Paper tickets are on their way out. Nearly everyone has a smartphone these days: a whopping 97% of Americans own a cellphone of some kind, and 85% own a smartphone. Everything is going digital these days, and your haunt’s tickets should certainly be one of them.
Keep reading for five perks of digital tickets and how to make them work for your haunted attraction.
1. More convenient for your guests
Fewer and fewer people have access to a home printer these days, particularly younger audiences. Yet most everyone has a smartphone, or at the very least someone in their party has one. Even for guests who do have a home printer, printing tickets is a hassle. How many times have you gone to print something on your way out the door only to realize your printer was low on toner or ink?
Digital tickets are just more convenient. They’re less likely to get lost, too.
2. Lower costs for you
It used to be the case that attractions were expected to print stadium-style tickets for every single guest, but that technology is losing steam fast. Even major league teams are ditching the printed tickets. It’s easy to understand why: custom printed tickets require special equipment, like a Boca printer, to produce, they require design work, and they are expensive. The printers themselves can cost over $1,000 and that doesn’t include the cost to print each individual ticket.
Going digital will save you costs and headaches by eliminating this process entirely.
3. Lines move faster
Guests can really work up a sweat waiting nervously to enter your haunted attraction. As the anticipation builds, they may fold and re-fold their paper ticket, or nervously crumple it up while in line. Paper gets dropped, sometimes in the mud, or torn. It gets wet. We’ve seen it all.
With paper tickets printed at home, there are endless ways those flimsy sheets of tree bark can be damaged en route to your haunt. All those things mean it takes longer to process guests who show up with a damaged ticket. You might need to scan multiple times if it’s really torn or rumpled. That holds up the line and makes for unhappy customers.
4. More secure tracking and reporting
We had a friend in college who kept a supply of every color paper wristband and would bring multiple copies to concerts and festivals: once they arrived, they’d see what color bands that event was using, and dig into their purse to grab the right one. It unlocked access to VIP sections, backstage areas, and more.
Ticket fraud is more common than you might think, even at small to mid-sized events and attractions: hand stamps, wristbands, and paper tickets are too easy to copy or fake. Digital tickets are not only more secure but they help you to better track which tickets have been redeemed, exactly how many guests visited your haunt, and how well your marketing campaigns worked.
5. Better for the planet
One tree can produce approximately 10,000 sheets of paper, which may sound like a lot but think about it: a popular haunt can easily attract that many guests or more throughout the season. If each one has to print their ticket (or has to print multiple times because their printer screwed up the first one), you could literally save an entire tree by switching to digital tickets. Even small haunts can make a big difference on the environment by going paperless.
How to make digital tickets work for your haunted attraction
HuantPay’s ticketing and payments make it simple to incorporate digital tickets into your next haunt season. Guests automatically receive a digital ticket via email and on their confirmation page after checkout. Each ticket has a unique QR code that will scan only for the number of tickets purchased. It’s convenient, secure, and comes at zero cost to your haunt.
Look up by guest list
We’ve all experienced, or know someone who has, a dead battery and forgotten to bring a phone charger. When your tickets are on your phone, you might be worried that you’ll be turned away at the door. Not so, if you’re using HauntPay. Ticket scanning staff can use the Manager app (the same one they use to scan or sell tickets) to look up a guest by name using the Guest List. They can then check them in and mark their ticket as “redeemed”. It’s a great solution for guests who don’t have their ticket, while maintaining secure entry to your haunt.
Let your guests choose
With HauntPay, your guests receive a digital copy of their ticket via email and on the confirmation screen after their purchase. They can choose to print that out if it’s more convenient for them, or just show it on their phone when they arrive at your haunt. The QR code will only scan for the number of tickets they’ve purchased, even if they try to print extra copies. Giving guests the choice allows them to have a better experience at your haunt.
Is your whole party here?
With paper tickets, one person in the group is often the designated ticket purchaser. Those tickets must then be distributed to the entire group in advance, or the ticket purchaser must coordinate everyone’s arrival time so that tickets can be distributed prior to entry. It’s annoying, honestly. With digital tickets, the ticket purchaser can email each individual person a copy of their ticket so that everyone can arrive when they’re able to. Guests can even transfer their tickets if they’re unable to visit your haunt.