Is Tick-It! 2K Plus Right for You?
Check out this Q&A session and see for yourself!

Venue / Seating Diagram Questions: 

Q: My House is rather large.  How big a House can Tick-It! handle?
A: Well, Tick-It! does not exactly have a limit on the number of seats a house can have, or the number of levels (such as Main Floor, Balcony, Loge, etc).   It does have a limit on the number of types of seats (we call them "sections", although the seats of a section do not have to be next to each other).  Tick-It! currently supports House Seating Diagrams with up to 89 Sections.  Tick-It! allows you to specify different ticket pricing for different sections, so you can have up to 89 different clusters of seats in your house that have different prices for tickets.   We test out Tick-It! in our offices with a 13,000 seat stadium with 3 levels.   The more seats your house has, the more memory and hard drive space you will need, and the faster the processor should be.  Unless you are operating some sort of professional sports arena, Tick-It! will probably handle your house.

Q: My organization operates more than one venue (house).  Can Tick-It! handle multiple seating arrangements?
A: Yes.  We routinely test Tick-It! with as many as 50 seating arrangements.  You can purchase the optional House Map Creator Utility and create as many seating arrangements as you require.

Q: Can I print my seating diagram?  Can I create a graphics image so that I can use it in publications, or post it on a website?
A: Yes.  Tick-It! allows print your seating configuration in a variety of ways, and you can even create bitmap images for use with your favorite word processor, or desktop publisher, or even post them on your theater's website.

Q: This is going to sound silly, but my seating diagrams that I already have printed up use a certain color scheme.   Can I make Tick-It! match my pre-existing colors, so that everything is consistent with my literature that my customers see?
A: Yes.  Tick-It! allows you to "Custom Tune" the colors used to represent the sections of your seating chart.  You can even select the colors that represent SOLD, EMPTY or HELD seats.

Ticket Sales and Pricing Questions: 

Q: Can I offer tickets at special, non standard prices?  For example, if I need to discount a ticket to make a customer happy, can I change the price on the fly?
A: Yes.  Tick-It! offers a special ticket (patron) type called CUSTOM.  It allows you to specify a non-zero special price for the tickets being sold.  The operator doing this must have authorization to give out Comp Tickets, so not just anybody can mess with your prices.

Q: We operate in an area where we must apply both a state tax and a local tax.  Does Tick-It! allow for two tax rates?
A: Yes.  You can also tack on per ticket or per transaction surcharges that are either flat fees, or a percentage of the sale as well.

Q: We offer pre-paid coupons at a special price that are redeemable for future events.  Can Tick-It! do this?
A: Yes.  Tick-It! allows you to sell what we call "Flex Passes", which are like pre-paid coupons for seats in future shows.

Q: Can I sell multiple tickets for multiple events or performances to a single customer in one transaction?
A: Yes.  You can even mix events that Reserved Seating and General Admission, and even events that take place at different venues.

Q: We need to sell both reserved seating and general admission seats.  We have multiple pricing structures, with pricing varying by performance date (i.e., Preview, Opening Night, weeknight/matinee, weekend evening) and several season ticket pricing structures that apply differently to the various evenings.  Can Tick-It! handle this?
A: Tick-It! handles both reserved seating as well as general admission sales.  Events can have up to TEN completely independent  price schedules.   (We call them a "Cost Matrix")  In each schedule, you have seven definable ticket types, such as ADULT, CHILD, SENIOR, etc which can each be assigned a different price for a given seating section of your house.  (For example, an ADULT ticket in the Main Floor Center Section might cost $20.00, where an ADULT ticket in the Balcony Right Rear section might only cost $10.00, and these prices might be different on Opening Night, etc.)  On top of that flexibility, there is an over-ride ticket type called CUSTOM, which allows you to set a price on the fly during the sale, as well as a COMPTIX ticket type, for controlling the passing out of free tickets.

Q: We offer event packages, such as Opening Night for all Events at a special price.  Can Tick-It! do this?
A: Yes.  Tick-It! allows you to create special "packages" of events, where you specify the performances of each of the events in the package, then seven per-ticket costs (a price for an ADULT package, a price for a CHILD package...etc).  The only restriction for creating packages is that the Events must be reserved seating, and they must all take place at the same house.  Tick-It! will then allow you to sell the SAME SEATS to a customer for all performances in a package in one quick transaction.  If you want to mix and match events at different houses, and mix Reserved and General Admission events, you can use a feature we call "Transaction Stacking" to accomplish this.

Ticket Printing Questions: 

Q: I want to primarily print large batches of tickets at a time using my Laser (or Inkjet) printer.  Can Tick-It! do this?
A: Yes.  Check out the sample tickets.

