As museums and cultural institutions work to reopen, many are taking important steps to facilitate physical distancing, contract tracing, and enable contactless entry. One key way organizations are doing this is by introducing timed ticketing for visitors, which has the benefit of managing capacity, reducing admissions lines, and limiting interactions between staff and guests. However, timed ticketing is new territory for most museums. Many are looking for best practices and wondering how to roll this out to their visitors to ensure a successful reopening.
Join Brendan Ciecko (CEO & Founder @ Cuseum), Kate Porter (Communications and Development Manager @ Las Vegas Natural History Museum), Laura McArthur (Database Operations Manager @ Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art) & Stephanie Cabezas (Visitor Relations Manager @ Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens) for a discussion about all things timed ticketing! Each of these panelists has introduced timed ticketing (some very recently), and they will be available to share best practices and answer questions in this dialogue.
Read the full transcript below.
Brendan Ciecko:
Hello, everyone. My name is Brendan Ciecko. I'm the founder of Cuseum. First off, I want to say thank you to everyone who is joining us today, our speakers and our attendees. Over 1,100 people have registered for today's conversation and I look forward to this dialog. If you're joining for the first time, welcome and to those of you who have tuned in to any of our past Cuseum Webinars, welcome back. It's always great to see you.
So as museums and cultural institutions work to reopen, many are taking important steps to facilitate physical distancing, contact tracing, and enable contactless entry. And one way organizations are doing this is by introducing time ticketing for their visitors, which has the benefit of managing capacity, reducing admission lines, and limiting interactions between staff and guests.
This is for most organizations an entirely new territory and we've received countless questions about timed tickets over the past weeks and months. So, we decided to host a webinar and we thought that this would be the best way to address all of these questions and requests, so we are very excited about the panel today with three folks who are already using time ticketing at their museums.
So without any further ado, please allow me to introduce our special guests. Joining us we have Kate Porter, who is the Communications and Development Manager for the Las Vegas Natural History Museum. Everybody say hello to Kate and her dinosaurs. Hi, Kate. Prior to joining the museum, she lived in Florida and managed events and sponsorship in the Southeastern United States for Cox Communications, however Kate's career started at Orange County Regional History Center in Orlando, Florida. And her volunteer work and passion for museums and the humanities has been constant.
After relocating to Las Vegas, her and her husband, last year professionally, returned to the sector that she loves as a welcome opportunity. And Kate holds a master's degree from the University of West Florida in strategy communication and leadership studies and is an active member of the Junior League of Las Vegas. Thanks so much for joining us, Kate.
Kate Porter:
Thank you.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you so much. And also joining us, we have Laura McArthur. Laura has been the Database Operations Manager at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art for nearly two years. She manages the database operations team, which handles all membership gifts, processes and audits, all development plans and gifts, as well as all ticketing and eCommerce ticketing sites. She also provides overall organizational reporting for these areas, as well as the other departments across the museum. Thanks for joining us, Laura.
Laura McArthur:
Thank you very much.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. And joining us from Philly, we have Stephanie Cabezas. Stephanie graduated with a master's degree in Museum and Gallery studies. She moved to Philadelphia in 2015 and started working as a part-time guide at Philadelphia's Magic Gardens, an art environment, featuring the mosaics of local artist, Isaiah Zagar. She took on the role of visitor relations manager last September and has been responsible for the Philadelphia Magic Gardens visitor services staff, ticketing, membership, and merchandise. Thanks for joining us, Stephanie.
Stephanie Cabezas:
Thanks, Brendan. Happy to be here.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. And as someone who has visited the Magic Gardens, I have to say that they are mind blowing, a creative and an inspiring experience. I don't know how one would describe them, but they are unbelievable.
And lastly, I'm Brendan Ciecko. I'm the founder and CEO of Cuseum. I will be your host for today's conversation. So, let's jump into the questions for our special guests. So I'll open up with a question for Kate and Laura. You introduced time ticketing at your organizations just a few weeks ago. Many organizations have also recently introduced time tickets or are planning to do so in the near future. Can you talk through your recent experiences launching time ticketing and what the process looked like for you, from start to where you are today? Kate, do you want to lead us off?
Kate Porter:
Sure, absolutely.
Brendan Ciecko:
Okay. Thank you.
Kate Porter:
So for us, it honestly was a little difficult upfront. We've never had online ticketing. We're a fairly small operations unit. And so, we, we just didn't have the need for it in the past, truly. And when we started to look at time ticketing, we found that a lot of the platforms out there were pretty cost prohibitive for us, especially as you're trying to really make sure that we were being responsible with our dollars, with the museum being closed temporarily to the public and whatnot.
So, we ended up finding Tiqets, which is T-I-Q-E-T-S, but it's pronounced tickets. And through that, we were able to really expedite the process and jump in a way that made sense for our organization. And since then, it's been great. But it definitely was a little bit of a process to find the right fit for us.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you, thank you. And Laura, how about you? What has your journey been like?
Laura McArthur:
Yeah. We use Tessitura, and so we've had ticketing and we've used time tickets for special exhibitions or special events, but we hadn't used it for admission before. So, we already had the tools that we needed to build the time tickets. What we really had to work on was the strategy with our facilities team and our operations team to make sure that we knew what the potential capacities were, what were the time slots and, like, how to manage the different entrances and things like that. So, it was more of the logistics/operational side that we really had to focus on the front end, since we did have the equipment already.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. And, and Stephanie, at Philadelphia Magic Gardens, you've been using time ticketing for quite some time now. So you have a little more of a veteran perspective on the matter. Can you share a bit about what the past few years of using time ticketing has looked like and what some of the long term benefits have been for your organization?
