St Columba's College & Montrose Primary School

St Columba's College and Montrose Primary School both made the switch to TryBooking - and found it to be a very positive change.

Some schools may find change a little daunting. Concerns may include:

• How will parents react?
• Will I lose some control?
• What if I need to make changes at the last minute?
• I don't have time to set up a new system.
• I've never done this sort of thing before.

Yet St Columba's College and Montrose Primary School both recently switched over to online ticketing, and quickly saw how they could use TryBooking's features to save time, easily track ticket sales and run sell-out shows. 

St Columba's College

It was easy, saved time and frustration. I'll definitely use it again and I've already recommended it to other schools who love it now too!

St Columba's College recently used TryBooking to ticket a production that ran for six nights. Multiple performances meant more students could participate, but it also meant that 2400 seats had to be sold. And that's a lot of work for anyone! 

Embracing the change to online booking took a lot of pressure off organising the performance. 

Darren Emerson, Director of Music, St Columba's College said, "At first I was a little apprehensive about trying TryBooking. Ticketing is such a complicated and detailed area of administration that I was reluctant to hand it over.

When I learned more, I thought it was too good to be true.

But the whole experience was very positive and it resulted in sell-out shows!

Parents loved using TryBooking and picking their own seats. I could block and reserve seats and change seating plans when I needed to.

I enjoyed checking our sales daily or hourly (closer to the shows) to look at how we were doing. It was actually fun to use.

It saved us having to make hard copy tickets, handling money, and it freed up so much time and resources. It was easy, saved time and frustration. I'll definitely use it again and I've already recommended it to other schools who love it now too!"

Sometimes selling tickets isn't the problem - it's limiting the number of tickets each family can buy so no one misses out."

Montrose Primary School

Using TryBooking, we saved reception time by eliminating ticket queues and cash transactions.

Montrose Primary School's community has also embraced online ticketing.

Montrose Primary School's Seussical Jr was a fun-filled musical that ran for two nights at the Yarra Valley Grammar Performing Arts Centre. To ensure that all families could attend, Montrose Primary needed to limit the number of tickets each family could purchase.

This kind of control can be tricky when office staff and teachers have to monitor sales. On TryBooking, however, you can set an automatic limit to the number of tickets each family can purchase.

The show was a sell-out with 1200 seats sold prior to the first performance, and minimal political and logistical issues for staff. Kylie Fisher, Assistant Principal at Montrose Primary School, described how it worked,

"Our previous system was entirely manual. Not only was it inefficient, but also it was prone to errors. Using TryBooking, we saved reception time by eliminating ticket queues and cash transactions.

To ensure that all families could have input to their seating allocation, as well as, an efficient booking system that did not require significant personnel time, we went with the use of TryBooking. It was a huge success!

For parents who didn't have credit cards, we could still handle cash and cheques through the TryBooking system. Families were able to book their seats anytime of the day and didn't need to be up at the school at particular times.

Parents loved selecting their own seats, rather than us allocating them. We created an online seating plan that motivated families to book early to get better seats.

I liked being able to instantly update everything myself and refund so quickly. We will be doing our future productions via TryBooking!"