Q: We mostly take phone orders.  We want to be able to "turn ticket printing off", and then at the end of the day, just print the tickets that we sold today.  Can Tick-It! do this?
A: Yes.  Tick-It! 2K has a batch ticket printing feature that would allow this.  In fact, you can select a date range, and even select a particular operator, so you could print out only the tickets that Susan sold today, or last week, or last month!

Q: Can I have Tick-It! number tickets as I sell them?
A: Yes.  Ticket Counters are maintained for each performance of Each Event. Each counter starts at 1, and advances each time a ticket is sold. Ticket reprints do not advance the counter, and the word "reprint" is printed instead of the ticket number. Returns do not make the numbers count backwards.

Q: I own a Thermal Ticket Printer that uses the Friendly Ghost Language to define tickets.  While I love the speed and reliability of the printer, I really hate programming in FGL to design tickets.  Do you have anything that can help?
A: Yes.  An optional editing module is available which will preview FGL thermal printer instructions. While it does not completely remove the need for FGL programming, it will make designing tickets for those notoriously difficult Thermal Printers much easier!

Q: This sounds odd, but I just want Tick-It! to record my ticket sales, but not actually print tickets.  Can I conduct sales with Tick-It! and NOT print tickets?
A: Yes.  A number of our customers use Tick-It! in just this fashion.  Usually, it is because they have special tickets hard printed for their entire season.

Q: I require two different ticket stocks for my operation.  We print general admission events on yellow stock, and reserved seating events on blue stock.  Can Tick-It! 2K automatically select the right ticket stock for me when I am printing tickets for my various events?
A: Yes.  Tick-It! supports the rather exotic Boca Dual Mini Ticket Printer, which allows you to load up two different ticket stocks.  Tick-It! can then select the appropriate ticket stock based on any of the following criteria:  
By the Event.  For example Phantom of the Opera prints on blue stock, Oklahoma! prints on yellow.
By the Ticket Type.  For example, Adult Tickets print on blue stock, Child Tickets print on yellow.
By the Day of the Week.  For example, Fri, Sat and Sun Tickets print on blue stock, other days on yellow.
By Seating Type:  For example, Reserved Seating Events print on blue stock, General Admission Events print on yellow.

Q: We have never used a Thermal Printer before.  Can you give us some general prices for these printers?  Does NCS sell thermal printers?
A: Thermal Printers are highly specialized pieces of equipment, and are rather expensive when compared to generic computer printers such as inkjets and laser printers.  While they have the same engineering and support costs to produce, manufacturers sell a lot fewer of these printers than HP sells inkjets, so the cost per printer is higher.  Plan on spending in the neighborhood of $1000 for an entry level ticket printer.  Currently, NCS does not sell thermal printers, or any other hardware for that matter.  You may get additional information about thermal printer models and pricing by visiting the respective manufacturer's websites:  Boca Systems     Datamax     Practical Automation

Networking and Internet Questions: 

Q: My network is a mix of Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT Server and Workstation, Windows 2000 and Windows Me, and we even have an old Novell Server.  Will Tick-It! run in an environment like this?
A: Yes.  In fact, Tick-It! was developed in an environment like that.

Q: I have remote sales locations that have fast Internet connections (such as DSL or Cable Modem or Dedicated Leased Line)  Can I use Tick-It! 2K over a VPN (Virtual Private Network) WAN?
A: Yes.  As long as you are running protocols on your VPN that support NetBIOS file locking, Tick-It! will run on a VPN WAN.  Note that you will need a high bandwidth for optimum performance.

Customer Database / Reporting Questions: 

Q: Can I produce Mailing Labels from my customer Database?
A: Yes, any one of several ways:
    (1) You can use one of the built in reports that ships with Tick-It!.
    (2) You can create a custom report using Crystal Reports 
    (3) You can use MS-Word and directly mail merge from your database
    (4) You can use MS-Access and directly produce reports from your database

Q: Can I use Tick-It! to conduct surveys of my customers, so I can learn how to better serve them?
A: Yes.  Tick-It! has a built in survey feature, with user definable questions and responses.  A built in report let's you see summaries of your customer's answers.

Q: I already have a database with my customer list.  Can this data be imported into Tick-It!?
A: Generally, yes.  Tick-It! allows for the importation of customer records that are in flat ascii, comma delimited text files.  Most programs that maintain lists of people are capable of generating such files.  Even if they are not, often, MS-Access is capable of reading the files they do generate, and that still gives you an import path.

Q: We use Peachtree Accounting for the rest of our financial work in our Office.  Can Tick-It! export our sales figures to our accounting package?
A: Yes.  Tick-It! allows you to build an ASCII export file of your transaction data, suitable for importing into the General Ledger of most higher end accounting packages.  See Tick-It! 2K's transaction Export Feature.

