Arts People vs. Eventbrite

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.

Incentivized

We're a nonprofit organization so we have a very lean time, labor, and money so the super easy self-explanatory nature makes it easy for our team to admin an event. The simple UI [of Eventbrite] keeps our focus on the event and avoids any headache-inducing tech hurdles. There're just enough user roles to handle multi-staffer admin. A less appropriate situation is an event that is huge in complexity with a custom workflow and processing which Eventbrite's not built to handle in-house such as multi-step registration, multiple item and category all-select options during registration, multi-event type (not just physical or ticket but virtual goods tracking), more HootSuite-like social media refinery, etc.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Event management--providing a detailed description of the event (date, time, place) plus details of the event (speakers, topic, sponsors, etc.)
• Registrations--provides enough details about people who register, and tools to manage those registrations (add people manually who didn't pre-register, cancel orders, check-in of attendees)
• Event promotion--events created using Eventbrite can be found by searching Eventbrite for local events

Incentivized

• Anything I've asked for, I've gotten so I don't see any need for improvement at the moment.

Incentivized

• I'd like to see Eventbrite add more customization to the event page layout. It would be nice to be able to differentiate our event through more specific design.
• I've had occasional problems with email formatting in the Eventbrite email builder. It would be nice to have a slightly more trustworthy builder.
• Other than those two things, I think Eventbrite does exactly what it needs to do.

Incentivized

Excellent platform and easy to use to create events. Eventbrite sets the standard for simple, effective and safe ticketing platforms. Our customers trust Eventbrite and we've always done well when we use this platform for ticketing. They have recently updated some of the virtual connectivity tools which make it even easier to set up and promote virtual events.

Incentivized

Great platform with so many incredible features. It streamlines workflow, communication, messaging, and analyzing data. I know of no other platform that can do what Eventbrite can do for the price or user-friendliness. They also offer great support for new users and integrate well with other platforms (i.e., social media and Sched).

Incentivized

I haven't yet needed to contact customer support, but the information provided next to the various features has been exceptionally helpful. This info is located just to the right of most options, and it provides answers to frequently asked questions. At this point, that information has been enough to keep me from having to contact anyone.

Incentivized

Just jump in, don't over thinking it, doing it will net the very few basic questions you'll have. There's not much complexity so one doesn't need to plan as if moving a canal. It's as simple as can be.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

My "go to" for event registration has always been Constant Contact because they don't charge additional processing fees above the standard transaction. If it's a more basic event where I just need to capture name, email, and payment, I'll continue to use Constant Contact over Eventbrite. However, if it's more complex and requires marketing, I would choose Eventbrite.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• A dedicated URL for each event has been easy to use for tying events to editorial content, promotion and marketing.
• For ticketed events, it has been an easy -to-use system without requiring a lot of training on a complicated technology. It is also competitively priced for transaction management.
• Whether we have discovered any Eventbrite users via the Eventbrite site promotion, we appreciate it as a recommendation of our event for like-minded event attendees.

Incentivized