Stephanie Cabezas:
Yeah, it's been a journey for sure. For us, time ticketing is something that was born out of necessity, because we are a relatively young and quite small space. Um, we only have 3,000 square feet and most of that is covered in very shiny and colorful mosaics, so we're also a very photogenic space. Which means that as social media became more popular, so our visitors increased almost exponentially over the past few years. When I started in 2015, we hadn't yet hit 100,000 visitors and this past year we hit 175,000.
Brendan Ciecko:
Wow.
Stephanie Cabezas:
So, it's been a wild ride. So, we were finding that we were getting more interested visitors than we could safely handle and the museum was feeling very overwhelmingly crowded. So, we started, we started limiting entry by wrist bands originally, where we would physically count out how many people we allowed every 15 minutes and that was very stressful. We had lines around the block and people were just waiting for ages to enter the museum.
So, time ticketing we started in 2016 and that changed the game. We were able to sell tickets onsite for either the current time slot or a future time slot if we were already sold out and people could leave and come back, instead of waiting around. We could also point people to the website to get their ticket so they could skip the line altogether. And we've really watched online ticket sales grow rapidly over the last two years.
So, the word has spread that we're frequently at capacity, people are learning that they need to buy their tickets in advance, and on the weekends we would open in the morning with multiple time slots already sold out and be sold out completely for the day by early in the afternoon.
Brendan Ciecko:
Wow.
Stephanie Cabezas:
So for us, the biggest issue has been lack of space. I mean, both within the museum, but also trying to control that flow of traffic and get 60 people in and out every half hour and selling hundreds of tickets in our lobby. So, we were still ending up with long lines of people trying to purchase tickets. But once visitors were inside, that controlled capacity really meant that the experience was so much better for everyone, because we're not as crowded, people aren't jockeying for position with tons of other visitors to try and get the best view or the best angle.
And so for us, if anything, COVID has really made our daily operations much less hectic for our staff. We reopened to the public on July 10th at a third of our usual capacity, and we're encouraging all visitors to reserve tickets over the website or over the phone. So if people are walking up without tickets, we have a little sign outside with a QR code and our website, and we're encouraging them to get whatever time slot is first available. And it's almost completely eliminated those lines and the traffic in our lobby, which has been a huge dream of ours [laughs], but never something we thought we would see so soon. So, that's been a huge silver lining in an otherwise very dark and stormy time.
Brendan Ciecko:
Wow. Well, thank you, thank you for sharing that, Stephanie. And one phrase that you used that stood out to me was that it was a game changer for your organization and the tools that you're using. Someone's asked on the chat, "What system are you using for, for ticketing and time ticketing?"
Stephanie Cabezas:
Yes, we are using Altru, Blackbaud Altru. So, we have our time tickets filled in as scheduled programs.
Brendan Ciecko:
Okay. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Well, it was just really interesting to hear about what your journey has been, having several years' experience with the time ticketing aspect, and thinking of an organization like yours where it just makes complete sense, based on the capacity. So, a little bit of a headstart for what a lot of organizations are experiencing for the first time right now. So, I know a lot of people really appreciate your perspective on this, as well as Laura's and Kate's, at different steps of the journey that a lot of us are on right now.
So, a variety of staff are involved in getting time ticketing off the ground. Even on this webinar, we have communications, development, visitor services, and, and database operations represented here. How did you go about getting time ticketing started? Which staff have worked together on this? I want to kick it off with Laura, because you were talking about all of the things that have to happen before you just flip a switch and, and run forward. So if you can get us started, that would be really interesting to hear your thoughts.
Laura McArthur:
Yeah. We formed a strategic team of people from across the museum. Like I mentioned, operations, facilities, marketing, obviously our strategy officer and some, some people in advancement and things like that. And we also decided to go with one-third capacity when we opened. And we also in Arkansas. We had to submit our reopening plan to the governor for approval. And so, it was a long process that was back and forth, and we wanted to go above and beyond and require masks and all these other things.
So, it was a process and we didn't announce the date as soon as we knew the date, because we thought it might get pushed. So, there was a lot of communication with, like, our social media and our email lists and things like that.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. And Kate, how about from your side? What has the collaboration between departments looked like to get you to understand your capacity, deciding which platform or tools to use, deciding how to optimize it for your end user, the visitor, all of those things that go into rolling out time ticketing?
Kate Porter:
Sure. So as I mentioned, we're a small, but mighty team. So, that's actually worked to our advantage going through this process, in that I was really able to involve our guest services and membership services manager. Obviously our executive director, as well. I'm the marketing and development manager, so it really was a pretty small and nimble group.
I will say that the thing that I really learned from it is I had underestimated the staff training needs. And just making sure that everybody was extremely comfortable with a new, more tech forward approach to how we welcome folks to the museum. So, one of the things that we had to do was initially, I found the, the user interface to be too easy to work with, but I understood that the, the, the front were finding some lag time with it.
And so, we worked with our representative, Sue, over at Tiqets, to work on a scan app option, so that our folks at the front can just barcode scan, which is honestly new technology for us at the museum. Barcodes scan those in so that it's a completely touchless interaction. And it also helps to speed up that line, like Stephanie mentioned. Nobody wants a line for their museum.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. And Stephanie, just jumping off of Kate's last point, I know earlier you were talking about going from wristbands to going to time ticketing. Can you assume that for all three of your organizations, there is some sort of scan aspect involved, a barcode, a QR code?
Stephanie Cabezas:
Yes and no.
Brendan Ciecko:
Okay.
Stephanie Cabezas:
For us, Altru does offer barcode tickets. For us, we haven't yet found a way that's quick and easy enough for us to scan tickets physically. So, we usually just do a visual check of the date and time before sending people in.
Brendan Ciecko:
Okay, okay. That's, that's really good to know. And I want to throw in a question that came in from the audience, from Kathryn Flores. She wants to know, especially given a lot of organizations have special categories or even free categories, how have other museums facilitated free ticket categories for advanced reservations? Do you validate those free tickets or go by the honor system? And some of the examples she included was Cool Culture, New York Public Library Culture Pass, and visitors with disabilities and, and other examples, as well.
