Hi Mike,
At our recent REMIX London summit we launched a new report on ticketing, which was commissioned by Eventbrite but REMIX retained full editorial independence in writing it. As part of the research, we spoke with a wide range of museums and arts orgs of all sizes and one of the main questions the report tackles is in-house versus third party platforms, and the pros/cons of each.
You can download a free copy at http://www.tinyurl.com/bigticketquestions
One point to highlight from it relating to your email is the cost of in-house versus third party solutions. Very often we see organisations directly comparing the transaction cost of third party providers with the 'free' cost of in-house systems, without taking into account the actual costs of the original build (often costing several thousand, even if its configuring/skinning open source software), ongoing updates/improvements, administration (e.g. exporting databases if the systems aren't properly integrated) and staff training.
Similarly, card processing fees are obviously a cost irrespective of whether the system is either in-house or third party, yet are only clearly displayed and therefore front-of-mind for third party providers. As an example, the 2% card fee charged by Eventbrite is sometimes lower than the card processing fee an individual museum can negotiate. Paypal for example has a 3.4% starting fee for card processing for smaller organisations, and it's not uncommon for major card processors to offer 2.5-3.5% for smaller transaction volume. Given that paid events on Eventbrite have non-profit fees of 3%+£0.49 (for paid events, free ones have no cost), the difference from both the booking and the card fees combined when compared to just card fees in-house can be as little as around 1.5%. This can also obviously be passed on to the customer and built into ticket prices, and most importantly is only paid as and when a ticket sells - there's no upfront build cost.
I agree that third party solutions aren't suited to everyone, and in the report we go into plenty of detail about deciding which route is best and all the decisions that need to be weighed up. However, I don't think cost should be considered the biggest barrier to using third party systems, and the majority of museum-specific functionality (e.g. timeslots, Gift Aid, memberships, social purchasing, seating charts, etc.) is well accommodated now.
I'm very happy to chat through further and look forward to hearing your thoughts on the report as well - do let us know if you have any questions or comments on it.
thanks
Simon
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Simon Cronshaw
Managing Partner & Co-Founder
REMIX Summits
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