Finding the Best Ticketing Service for Fall Festivals

October is the busiest time of the year for the folks at ThunderTix as the fall festival and ghost tour season begins. In anticipation of your big month, the search for the best ticketing service for fall festivals should happen well before your event planning reaches its final stages.

You definitely have an idea of some of the essentials you'll need: a cost-effective service that's super easy to use, one that allows you to start selling tickets online instantly, and a ticketing website that provides all of the tools you need to be successful in a single platform. Let's discuss these and other features you'll want to look for when finding the best ticketing service for fall festivals and fun fall events.

Easy to Use

The prospect of taking up precious time to learn a new software can be worrisome, and making sure you choose the best ticketing software can even be a little scary. ThunderTix users know that we've really focused on building a friendly and intuitive software. (Read our reviews!) This helps get you up and running very quickly, so you can focus on creating the perfect festival.

Ease of use is particularly important for seasonal users. Whether you are returning from an off-season break, or you are bringing on a new crew, you'll love our easy navigation and come to rely on our self-paced video instruction and fantastic customer service.

Ticket Fee Flexibility

For fall family-oriented events such as corn mazes, hayrides or pumpkin festivals, low cost ticketing is particularly important. Family festivals often include low priced tickets for children. Patrons can feel price-gouged when high ticket fees are added to their low ticket prices. It's important to know that every ticketing service except ThunderTix imposes high fees on ticket purchases. ThunderTix neither adds additional fees nor takes any part of your revenue. You can sell tickets online with no fees.

We are the only ticketing service for fall festivals that allow your customers to enjoy fairly priced tickets without high fees. And we don't force you to give up a percentage of your revenue either. Yet, we allow you to add a small fee, say $0.50 cents or so, to each ticket. As a result, you completely defray the cost of the service, and your customers are happy to pay a perfectly acceptable ticket fee for the convenience of online ticketing.

Coupons and Promotions

Finding out where your customers come from can be a challenge. Consequently, we suggest that you use our promotional online coupon discounts to help track referrals. Use unique coupon codes in your Facebook or Twitter advertising, and separate codes for print media or community outreach.

We have every coupon option imaginable: buy-one-get-one or group discounts automatically applied at purchase. We also allow you to create coupons that are redeemable only on your "slow days" of the week. Additionally, we offer discounts by dollar amount or percentage for either specific tickets or off the entire order. You'll fill your fall festivals with happy customers using a good promotional strategy.

The best ticketing services for fall festivals must include trackable promotions to be successful.

Product Sales

We have a lot of fall festivals that need to sell additional products at checkout. For example, lots of our campfire events sell items like hot cocoa and marshmallow packages. This helps provide upsell opportunities and increase revenue.

With our product sales reports, you'll have up-to-the-minute accuracy on what upsells have been made. And on event night, you'll know exactly what has been sold and to whom, so you can have your items prepared in advance before the rush begins.

Gift Cards

Gift card revenue can be an even greater source of profits. Delighted gift recipients are often willing to spend a little more on your upsell packages at the time of purchase. And since 25% of all gift cards are never redeemed, you can expect a pure profit boost.

And following our easy-peasy mantra, once you make the decision to sell gift cards, we'll do the rest. We'll create the links for you, email the gift cards, and provide a way for customers to redeem them. We even track all redemptions and balances for you automatically. You can focus on more important things -- like creating that perfect fall festival!

Automated Surveys

You planned and sweated the details to put on an amazing event. Now, it's time to learn if your customers are eager to return next year. Our automated custom survey option helps you do just that by asking your customers questions that help you learn what worked and didn't.

Just put together some open ended questions that invite your customers to share their experience. How was the check-in process? What's on their wish list for an even better experience? Or provide pre-selected options such as, "Is there anybody you want to recognize from our staff?", and include a list of tour guide names. We'll send the surveys out automatically the day after the event. You can even offer a gift card to get customers to provide valuable feedback, and those detailed answers can help you put on even better event next year.

Door Sales

Online ticketing is great for advance sales, but you'll need to process sales at the door for last minute attendees. We support door sales on either a traditional laptop or via our iOS app with credit card reader. Sales are tracked to your staff, and you can provide user level permissions to allow users to override ticket prices, provide comps and more.

Ticket Scanning for Fraud Prevention

Our free Android and iOS apps read barcodes from either paper tickets or directly from customers' phone screens. Easy to use and lightening fast, our scanners support multiple entry points and provide clear warnings when duplicated or fraudulent tickets are presented giving you peace of mind that you don't exceed safe capacities and ensure you are paid for every entry into your event.

The Best Ticketing Service for Fall Festivals

ThunderTix helps fall festival managers -- even with the smallest staffs -- reach efficiency and new levels of profits by providing all of the essential tools you'll need in one platform. And we essentially take care of training with self-paced videos and stellar user support, so you can focus on running a fantastic event.

When researching the best ticketing service for fall festivals, start your investigation early. Advance planning is the key to finding a cost effective, family friendly ticketing service that does not overcharge with high ticket fees. Use our guide to ensure you have all the tools for a successful fall festival, and make your choices early to make this year's annual event the best ever! If you want to sell event tickets online, be sure to take a look at all the features we have to offer and sign up for a free trial today!