Once you turn on the feature, Mobile Tickets will apply to all new and existing orders. But all tickets - whether they're the old PDF Print-at-Home tickets or the new Mobile Tickets - will still work. If you had previously sent PDF tickets to patrons or visitors prior to your switch to Mobile Tickets, you can scan those tickets at the door without issue. Even if you subsequently send out the new Mobile Tickets for those same Ticket Orders, the old PDF will still work, as will the new Mobile Ticket.

Whenever tickets are emailed to patrons after turning on the feature, tickets will be sent in the new mobile tickets format, both for pre-existing Ticket Orders and new orders.

See How to Enable Mobile Tickets for setup instructions when you're ready to make the switch.

The ticket layout and the fields that appear on the ticket are not customizable. This is to ensure that your tickets are fully mobile responsive, accessible, and compatible with both Apple and Google Wallet.

That said, it's so much easier to add custom information to mobile tickets than it ever was before! You have a place for information on the organization level in PatronTicket Settings (appears for all tickets), plus fields on the Ticketable Event, Event Instance, and Venue where you can put any information you like. You no longer have to create custom fields to add information!

You can also customize your mobile ticket logo, make your tickets beautiful with an optional image per Ticketable Event, and customize the instructional text that appears at the top of the online ticket page.

Definitely not! Turning on mobile tickets simply changes the format in which tickets are sent, but nothing will change with regard to when and under what circumstances patrons receive them, and no automatic communication happens when you flip the switch. Since all existing tickets patrons already have will still work, there's no reason they need to be alerted to the change (though we do recommend encouraging them to use mobile tickets for future events).

Existing Print-at-Home ticket content will not automatically transfer over to mobile tickets. You have some new options to include include Ticketable Event, Event Instance, Venue, and global information, so check out How to Customize Mobile Tickets to learn how to update that content.

We also recommend transferring content you previously put in your Print-at-Home ticket to pre-show emails, where it will be more visible to patrons, accessible for tools like screen readers, and you have more flexibility with images and formatting. If you're not using Automated Communications yet, head over to All About Automated Communications (Pre- and Post-Show Emails).

Yes! Once mobile tickets are enabled, you'll still be able to email tickets from Ticket Orders.

If you have events happening in different time zones, you can select what time zone mobile tickets should appear in using the Time Zone Override field on each Venue.

So, for example, you can set it up so that events happening at the Monarch Theatre reflect the event's time in Eastern Time on mobile tickets, while events happening at the Papp Stadium reflect the event's time in Pacific Time on mobile tickets.

If you turned on mobile tickets, but the View Your Tickets button is leading to a page that reads "This page is obsolete. You must have arrived here by mistake." then you'll need to secure your Public Ticketing Site (PTS) to fix this!

Once you take those steps, then mobile tickets will work for patrons.

If you use Print-at-Home tickets as your Point of Sale tickets to print at the box office, you won't be able to edit the Print-at-Home ticket after enabling mobile tickets.

We recommend using the Ticket Design Tool to set up a Point of Sale ticket design! 

Then, if you print a lot of tickets, you can also purchase a Boca printer to print tickets at your box office.

If you rarely print tickets at the box office, then you can still print your new Point of Sale ticket design with a regular printer. If printing with a regular printer, we recommend printing 2 or 4 tickets per page and setting the scale to "Fit to Paper" if possible. Testing the settings to find the ones that work best for your particular printer is highly recommended.

We recommend orienting your team to the new tickets before your first event using them.

• They should be familiar with the layout and know where to find relevant information like Buyer Name and Ticket Order Name, which you can read more about in All About Mobile Tickets.
• They should understand the patron experience and know where patrons can locate their tickets. We suggest sending a test ticket to your staff members so they can experience it firsthand. Check out Mobile Tickets: the Patron/Visitor Experience for an overview.
• Consider helping patrons retrieve their tickets before they head into the gallery or theatre. Some organizations choose to alert patrons at the door to get their tickets ready before entering, and/or have a clearly identified staff member available to help patrons get their tickets ready before they reach the location where their tickets will be scanned.
• If cell service is spotty at your venue, you may consider offering a wifi bubble outside your entrance to help patrons access their tickets if they have not already added them to their digital wallet.

So glad you asked! Scanning mobile tickets is much easier because the barcodes will always be sized for best results - no more pinching and zooming required! Mobile wallets will also automatically brighten the screen when the patron pulls them up, so scanning will also be more successful in low-light situations.

