Likelihood to Recommend Arts People is one of the best business decisions our theatre has ever made. It relieves staff of some of the tedious, time-consuming tasks while increasing the ease of selling tickets and subscriptions. That's our goal--to sell tickets easily, in a user-friendly manner at a reasonable cost. That's what Arts People allows us to do. It works for tiny venues (to greet each guest personally) as well as huge venues (ticket scanning solution). It is less appropriate for a one-time event. An Arts People user should have an ongoing series of events to take advantage of all the features (it even has a membership feature) and the time for training.
Read full review CrowdCompass was the best part of
Cvent each time I used it, from the ease of use to the customer service and handholding. I would recommend it for anyone using
Cvent Event Management for an in-person event. I know
Cvent just rolled out their virtual event hub though, so for virtual and hybrid events that are employing the
Cvent family of tools, I would probably say CrowdCompass is unnecessary.
Read full review Pros Their customer service is unsurpassed. Sometimes several folks will be working on different aspects of a complicated request, to address all the details. Once things are exactly the way I want it, as in season subscription package sales, a representative checks in to make sure we're satisfied. Only then is the ticket closed. They have a very comprehensive, full featured ticketing system for all types of events and venues. Their dynamic door list is our favorite feature--no static printed door lists for us. That helps us greet each patron with up-to-date information and check them off the list. While my box officers are doing that, I can be at a remote location and see in real time who has arrived. We can make collaborative decisions about, for instance, holding the curtain for a critics arrival or adding a chair for an unexpected guest of a ticket-holder. We can keep a couple of tickets on hold for box officer discretion to address those unforeseen ticket window requests. Great flexibility which allows us to be efficient while giving good customer service to our patrons. Even though the system is full-featured, it is not beyond the skills of those who considers themselves non-technical. Two sessions of training will get a box officer up-and-running. Because there are different levels of access, we don't have to worry about someone changing essential programming while they are checking in patrons. They made their ticket landing page look like our website, so people don't even realize that they have been taken somewhere else. Plus, the patron can easily navigate back to our actual site, seamlessly. Read full review Provides attendees with their personalized schedules at their fingertips. Facilitates networking through the ability to set appointments and send messages with other attendees, and inspires competition with The Game and Click challenges. Gives attendees the ability to view handouts, take notes and download the information to their personal computers when they get back to their offices. Read full review Cons Anything I've asked for, I've gotten so I don't see any need for improvement at the moment. Read full review Last year, the gamification did not allow much customization, which was a shame. I hope that by the time I am ready to build my 2020 app, this function has been expanded The app to upload/edit push notifications was only available on iPhone so I had to have another team member handle that seems I have an android phone. Emails (invites, etc.) often go to junk. Read full review Likelihood to Renew We have been using CrowdCompass for 3 years and it has all of the capabilities and functionality that we need, it's easy to use, and Cvent is always implementing new features and enhancements to keep up with the latest trends and technology.
Read full review Usability It is very easy to use as everything is very intuitive. Configurating an app does not take too much time at the end, especially as soon as you already have done one as you can dupplicate the entire content. This is very practical when you use the app for annual events. Also few elements are not updatable once the app is published. Of course you can't change the entire design and the security settings which is a good thing anyway, but the entire content can be updated which allows you to publish your app quite early in advance to boost the engagement without having to wait to have everything in your hands (for instance the speakers bios or abstracts). Plus by adding more content regularly it encourage your audience to come back also regularly to check what is going on before the event.
Read full review Reliability and Availability Have not had any issues with availability
Read full review Performance Have had no issues
Read full review Support Rating Once we paid for our apps, I felt like I was left to learn on my own. There are plenty of Help articles available, but no training sessions. I'm a visual learner and having to poke around and use trial and error to build the apps took way too much valuable time away from other parts of my job. It was frustrating and I brought it up with my CrowdCompass contact, but was told that they don't provide any training sessions and if I had questions I should refer to the Help articles or call support.
Read full review Online Training Our training team walked us through the first set up which really helped me to learn where everything is located as well as all of the features available
Read full review Implementation Rating Don't wait to register with Apple and Google. You can do a lot of prep work prior to setting up CrowdCompass for integration.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Eventbrite is better for single, one-time events but isn't as full-featured as Arts People.Brown Paper Tickets is clunky to use and harder to change globally when an event changes or adds shows.Vendini --never used it because when I researched 10 different ticketing companies, they were the least helpful. They didn't listen to our needs, and instead told us what we should have. They were much more expensive than Arts People as well.Constant Contact is truly great as a marketing tool. But their events feature was awkward and the payment method was Paypal. However, since it's integrated with Arts People, we can use Arts People for sales and Constant Contact for marketing.Read full review Easier to use interface that directly links with our Cvent registration system. We switched due to this integration, the gamification improvements, the benefits for on-site check-in and session selections, and ease of design/use for our builder team. We have especially enjoyed the New Attendee experience over the look/interface of our previous apps
Read full review Scalability works great no matter what type of program or how many people attending
Read full review Return on Investment Positive - Our online vs phone call or in-person sales have increased steadily over the past 4 years since using Arts People. Less labor for us, more sales. Positive - People are buying their tickets earlier than they used to - to reserve a coveted seat in a possible sold-out performance. That makes planning our marketing easier--whether to offer HotTix or special coded offers for shows that have fewer sales. Negative - Some older folks still have problems with redeeming their subscription tickets for individual tickets without our personal assistance. We've been trying to pinpoint what that is--and Arts People helped us make a few adjustments. Sometimes people don't like to log in. That's one of the challenges of an integrated system. If the patron's profile changes in a way that impacts their subscription links, we need to step in. However, the overall time it has saved us in managing subscriptions is immeasurable. Read full review Positive - CrowdCompass has allowed us to eliminate paper programs thus saving thousands of dollars in printing and labor Positive - the ability to send push notifications when there is a change to the schedule is something a paper program could never do Positive - adoption rates have been so high we are looking into using the program for more and more events Read full review ScreenShots