Q: Can I create specialized, custom reports?
A: Yes.  Tick-It! is compatible with Crystal Decision's Crystal Reports so that you can create virtually any sort of report you might need.  You can also use MS-Access, if you own it, to create custom reports and database functions.  We post new reports on our website for customers to download.

Ease of Use / Support Questions: 

Q: Is Tick-It! easy to use?  We have student / volunteer staff that has a fairly high turnover rate, and training would be an issue.  We need a user-friendly interface.  We're talking about something that runs on Windows with a "point 'n' click" interface and no "command lines" !!!
A: Yes.  Tick-It! is very user-friendly. First time users are capable of selling and returning tickets in minutes without specialized training. The context sensitive on-line help system gives needed step-by-step instructions for any task, just by pressing F1. Tick-It! is DESIGNED from the ground up to be a Windows Program.  Virtually the entire sale can be conducted via the mouse.   (well, you do have to type in people's names for reserved seating sales, if they are not already in your database).

Q: What about documentation?  Do your programs come with clear, easy to understand manuals?  Can I see them before I order?
A: Yes, all our programs come with printed manuals.  We think that they are clearly written, and we are sure you'll agree.  You can download our manuals in the popular Adobe PDF format to preview them, if you like, or to replace lost our outdated manuals. 

Q: Tell us about the Tech Support Options.  What about the "on event or occurrence" telephone support, how is that billed?  I presume that somebody will want a credit card number, or do we make an advance deposit, or must we buy a year at a time?  What is your average response time?
A: When you buy Tick-It! 2K, you get 30 days of free phone support, to help you get set up and running.  After that, you can either:

a) Buy a year of unlimited support for $360.00  (a buck a day)
b) Buy pre-paid blocks of time in $75.00 (hourly) increments
c) Pay as you go, giving a credit card when you place a tech support call.

Now, we are not support Nazis, and for quick, simple questions, we don't usually bill the user.  It's just that we don't want to spend three hours on the phone remotely setting up your network for you, or writing your custom reports on the phone.  That's what manuals are for.  So the prospect of being "stung" with a fee helps encourage users to be a little more self sufficient, and to only call with genuine problems, and not because they are not motivated enough to look the answer up in the Help or Manual, or by trying one of the included examples.  I hope you understand this position.

Typically, we try to respond to support calls the same day, or by the next business day when there is a significant time-zone difference.  We are open Mon - Fri 9:00 - 5:00 est.  We have occasional, but non-standard Sat hours.

We also have a 24 hour, 7 day a week support database on our website, where you can look up articles addressing common problems that users have experienced.  This service is free.  You can check out the support database at this address: http://www.ncsoftware.com/ncs_support_database.asp

Ordering Questions: 

Q: What do we need to send to you to order the software?
A: You can fill out a Tick-It! 2K Order Form right here on the web.  Then you will have to either fax, email or "snail mail" a seating diagram for our staff to code up for you.

Q: Our Organization (school district, college, university, city government) issues purchase orders for capital items such as this.  Does New Concepts Software accept P.O.'s?
A: Yes, NCS accepts Purchase Orders from Schools, Universities / Colleges, City, State and Federal Governments, as well as large companies and established customers.

Q: Once purchased, what is your estimated delivery time for Tick-It!?
A: Standard time to ship is quoted at 5 business days from the time we receive your order with a house map.  We will code your house map, print out a proof copy, fax it back for approval, make any changes and repeat until the seating diagram is approved.  Then a custom CD ROM is burned, and your order is shipped UPS Ground, unless another carrier or service is specified.  If our backlog is light when you order, or if your house map is really simple the time might be less.

Miscellaneous Questions: 

Q: Does Tick-It! have yearly renewal fees?  In other words, will Tick-It! stop working after a year unless we pay you more money?
A: No.  Once you purchase Tick-It!, you are licensed to run it forever.  For example, as Tick-It! 97 is superceded by this Tick-It! 2K release, current users will be offered the opportunity to upgrade at a substantial discount over the standard price, but there will be no obligation to do so.

Q: The last place I worked in the Box Office, they were always running out of ticket stock at the worst times!   Does Tick-It! track the usage of ticket stock, so that we can re-order more in a timely fashion and not run out during rushes?
A: Yes.  Tick-It! allows you to set initial inventory figures, reorder point and reorder amount, along with vendor information.  As each ticket prints, for whatever reason, it is deducted from your inventory count.  When you reach the reorder point, the program will warn you each time you log in that you are running low on ticket stock.  Check out Tick-It! 2K's Ticket Stock Inventory Tracking feature.

Q: Do I need Microsoft's Internet Browser to run Tick-It!?
A: No, but you have it anyway.

Q: Can I print Lottery Tickets with Tick-It!?
A: Yes, but none of them will win.

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