Hello all,

Longtime reader, 1st time poster. I'm joining a local NFP group that's in a delicate stage of development for a small theater, it a black box space that seats only about 60-70. There is very little capital to work with and they are in the process of building their donor base. Our first production was a great success and well reviewed so we want to keep momentum.

My job is to build their website and generally help streamline their operations with technology. I was wondering if there are any recommendations for inexpensive or free ticketing and/or donor management software.

For tickets I've checked out Eventbrite and that is a little steep for our operation, Ticket Junior seemed OK but I can't find any theater that actually uses them and I would like to see their system in action.

For donor software I'm in the dark. Everything seems so ludicrously expensive or requires a monthly fee. Honestly we're probably at the stage where we could use PayPal & an Access database without issue, but I feel that's begging for hiccups down the line. I'm trying to be poised to grow.

Hi there-

I might be a little behind the curve on this post but I've been doing theatre box office for about 10 years and finally came to work for a company that is really awesome. They can build a website for your theatre and of course sell your tickets, manage events and donors. They offer GA and reserved seating. The best part is that unlike most other companies out there, there is virtually no cost to you and you can get hardware included at no cost also. It's a pretty sweet deal and the company was created because the founders were so done with paying the high priced fees that companies like ticketmaster have placed on their customers. I highly recommend you check them out! holdmyticket.com

I've never posted anything before so not sure how it works. I only 'post reply' but not just 'post' a questions. Please correct me if I am doing it wrong. Our 501-c3 community theatre has been selling tickets by mail or phone reservation for check or cash for 14 years. We are moving into a new community theatre space and will have seats with assigned numbers. We want to sell tickets online from our website but have no idea where to start. We have considered PayPal but not sure how that would work selling tickets. We have three productions a year selling approximately 2400 tickets for the season. Any help you can give us would be very much appreciated.