Laura McArthur:
Our general admission is free to the public. Before COVID we did not require a ticket for general admission, but now obviously we are, since we're in time ticketing. And we validate that, and we request that they pre-reserve their ticket. But we left some space for walk ups, too, so people don't have to necessarily have the ticket since it is free. And what we've seen is, like, 70% of people are pre-reserving, of the people that actually attended. But we do scan the ticket and we do validate that it is the correct date when we scan it.
Kate Porter:
For us, about 90% of our income comes from admission fees, so we're very heavily reliant on that. So we don't have a lot of free options for ticketing. Pretty much the most consistent one we use is for members, which I think we'll talk a little more later, but we're using a free ticket type online that members can reserve in advance. And for us, I saw a question about scanning and tracking attendance and things. We were going to focus on that this year. Being able to scan tickets was going to be my 2020 goal, but that all got laid by the wayside. But for us, it's more important to know how many people we could potentially be expecting, rather than how many people are actually showing up at this time.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you, thank you. And time ticketing, as we've mentioned earlier, may be very new and very unfamiliar for most or the majority of organizations and their visitors. As you introduce time ticketing, how do you get visitors and your members and your audience to adopt this new way of admissions? Have you received any confusion or pushback? And I want to layer this question with one from the audience. Heather McLearin wants to know a little bit about how to build awareness in advance that time tickets are required?
So I guess let's talk a little bit about raising awareness and making this clear that it's easy to adopt and all of the things that you've seen so far. So Laura, what has that process looked like on your end? How has your community, your visitors responded to time ticketing?
Laura McArthur:
So, our museum is pretty popular with our community, because we are a fairly small community in Northwest Arkansas. While we were closed, we still offered virtual, digital events. We stayed in contact with our members, with our ticket buyers that were past ticket buyers. We stayed in contact with them and kept them engaged while we were closed.
And so, when we did reopen and plan reopening, we already had this open communication with them. They'd been participating with us, even while we were closed. And so, I think that helped the transition there, just staying on top of social media and eMarketing and things like that.
Brendan Ciecko:
Stephanie, how about you? Because it's been many years in the making, not only introducing time ticketing many years ago, but then also making it a requirement and having a capacity and all of those things. What has that awareness looked like? What platforms or social media channels or outlets are you using, both physically and digitally for the Magic Gardens?
Stephanie Cabezas:
Yeah, so in general, as we were introducing the time ticketing system, we did the best we could to just sort of put the awareness out there. We used Instagram and Facebook, Twitter to some degree, not quite as much, but all over our website and every single phone call that we were getting with people expressing interest about visiting, we were just starting to be like, "Buy your tickets online, buy your tickets online, buy your tickets online."
And word started spreading little by little. Word of mouth is how most people find the museum, and so people being like, "Hey, I tried to go and I had to wait two hours before I could go in," really helps motivate people to, to start thinking ahead and looking on the website. And it's plastered all over our website and tickets acknowledge emails that you won't be able to come in right away. You'll have to do a little planning beforehand.
Brendan Ciecko:
Yeah, it sounds like you're doing a really good job there. There's an expression in so many spaces around service and, and product design that don't make me think if the person needs to spend too much time going to a page and then a sub-page and clicking around to find that very important central bit of information, then there's a lot of improvement to be had. So, I'm really happy to hear that you're putting it out there bold and bright so you can't miss it. That's great.
And Kate how about you? What's the awareness been like for your museum?
Kate Porter:
Sure. So, we reopened on June 1st, and with the reopening we did a bit of a media campaign with press releases and some interviews and things like that. And of course, mentioned the time ticketing and all of that, directing people to go online to buy tickets, because like I said, that was new for us, too. And so, like Laura and Stephanie, just really making sure that we're continuing that constant communication, not only with our members, but with the entire community as well.
And then one of the things that we found really neat is the platform we adjust to go in actually embeds seamlessly into our website. And so, we did refresh our website during the temporary closure of the museum. And so, now there's a buy tickets button that literally floats very visibly on our website that automatically directs folks into choosing their time ticketing slot and things like that.
So, it's been a fairly seamless transition. And we actually had people asking us on our social media channels before we opened, if we were going to be doing that once we opened. So, it seems like the appetite was there for the community and people. Really, we've gotten no pushback at all from it.
Brendan Ciecko:
That's great. Well, it's impressive, and kudos to you and your teams, large and small, for covering all of the bases of making it easy for your visitors and your audience to find what they need on your website, circulating this information over social media, putting out press releases about your new strategy and, and how people will be interacting. So, it looks like you've covered a lot of the bases there, to ensure that your audience knows what to expect. And I think like so many things in the world, it's all about setting expectations and letting it be as guided as it can be.
So, let's talk a moment about members, for instance. Is time ticketing or timed admission something that members will also be using? And if so, how does this work for your museum and the systems you're using? How about members of other organizations that might have reciprocal benefits to get into your organization for free? So, let's talk about some of those. I don't want to call them edge cases even, because they're very common, but let's talk about the member and the reciprocal member component for a minute.
Kate Porter:
I'll jump in on that one. So, we built in a, basically a buffer zone for each of our time slots to accommodate our members. And then we're also part of the ASTC Passport program. So, 200-plus museums across the country, we have reciprocal admission with. And so, we factored that in as well, but then also considered the fact that a lot of folks aren't traveling as much as they used to. So, we made an educated guess and we've been slightly adjusting here and there, just to make sure that guess is still correct. But that's basically how we've dealt with that.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great. And Laura, how about you? Does Crystal Bridges have a membership program and accept reciprocal privileges from other museums?
