mainly because we thought it would take so long to pay for itself (this was about 4 or 5 years ago as I recall). What didn't you like about it?

 

Well it was a lot of niggly little things that are common to a lot of "enterprise"-type software - stuff like popping up a save or discard changes box every time you closed something, when you hadn't changed anything - but what it boiled down to was this: our paper system was equally reliable, and much faster to operate. ARTIFAX didn't save us any time or effort. Actually, it created more work.

 

Like I said, this was all 4 or 5 years ago. I'd like to think that maybe they've shaken those problems out now.

[dbuckley]

PatronBase - another New Zealand sucess story

[andy_s]

It may be better these days, but a few years ago a venue I worked at bought ARTIFAX. It was awful.

yep, we decided against it, mainly because we thought it would take so long to pay for itself (this was about 4 or 5 years ago as I recall). What didn't you like about it?

 

Well it was a lot of niggly little things that are common to a lot of "enterprise"-type software - stuff like popping up a save or discard changes box every time you closed something, when you hadn't changed anything - but what it boiled down to was this: our paper system was equally reliable, and much faster to operate. ARTIFAX didn't save us any time or effort. Actually, it created more work.

 

Like I said, this was all 4 or 5 years ago. I'd like to think that maybe they've shaken those problems out now.

 

Pretty much what I thought....

 

Our production manager came up with a very simple system for room bookings by creating a shared calender for each space in Outlook, though this of course didn't have the staff scheduling, invoicing, or financial management elements. but it was free, and there were already software packages being used in the organisation for the other elements, so why spend a pile of money we didn't have?

 

Is it anyone else's experience that the cost of supporting the art (admin, software, PR, HR, H&S, heating, lighting, utilities maintenance, etc etc) has far outstripped the cost of the "Art" itself?

[GridGirl]

We use a combination of PatronBase and Excel - we have a master "calendar" set up on Excel which is password protected so only a few people can edit it; each space has several columns allocated to it - morning, afternoon before 4pm, afternoon after 4pm (we run after-school drama classes) and evening, so room bookings are easy to manage. We use the "Comment" function for staffing info - that way the information is all right there but it's not visible until you run the mouse over the cell, which means that the basic display is very uncluttered. It works pretty well for us; you can print information for the next week, or fortnight, or month, as you need it - we tend to print it out weekly and stick it up round the building so you can see at a glance what's happening without needing to go to the computer, but if you need more info it's right there. PatronBase I very rarely use (generally only glance at patron lists for the show that evening to see if anyone interesting is in!) but as we were the theatre company who developed it...

 

PatronBase came about because The Court Theatre in Christchurch, New Zealand felt that their previous computerised booking system was not meeting their needs. After looking at a number of internationally used ticketing systems, they decided to develop their own. This decision was driven by the high real costs associated with the products available, and because these products focussed on Ticketing rather than on being a tool that would allow the theatre to develop a better relationship with their Patrons.

 

The analysis and design phase was done in close association with the General Manager and Box Office manager of The Court Theatre, both of whom have wide international exposure to booking systems. The General Manager during this time was a past board member of The International Ticketing Association (INTIX).

 

The initial software development process took nearly two years, with the installation implementation happening in May 1998. Since then, while the Court Theatre has processed over 1 million tickets, we have spent over 12 years refining the system based on feedback from management and Box Office staff from our customers throughout New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and the United Kingdom.

 

....it works pretty well for us! Certainly in conjunction with Excel we can do everything we need without any problems at all.

[rsimao]

Hello I work in Teatro Nacional São João, in Oporto/Portugal.

 

Im also looking for a Theater Management Software, and I have fond http://www.regiespectacle.com/ , I dont know if its good or not.

 

regards to all

Rui Simão

[marklloyd1]

have a look at nslcrm.com

 

 

 

[gibbothegreat]

It may be better these days, but a few years ago a venue I worked at bought ARTIFAX. It was awful.

yep, we decided against it, mainly because we thought it would take so long to pay for itself (this was about 4 or 5 years ago as I recall). What didn't you like about it?

 

Well it was a lot of niggly little things that are common to a lot of "enterprise"-type software - stuff like popping up a save or discard changes box every time you closed something, when you hadn't changed anything - but what it boiled down to was this: our paper system was equally reliable, and much faster to operate. ARTIFAX didn't save us any time or effort. Actually, it created more work.

 

Like I said, this was all 4 or 5 years ago. I'd like to think that maybe they've shaken those problems out now.

 

 

as a current user of Artifax, I'd have to say not noticeably... don't like it one bit, and am depressed by the amount our organisation spends on it (hefty yearly support fees). Have the idea that anyone who knew their way round MS Office could do something better fairly easily.

[Gareth A]

Agreed. When I worked for Livenation in Swindon - they had it. They also hated it!

[dbuckley]

Taking the OPs wish list, and splitting it into related groups:

 

Group one - ticketing and customer relationship management

- Tickets

- Hold a central database of patrons to the theatre and their info for mailshots etc

 

Group two - Calendaring and booking of stuff

- Manage theatre bookings (hirers)

- Other room bookings (rehearsal rooms etc)

- Allow a staffing schedule to be in-putted for general easy viewing (maybe with features such as who the duty manager is that day/night etc)

- Organise casuals...

 

Group three - financial management

- Casuals (and maybe others?) pay

- Maybe do the accounts

 

I can't see that this is a particularly tall order, and doesn't need (or probably even desires) one fully integrated system to do it.

 

Is there something I'm missing?

 

Edited: spelling.

[chelgrian]

I can't see that this is a particularly tall order, and doesn't need (or probably even desires) one fully integrated system to do it.

 

So things I've seen used:

 

Tickets/Customer Database/Marketing.

http://www.spektrix.com/

 

Staff Rota etc.

http://www.smartroster.net, yes I know this is mostly sold for rotaing volunteers for churches however actually it's a powerful generic scheduling tool.