Selling tickets for your museum: online and at the front desk

A small museum often still sells its tickets the way it did twenty years ago: a roll of numbered tickets at the front desk, a cash book and a tally sheet for anyone who comes in with a pass. That works, until visitors ask whether they can book ahead, or until the treasurer wants to know at the end of the year how many children actually came. This article explains how to sell tickets for your museum, online and at the front desk, without anything being taken off each ticket.

First decide: day tickets or time slots?

Most museums sell an admission ticket: the visitor comes on the day printed on the ticket, at whatever time suits them. There's no hour attached and you don't keep a diary.

If a room has a physical limit, or a temporary exhibition makes everyone want to come at once, choose a ticket with a time slot instead: each hour has its own number of places. How to create a whole month of time slots in one go is explained in Time slots for your museum or exhibition.

You can also do both: a regular admission ticket for the permanent collection and time slots for the exhibition that runs for three months.

A price for each type of visitor

Adults pay 12 euros, children 6 euros, students 8 euros? Then you create three products: Adult, Child and Student. Each product has its own price, its own VAT rate and its own counter. At the end of the year you can see straight away how many children came in, without a tally sheet.

A school class or a club visiting together is sold as a product of the type Group: one line for the whole party. And if you want to give members of your friends' association a discount, a discount code with an end date and a maximum is all you need.

You'll find all of this under Sales → Products, with the New product button. The guide to products and prices walks you through every field.

Online and at the front desk, on the same count

Your ticket shop is online at its own address, which you link from your website or embed in your own page. Anyone who buys online gets their ticket by email and can add it to the wallet on their phone.

At the front desk you sell with the counter till: a web page on a tablet or laptop, or the same app your door staff use for scanning. A product can have a different price at the desk than online. Online and desk sales draw on the same stock: a time slot that is full can no longer be sold anywhere, not online and not at the till. How a day at the desk runs, from opening to closing, is described in the guide to the counter till.

Free entry that still counts

Do children under six get in for free, or do you let in the friends of the museum without charge? Create a product for that too, priced at zero. The visit is then registered like any other ticket, scanned at the door and included in your visitor numbers, without adding anything to your takings. That way the number of people who actually walked through your rooms is complete, which is exactly what a funder or a board asks for.

At the entrance

Your attendant scans tickets with the scanning app on an ordinary smartphone. A ticket that has already been scanned shows a clear warning, with the time of the first scan, so the same ticket can't get in twice. If the wifi in your basement gallery drops out, scanning keeps working; more on that in Scanning tickets at the door, even without a network.

Season passes, gift vouchers and travel platforms

Three things a museum often wants to add after its first year:

• a season pass or friends' membership: a named pass that lets the holder in for a whole season, with a visit counter;
• gift vouchers, for a fixed or an open amount, redeemable in the ticket shop and at the front desk;
• selling through travel platforms such as GetYourGuide, Tiqets and Viator, where their visitors come in at your entrance with an ordinary QR code and on the same count as your time slot.

All three are included in Growth and Pro.

What it costs: a worked example

Take a local history museum with 4,000 paying visitors a year. A made-up platform charging 1 euro per ticket would cost that museum 4,000 euros a year, and every extra visitor makes the bill bigger.

With Passavo you pay a fixed amount per month and never anything per ticket. The counter till and your own logo and colours are included from Start (€9.00 a month, up to 3,000 paid tickets a year). If you sell more, or want season passes, gift vouchers and your own domain, it's Growth (€29.00 a month, unlimited tickets). A museum that only opens in season can pause its subscription during the closed months. Whatever your payment provider charges per payment is a separate cost of theirs.

Compare the plans on the pricing page, or see what Passavo does for museums and attractions.