Laura McArthur:
We do. We have a membership program, as well as we participate with NARM. Since our museum entrance is free, those benefits extend to our temporary exhibitions. And when we first reopened, we made our temporary exhibition free to everyone, but we do have a paid temporary exhibition that's opening in September. We are making tickets. Tickets are available online. The way we have it set up is you can book your exhibition ticket. It does not have a time, but then we have in cart language that says, , you're buying the exhibition ticket and then in the cart it says, "Don't forget to book your timed entrance ticket," and then it links to that ticket so you can put that in your cart, as well. So, we're linking in the cart so that they can still get their time reservation.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great. Stephanie, how about on your end? Do you have a membership program? And if you do, how are you approaching that from the time ticketing perspective?
Stephanie Cabezas:
Yes. Yeah, so we do have a membership program and actually before COVID, one of the biggest perks of our membership was that you were able to skip the line and come into the space without reservations. So, that's been a huge change for our membership. We had a nice sized buff- buffer of non-time tickets that we could draw from to add in members, even if the time slots were sold out. And that's obviously changed now, because we are keeping a much stricter handle on our capacity, and every ticket counts.
And so, we communicated through email with our membership before we opened to the public, um, to let them know that everything's changing, that they'll need to reserve tickets online for themselves and their guests, and gave them instructions on how to go about doing that. And so far, I don't think we've gotten any pushback on that.
We are also part of NARM and ROAM, but we don't typically get many of those visitors. So, we're sort of handling those on a case by case basis as inquiries come in. And like I said, we're at a third of our capacity, and by city guidelines we could be up to half. And so, we definitely still have a little bit of a buffer for some walk up admissions to come in and reserve tickets on the spot, on the down low if we need to, as long as it isn't in the space.
Brendan Ciecko:
That's great. And we do have a question that came in right off of that point. How have you worked with your ticketing system around drop in public visitors? And I, I want to sandwich that question from Brianna Sadler about the drop in visitor that maybe didn't see the press release or the page on the website or any of those things, or the signs or the QR code. Maybe they missed it and they really want to go to your museum or check out one of your exhibitions. How are you dealing with that from a systems perspective?
And also, I love that from what I'm hearing, there is a buffer zone. You've taken into consideration some buffer around this. So, how are you handling all of those aspects, the drop in and the buffer zone?
Stephanie Cabezas:
So, we have a lot of experience with drop in visitors and people who are just walking up, hoping to waltz right in. System wise, we sort of built a separate system for our time tickets apart from the just general admission tickets that we had been using before. So, those general admission tickets are still present and available to our staff, they're just not available online or anywhere else. So, if we need to add in extra tickets above the time tickets, we have that option.
In terms of people not being able to come in without a ticket, we have just had to get really good at saying no in a very firm, but gentle manner. We do have that buffer, so if it is slow, we're able to listen to the case by case and decide if we want to make an exception, but we've also just braced our staff to learn how to break hearts, but do it in a very polite way that leaves people the option of coming back in the future with an advance ticket.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. Kate, how about you? How are you dealing with people who arrive onsite, as well as how are you calculating your buffer zone to accommodate those people?
Kate Porter:
Sure. So like Stephanie, if we have the availability, of course we'll welcome the folks into the museum and mention to them that they can select their time ticketing ticket for their next visit. We created the buffer zone basically by looking at past data and the sales trends, with how many members versus just general admission folks that we had. And like I said, we've had to tweak it a little bit, but so far it's been working nicely.
I think one of the things that's really helped us is we've created a one-way egress through the museum. So, we used to do a loop and end up back at the front door. Now you exit through a different door that actually connects folks closer to the parking lot. But with our time ticketing being every 20 minutes, it keeps folks moving through the museum pretty quickly. So, if we do have a full slot and we do get some drop ins, usually we're able to accommodate them pretty quickly, but again, we're just continuing that communication and continuing to double down with the folks outside of the museum and letting them know about the ticketing options.
And one of the things that we've seen a lot of people do is they'll purchase their time ticket pretty shortly before they come to the museum, so we're pretty confident that the word's getting out there. So, that's helpful as well.
Brendan Ciecko:
That's great. And just one more question on the buffer side of things. I know some people have a tendency to arrive early, some people have a tendency to arrive late. And so, do your buffer zones take that into consideration? How are you communicating expectations in your email after I've purchased a time ticket around if you do arrive early or late? Laura, how are you dealing with that?
Laura McArthur:
So in a couple of ways. When someone books a ticket, because we do have requirements, they have to wear a face covering, any, any person over a certain age has to wear a face covering, they have to agree that they haven't had these symptoms, etc. We require that they check that. As a part of that also is, "This is your time. This is the window that you can come," and that's pretty explicit. But then also, we send what we call a, "Know before you go," email to everyone who has a ticket, and they get it the day before that they come.
And it explains, like, in detail, all the things that they need to know. And it includes that, too. Like, "You can come during this time. If you miss your time, you may have to wait, because we are only allowing so many." Because we do also allow for walk ups, so if we see that only 60% in this time slot have arrived so far, then we'll allow more of those walk ups to come in, to fill that capacity.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great. Thank you. And as time ticketing is a new novelty for many museums and also a necessity, and now you all have a range of experience with this technology, it's a great thing to see, that's a great thing to share some of these aspects. So, from your weeks to years of using time ticketing, are there any specific challenges that you've faced? Or perhaps anything that you really wished you've known from the get go? So, let's throw this to Stephanie, because you have many years and your organization has many years in the field of time ticketing.
Stephanie Cabezas:
Yeah. We've definitely had a learning curve in terms of both controlling the physical flow of traffic. As I said, we have a very small space. Our lobby is also very small. We're unable to let people into the restrooms or the gift shop before their ticket time. So for us, that entry time is super strict. If you come early, unfortunately you can't go anywhere into the museum before that time.
