The hall holds a hundred and twenty
Your spring concert is in a church hall with a hundred and twenty seats. Forty-five pupils are performing. Every family wants three or four seats, grandparents included. The first request arrives the morning the letter goes home. By lunch, the office has forty emails, a pile of envelopes of cash from lessons, and a teacher who has promised the front row to a family who asked nicely.
On the night, twenty more people arrive than there are seats, including a family whose child is playing in the second half and who were told there was 'probably room'. Chairs are fetched from the vestry.
Why fair ticketing is hard by hand
The ticketing problem at a music school is not selling tickets, which any ticket site can do. It is that some families have a stronger claim than others (their child is performing), the venue is small, and the school wants to be seen as fair. Doing that by hand means a spreadsheet of requests, a judgement per family and a lot of polite emails saying no.
- Performers' families and the general public compete for the same seats.
- Requests arrive through several channels, some with money attached.
- Teachers make promises the office does not know about.
- Nobody knows the true number until the night.
The cost on the night and after
An overfull hall is a safety question for the venue, and it is your name on the booking. An underfull one, where families who asked were told it was sold out, is a lost opportunity. Handling cash in envelopes takes time and invites mistakes. Most of all, families who feel they were treated unfairly remember it at re-enrolment time.
Ticketing built around performers
- Each concert is set up with the venue capacity, any reserved seats and your rules: a priority window for performers' families, a per-family limit, and a price or a free ticket.
- Families of performers get a personal link during the priority window, based on the running order or pupil list, so no one needs to prove their child is playing.
- Tickets are paid online through Stripe or recorded as free, and any cash taken at lessons is entered against the family so it counts.
- When the priority window closes, remaining seats go on general sale.
- Requests beyond the limit or the capacity go to a waiting list, and returned tickets are offered in order.
- The door gets a list on a phone or tablet, by family name, with tick-off as people arrive.
| Stage | Who can book | Limit (example) |
|---|---|---|
| Priority window | Families of performers | Up to four seats each |
| General sale | Any family at the school and friends | Up to two seats each |
| Waiting list | Anyone over the limit or after sell-out | Offered returns in order |
| On the night | Door staff check the list | No overbooking beyond capacity |
If you already use a ticketing service you like, we can connect it to your pupil list for the priority window rather than replace it.
A full hall that is the right size
Performers' families book first, without having to ask. Teachers stop making promises because the system does it for them. The office has a real number days before the concert, and the door has a list rather than a box of envelopes. When families return tickets, someone on the waiting list gets them automatically.
Over a year you also learn something useful: which concerts sell out in the priority window and which never fill. That is the evidence you need when deciding whether the summer concert should move to a bigger venue or split into two evenings, one for juniors and one for seniors, rather than a hunch based on how crowded last year felt.
Is ticketing causing you trouble?
- Ticket requests arrive by email, text and cash in envelopes.
- Performers' families sometimes miss out on seats.
- More people arrive than the venue holds.
- Teachers promise seats the office does not know about.
- You do not know the audience size until the night.