So, I think learning how to communicate that to our visitors before they get here, trying to find ways to set those expectations and make them very clear before visitors even arrive on site has been really important for us. And like Laura was saying, we've relied very heavily on that ticket acknowledge email that gets sent out to everyone who purchases to say, "Here's exactly what to expect when you get here."
We've also found it like Kate was saying, to be really helpful to be super communicative with our front line staff and make sure they have a clear grasp on our protocols so they can explain it to the visitors. Sometimes they end up having to say the same things over and over, but in different ways until it finally clicks and visitors are like, "Oh, okay. I get it now." But it's also good for them to understand why we're doing what we're doing so that they feel empowered to make exceptions when needed in unique situations.
And like I said too, we've just also come to realize over time that we're not going to be able to accommodate everyone and we- we'll just have to end up turning some people away. And that's unfortunate, but it's good to have a way to explain that you feel comfortable with so you're not just blaming people for not planning ahead, but you're helping them realize that this is in place because it makes a better historic experience for everyone.
And for us too, COVID has almost made that a little easier in some sense, in that beforehand we would tell people we were sold out and they were like, "How does a museum run out of tickets?" And now people are like, "Oh yeah, that makes sense. Safe capacity. I get it. Sure." So there's this built in expectation for many of our visitors that you might not just be able to walk right in, that you might have to plan ahead a little more than you used to.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. And Laura, what do you wish you knew from the very get go, and what are some of the challenges that you've faced in getting time ticketing rolled out at Crystal Bridges?
Laura McArthur:
I would say one of the things that really helped us was already knowing our no-show rate essentially for a free ticket, so because we did provide tickets to other public events and stuff, and we noticed many years ago that it's, like, 50%. Like, if you make a ticket free, only 50% of people are going to come. So, we thought, "Okay. We know that this is going to be a high no-show rate if people book a ticket." And so we, we maximized our capacity by adding extra slots for walk ups that allow for that. So, that's one thing, we did not have walk ups by time slot first, when we first reopened. We just had a clicker and we added it at the end of the day, but we discovered we wanted to be able to see per time slot who's buying a ticket, who's not, who's walking up.
So, now we can see the data, like, by time slot, by time of day, what percentage of people are coming pre-reserved and walking up, and we don't have the end of day clicker anymore. It's only allowed within those time slots. So, that's something that we, we thought about, but we didn't have it all set up until we were like, "Okay, we want to make this even more granular." So, that was a good change that we made.
Brendan Ciecko:
Excellent. And Kate, what were some challenges that you faced early on? And is there anything you wish you knew from the first moments of your exploration in time ticketing?
Kate Porter:
Honestly, I wish we would have done it sooner, because I think like Laura is saying, and Stephanie, it's given us a lot better feel for redemption rates and tracking things actually in the museum and whatnot. But again, it just really goes back to stop treating a lot of our team members who have been with the museum for the full 30 years we've been open, which is amazing. They have a ton of knowledge. But also, change can be a little tricky sometimes.
And so, I would just double down on making sure that you're communicating internally, and that everybody really feels comfortable. But now that we've hit our stride a little bit better with that, I think like Stephanie was saying, we're finding that the team members are feeling more empowered and that COVID's really offered a great opportunity to change the conversation a bit from just general admission throughout the entire day, hope things are going well, to a more informed conversation about making sure that folks are really having a quality experience at the museum that's very personalized and safe, as well.
So, it's been a really good opportunity for us overall, but again, just making sure that we're, we're working through these different things as they come up and doing it as pleasantly as possible, because obviously we want to make sure everybody has a great experience at our museum.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. I feel like in the museum and cultural space, we're very much in that, "Oh, I wish I did that earlier," around some of these great tools and solutions that exist. So, the forcing function of the pandemic has probably enabled a lot of organizations to realize the benefits of a lot of these different tools and solutions for digital engagement and member engagement and ticketing and just getting all of those ducks in a row. So if anything, a silver lining.
I want to throw a question in from the audience. Ruth Shirley wants to know, how did you decide your time intervals? Was there data referenced in this process? Laura, how did you decide?
Laura McArthur:
I'm not exactly sure how they decided. I wasn't on that panel, but we had different timed experiences before. So, we've done 15 minutes or an hour when we've done different outdoor experiences, so we do 30 minutes and we have 30 people per 30 minutes, and that is, like Stephanie said earlier, one-third capacity. So, I think they considered, how long does it take to come from the entrance to the galleries, walk through the galleries, what does the flow feel like? And for us, since we do have a large space, it looked like 30 people per 30 minutes.
We did do a member preview before we reopened. So like, for four days before we reopened, we had members only days. And so, we did an even smaller capacity for that, 15 people per 30 minutes. And that was also really good for our front of house staff to, like, "Okay, get used to working with a mask on. Get used to opening these doors for guests and, like, knowing how to interact with guests." And it was a good, like, pre-run to before we reopened to the general public.
Brendan Ciecko:
That's great. And I've been hearing a lot of, anything that you're going to do, it's a smart idea to have some sort of pre-run or dry run. So, it's both so you can make sure everything's working from the technical side, as well as the staff training, and then there's always going to be unforeseen things that you have the ability to learn from and adapt from. So, that's great to hear about your days of member only preview.
And Stephanie, how about you? How have you determined what these time slots are?
Stephanie Cabezas:
Yeah, so for us, much like Laura, it was also based on the amount of time that visitors are using to make their way through the space. We are a very small space, so we find that our average visit varies between 20 minutes to 45 minutes. So, we set it at half an hour. I mean, we don't make people leave by that point, but we find that naturally, that tends to be when people cycle out. So, as the next group is coming in, most of the people are on their way out or have already left. So, it sort of works out pretty naturally.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great. And Kate, how about you? What was the process, the calculations that went into the- determining the intervals and the time slots?
Kate Porter:
So, we do have a fairly large space. We've got eight major galleries spread across two floors, so it does take folks a decent amount of time to make their way through our museum. So, we looked at our attendance data from the past, the average number of visitors for the day, and then what our target attendance was, a reduced reopening rate to comply with our state and CDC guidelines and whatnot. And then basically backtracked from there, from the average amount of time that folks would spend in a gallery to make it through the museum in its entirety and then spread out the time ticketing options from there.
So, really for us, it was very data driven. But again, with our team being super small and really hands on, it was also a conversation that we had with the gallery monitors. One of the things that we thought was really interesting, so we had initially reopened with just general admission online ticketing for the day. And our team members found that folks might come. We close at 4:00, and they might come in at 3:50. And in the past that wouldn't be a problem, but it takes our team members a really long time to completely sanitize the museum at the end of the day for that final deep clean.
And so if you've got somebody coming to the museum basically once the museum is closing, then that becomes an issue. So, the team members there, that was something totally unanticipated that I didn't even think about. So we did actually take off a couple of our time ticketing slots when we added them into the end of the day, so that folks would be exiting the museum closer to that 4:00 time so that we can better manage our staff time as well, because obviously we want to be cognizant about it at this time, too.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you for that. So, we have a really interesting question from Amber Mayer in the audience. Are any of you doing a pre screening survey? Does that go through your customer management system, your ticketing system? Is it issued in person on site? Speaking from my own experience, I went to MASS MoCA this past Saturday. It's the largest contemporary art museum in the country by square footage. It's an amazing place if you ever are in that neck of the woods.
And they had time ticketing, which was wonderful, very smooth. Walked up, they scanned the ticket, but then when you arrived at the front, they had a person welcome you, socially distanced or physically distanced of course, that, that asked a couple screening questions, um, about symptoms, about, "Have you been outside of the New England or Massachusetts area?" So on and so forth. I'd be very curious, are your organizations doing this? And if you are, is it happening digitally beforehand? Is it happening when they're onsite? Laura, how are you approaching this?
Laura McArthur:
We're not serving guests as they come up. Like I mentioned before, we are having them verify when they purchase the ticket that they do not have certain symptoms, fevers, chills, cough, etc. We are serving all of our staff when they come up and doing a temperature check and asking some other specific questions like that. But that's just for staff, not for guests.
Brendan Ciecko:
Okay. That's helpful. I think the question was more about a survey, but it is interesting to hear about the actual temperature check. So, I guess to even expand the question, if you're doing prescreen surveys or even temperature checks, that's even more expansive. How about at Magic Gardens? What are you doing, Stephanie?
Stephanie Cabezas:
We also are not doing any survey of our visitors. We are doing the temperature checks for staff, but ultimately for us, since a lot of our tickets are selling sort of on the spot or we have a lot of tickets to be checking and not a lot of space in which to do it, we felt that it would be safer for our staff to just get people in and out as fast as possible, and that have been expanding that interaction time with visitors if at all possible. We also have the benefit of the fact that about half of our site is outdoors, too. So there isn't quite as much indoor room to worry about, which is nice.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thanks. Kate, and how about you? Is there a survey involved in your time ticketing, prescreening and so on?
Kate Porter:
So no survey at this point, but that is next on the agenda. We've had time ticketing for a couple of weeks now. And so, hoping to add that in shortly. We do have, of course the guidelines. Please change your reservation or don't come to the museum if you have certain symptoms, etc., but we're not doing any active screening at this point. There's been a lot of local discussion here about basically doing that. And the guidance that we had gotten from local CDC and health department healthcare experts is basically that you can ask the questions, but people may or may not answer them honestly. And then with the temperature screening, you can get faulty reading with that. And so, much like Stephanie, we're just trying to minimize the overall contact. We do require masks and our staff does fill out a screening questionnaire and wear gloves, as well. But yeah, for the most part, we're just trying to minimize contact. And we do actually have staff members, our, our gallery monitors, who do wipe down everything and monitor the galleries and clean basically in between each group that's in each gallery. So, folks do get sanitizer stations at the start of each new gallery and they do get a freshly cleaned gallery every time that they go into a new space.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you, thank you. It's always interesting to hear the different types of approaches organizations are taking for their guests, as well as their staff as it relates to the precautions and the prescreen and other such things.
I guess one last question in that area as it relates to a concept that's fairly new to all of us, is this idea of contact tracing, where I think you can have time ticketing and not have contact tracing. And you can have time ticketing and can have contact tracing, depending on how the system has modified or enhanced their capabilities. With the tools that the three of you are using, does it have auditable contact tracing, where if there is some sort of incident with one individual that's reported, that you're able to see everyone else who was in the museum during that time and maybe even be able to automatically contact them or, or export that information to do so? Kate, you're shaking your head. I'd love to hear about your experience with this, and if that's a possibility with the tools that you're using.
Kate Porter:
Yes. So, that was actually a strong component of why we chose to go with time ticketing at this point too, because before it was really difficult to say for sure who was in the museum. And we'd have to go back through receipts and credit card transactions and things like that. Whereas at this point, we do have a really easy to use interface and both the membership and front desk manager and I have access to that at all times, where we can see who's in the museum. It'll say once the ticket's been scanned in and redeemed, so we know exactly who's there at what times. And we're using that as contact tracing at this point.
And honestly, it's something that gives me a bit of confidence in if anything does happen or we do need to address anything, we have these tools for the first time, that really are going to be helpful moving forward, even beyond COVID.
Brendan Ciecko:
That's great to hear. Laura, how about you? How is your organization addressing contact tracing? And, and does the platform, the ticketing tool that you have available today allow you to do that?
Laura McArthur:
We haven't to my knowledge, received any information from guests who contact us to say that they visited and then they found out that they tested positive. So, we haven't had to use any contact tracing yet, luckily. But like Kate said, we do our ticketing. Since we are scanning tickets and people are pre- most of our tickets are pre-reserved, we can see who came, what time slot they were, and which other people came during those time slots.
Now, we're not necessarily booking- creating accounts for every person who walks up, but if they pre-reserve, we'll know when they came and whether or not they came.
Brendan Ciecko:
Excellent. And Stephanie, how about you?
Stephanie Cabezas:
Yeah, so that's been another big benefit of going to strictly online tickets instead of walk ups, is that we now have a name and contact information attached to every order, which we haven't had to do any contact tracing yet. But if we would, we can pull up all the information by time slot and see exactly who was registered for those slots.
For us too, it also has the added benefit of things like being able to refund tickets or reschedule or cancel, because we are also a partly outdoor space and we have lots of rebar, so if it thunderstorms we have to close. So now we have all those ticket information and contact information right there if we need it, which is really helpful.
Brendan Ciecko:
That's great. That's great. So, we have about 10 minutes left in today's conversation. I've learned a ton, to be frank with you. I mean, Cuseum doesn't do time ticketing, but we do interact and interface and integrate with a lot of great companies and organizations that do. So, this has been incredible hearing from three different types of organizations in three different parts of the United States using three different ticketing platforms.
So, I hope it's been informative for everybody that has tuned in so far, and I hope it's also been informative for our guest speakers, picking up different notes here and there, "Oh, I like what she did over there, or I like what they're doing at that organization." And I always love that cross-pollination of ideas. I think that that's what makes for a stronger cultural institution. It makes us all more successful, and in this case it makes sure that we and our audiences, our guests, our members, and our donors are safe.
I mean, we're talking about safety and compliance today. It's a whole new world. But I want to say after this webinar, we're going to compile everyone's questions, ideas, and solutions into one living document to share with the museum community and the cultural community. Feel free to share your thoughts here in the webinar chat or the Q&A or email them over to Cuseum. I mean, the very fact that you are here today shows that you are taking proactive steps and preparing not only yourself, but your organization. And, and we know that there's always a lot of learning to be had, so really great pull for these types of opportunities each and every week.
So looking at the, just looking at the Q&A, I mean, we had over 60 questions, 50 or 60 questions. We answered about eight or nine of them, so I'm proud of us that we were able to, outside of the questions I had lined up and my team had lined up, we were able to answer a lot of questions for those who have joined today.
But for a couple last questions, over the years we've heard desires for things like dynamic ticketing pricing, new ways to predict future audience numbers, and more comprehensive data analytics about our attendance, around our attendees, around how people are moving through the space, do you see time ticketing as a solution to just a current problem? Or do you think that this will ultimately become the norm and that organizations will start tapping into the data and start tapping into certain things like adjusting pricing based on demand and, and so on? Kate, what are you thinking?
Kate Porter:
So, this is something that we've had a lot of internal conversation about. Again, recently too, because we wanted to be sure that we were choosing a path forward that would really have some legs to it and continue beyond the global pandemic.
So for us, it's something we're definitely going to continue with, because we see time ticketing as something that our community, like I said, is already embracing. It's making people's experience at the museum better, but it also gives us a ton more data than we used to have.
One of the benefits to the system that we chose with Tiqets is that as a natural history museum, tend to get a lot of visitors from Asia. So obviously that's not a situation that's happening right now, but moving forward, we really like the fact that the platform will convert currency. It's available in nine different languages and it gives us data on where folks are buying tickets from.
So, already we had somebody from Buenos Aires buy a ticket to the museum. I'm not exactly sure how they're getting here, but it's Vegas, so who knows? But, it's something that we can track a little bit better. And for our staff too, because everything is so seamlessly integrated, it's saving a lot of time. Whereas, our front end folks literally used to manage this manually with our POS system.
And so, now that it's all being automated and integrated, it's something where we can just pull the reports, rather than having to physically ask folks whenever they arrive. So, it's something that we're really embracing and seeing how we can expand into other areas of our business.
Brendan Ciecko:
That's great. And just even off of the pricing and the currency conversion and stuff like that, if there is a day where dynamic pricing becomes a reality, I think it will take place in Vegas, where you just pull the slot machine and the price comes up. And then your guest from Buenos Aires is like, "I'm getting in for $7 instead of $20. Or like, we can dream. We can dream.
Kate Porter:
Exactly.
Brendan Ciecko:
And Laura, how are you looking at this from a, "Hey, it's solving a problem today, but there are things that it might evolve into in the future." What are you thinking about the data, and how is your organization interpreting a lot of this information to make more informed, long term decisions?
Laura McArthur:
Yeah. We love using the timed tickets and looking at which times are busier. We noticed first thing in the morning when we open, there's a big rush and then it drops off, and then right after lunch, again it picks up and then at the end of the day it's slower. So we can see , like, what the trends are. I think that's very helpful, because before it would just be anecdotal. Right? Like, the guest services would be like, "Well, it feels like it's slower at these times of day," or everything, but now we know because the data is there, we can look at the times. But because Crystal Bridges is so access focused, like, having access isn't one of our most important values, I don't see for the future, post-COVID, that we would ever require a ticket. We will always allow for walk ups, because we just always want to be able to allow for that.
But dynamic pricing is something that we have used at our sister location, the Momentary. It got canceled, but we just opened in February. We were going to have a festival and we did dynamic pricing for pre-sales. Like, if you buy X number of months before, before this lineup, or as time. As you got closer to the festival, the prices got more expensive. But that's not necessarily related to timed tickets, but dynamic pricing is definitely something that I see happening more and more in the future.
Brendan Ciecko:
Excellent. And Stephanie, how, how about you? What does the long term view look like, now that you have more access to data and behavioral understanding of, of people coming into the Magic Gardens? What are you thinking around what will ultimately come of this? Will time ticketing become the norm for other organizations moving forward?
Stephanie Cabezas:
I think for spaces like ours that are small, but have a very wide range of interest, time ticketing is definitely the way to go, because it helps you with all the space and crowding issues. But also, again, gives you so much more data to work with. We can pull up reports that show us exactly how many tickets were sold per time slot on any given day. And I've relied on those so heavily for scheduling and for planning for the future and sort of figuring out what to expect for holidays or for weekends. And that's been so incredibly helpful for us.
And like I said, our dream too was always to sell tickets online as much as possible. So, that's happening now and I don't really want to go back if we get it, so we'll see what that looks like post-COVID, too.
Brendan Ciecko:
That's great. And, and two last questions to round us off and wrap this all up. From your standpoint, what does the future ticketing experience look like for museum goers, attendees of arts and cultural organizations? What do you think, Kate? What does the future look like?
Kate Porter:
Oh, gosh. So honestly, the, the dream future, because I have a telecom background, would be something akin to the, the Whole Foods/Amazon shopping stores, where you would just walk in with your phone and it would register that you're there and there probably wouldn't be a whole lot of interaction at the door. Granted, considering we just launched time ticketing two weeks ago, it's going to be a little while before that happens. But I do think that technology really is the impetus to move all of this forward, give us better data, and really serve our communities better.
So, I see it being an integral part of the process moving forward, so that we can really shift our focus to those individual connections once folks are in the space or engaging with us online.
Brendan Ciecko:
Excellent. And Stephanie, how about you? What does the future look like? And do you see a day where someone walks in and they don't need to scan anything because their presence is detected and they have the experience in a contactless environment?
Stephanie Cabezas:
I definitely agree with Kate, that I think less personal interaction is something that we are moving towards, especially during COVID, but also I think after the pandemic, that desire to minimize face to face contact is going to linger for awhile. So I think now is the time to rethink. Ticketing is something that doesn't necessarily have to have a lot of face to face interaction or doesn't even happen onsite at all, if needed.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. And Laura, how about you? What does the future of ticketing experience look like for the museum field?
Laura McArthur:
I think Kate and Stephanie both said what they said were great. But to bounce off of what Stephanie and Kate said, yeah, contactless is great. We still currently have a scanner, where we have to scan, but one of the things that Tessitura is coming out with, it's in Beta, but it's supposed to be released this week or next week, is a contactless scanner that uses the same devices that we have. All we have to do is have a podium, and then the guests can just wave their mobile ticket, which we have mobile tickets, that they can just pull up their QR code and scan it themselves and not have to touch a thing and not have to get within so many feet of a guest services associate.
So, we're definitely looking forward to implementing that as soon as it's available. But I think like Stephanie and Kate said, that is definitely going to be the future, because people are going to be very cautious about getting too close.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you, thank you. And one last question, and we do this on every single one of our webinars. If you could leave us with one big idea that we can bring back to our organizations during this time, it doesn't need to be related to time ticketing or ticketing in general unless you really want it to be. What is one thing that you've learned through this whole period of transition and period of unforeseen challenges caused by the pandemic, that you would want to share with the museum and cultural community right now? Stephanie, lead us off. We'd love to hear what your one big idea is.
Stephanie Cabezas:
Sure. So, what I would say is, now is really the time to dream big. I mean, our visitation numbers at the Gardens were rising so quickly over such a short amount of time, and so we've just been chugging along at full speed, trying to keep up with everything. But COVID has really forced us to slow down, take a hard look at how we do things, and really assess everything, all aspects of our ticketing and programming and staffing, and figure out what we want the museum to look like over the next few years.
And so, I think COVID too has changed so many aspects of all of our lives, so visitors aren't necessarily expecting their experience to feel or look exactly the same as it did before. So, we have this unique opportunity to get really creative and explore things that might not have seemed like an option before, like time ticketing. So, I'd say just don't be afraid to just think big and think outside the box.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thanks for that, Stephanie. And Laura, how about you? What's one big idea that you would leave everyone with today?
Laura McArthur:
I've got two small ideas. Well, not small. Collect all the data that you can. If you can collect the data, collect it, because you'll want to look at it. So number one, always collect as much data. Number two, think creatively and push all the buttons. Try it out. Just make the systems that you have work for what you want. And with creative problem solving, you can make it happen, and just know that you can. So, that's what I would say.
Brendan Ciecko:
Excellent. Thank you, Laura. And Kate, what would you leave everyone with today?
Kate Porter:
Oh, gosh. Coming in third on this one. You guys both have wonderful thoughts. Like Stephanie, thinking big, thinking outside the box, of course is- now is the time. We've refreshed our website, implemented time ticketing. For us, it really does feel like a bit of a Renaissance at our museum, in that we've also launched a couple of new exhibits this summer. So, it's really a fun time to be creative and to be a professional in our industry.
And so, I guess to piggyback off of Stephanie and Laura, I'll just remember to have fun and remember what our mission is. It's really easy to get bogged down in the day to day and the data and setting up online and, and virtual. But at the end of the day it's our, "Why are we here?" And so, keeping that at the forefront of everything really has helped us think more creatively and, and more critically about how we're sharing that with our public and our community.
Brendan Ciecko:
Excellent. Thank you. So, not only did we have the opportunity to discuss and share best practices around succeeding with time ticketing, but we also are left with some really inspiring words from Kate at the Las Vegas Natural History Museum, Laura from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and Stephanie from Philadelphia's Magic Gardens.
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your perspective for us today. I hope that you're staying safe, and healthy and happy. And really, truly appreciate this conversation today. So, thank you for being generous with your time and your ideas and your perspective. Thank you so much.
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