Barcodes on mobile devices may not scan if the device has a cracked screen, a privacy filter (a special kind of film added on top of the device screen), or if the device's screen is too dim.

Try having the patron turn up the brightness on their device, or ask them to pull up the ticket on a different device (if they're attending with someone else, for example).

If necessary, you can pull up their Ticket Order at the box office and mark the ticket as attended from there (on the "Print" tab).

Make use of all your touch points with your patrons to familiarize and encourage them to try adding tickets to their digital wallets. You have many places to do that - confirmation emails, pre-show emails, Online Ticket Text field, and the PTS confirmation page to name a few.

Also make sure your staff is trained up so they can assist patrons through any hiccups and talk to them easily about how mobile tickets work.

And remember that they don’t have to add tickets to their digital wallet, so if they're unfamiliar with Apple/Google Wallet, that's ok! By clicking the button in the confirmation/pre-show email, they’ll be able to view, take a screenshot, or print their tickets immediately from a user-friendly page.

You can email tickets to patrons at any time from the Ticket Order, just like you've always been able to.

At the door, you can remind them they would have received their tickets in confirmation and/or pre-show emails, and provide them with helpful search terms to search for in their inbox (name of the event, subject line, etc). If you have access to PatronManager (on a tablet or computer) at the door, you can also resend their tickets if necessary.

It's also a good idea for your staff to know how to find the digital wallet applications on Apple and Android devices, in case a patron needs a reminder.

Mobile tickets do not present more risk than other types of tickets.

In fact, they represent a slight improvement to mitigate ticket resellers since there are no longer individual full-page PDF tickets to forward and present as legitimate. If a scalper buys a large number of tickets in one order, it would be more challenging for them to send a ticket to a buyer without raising suspicion.

If you're concerned about fraud, you can also decide not to accept screenshots of tickets at the door, though this may negatively impact your legitimate buyers as well.

When mobile tickets are turned on, just like with Print-at-Home tickets, subscribers won't receive their tickets via email until you fulfill the subscription and then send them another Confirmation Email. You can do this by resending them an Order Confirmation or by using the Email All or Selected Tickets buttons from the Print tab.

This is because fulfillment gives the subscription actual seats for the subscriber. Until then, the subscription technically doesn't have tickets to send to your subscribers.

Nope! Patrons will open their online ticket from a link in their confirmation / pre-show email (or from the PTS confirmation page, or PatronPortal), and they can use it just like that on their phone. While adding to Apple or Google Wallet is a great idea and the most convenient option, folks who are unfamiliar with or do not use digital wallets can skip this step. They can take a screenshot, print via the handy Print Order button, or simply open up that page on their mobile device. See all these options in Mobile Tickets: the Patron/Visitor Experience.

All versions of a valid ticket will work and will scan just fine - the online ticket, a screenshot of it, the printed version, Point-of-Sale Boca tickets, Print-at-Home PDF tickets that were sent before you enabled mobile tickets, or tickets added to Apple/Google Wallet.

Tickets in Apple and Google Wallet are accessible without an internet connection, as are screenshots saved on the patron's mobile device. And of course, printed tickets don't require the internet!

Pulling up the online ticket from the link in their email is the only option that does require internet or cell service. If you know that cell service is spotty at your venue, we recommend including information in your confirmation emails and pre-show emails to encourage buyers to use the other methods. You can also use the Online Ticket Text field to re-enforce that message (read more about that here).

Adding a ticket to a digital wallet does not invalidate other versions of that ticket. So whether or not they have added a ticket to their digital wallet, your attendee can use the ticket on the online ticket page (or a screenshot of it), a printed ticket from the online ticket page, the old PDF ticket, or a printed Boca ticket.

As long as the ticket is valid (e.g. has not been refunded or exchanged away) and hasn't been scanned already, all versions will work just fine!

It depends on the type of wallet. Put simply, Google Wallet tickets are unique, while Apple Wallet tickets function more like a printable ticket. Here's how it works:

Google Wallet:

• If the ticket is already in Google Wallet, it cannot be added again - to that same wallet or any other Google Wallet. The patron will receive a message that notifies them the ticket is already in a wallet if they attempt to do so.
• If a ticket has been removed from Google Wallet, they will be able to add it again, either to the same Google Wallet or a different one.

Apple Wallet:

• The ticket buyer can add the same ticket to Apple Wallet repeatedly, but each new add will override the last one, so one ticket can only exist in one Apple Wallet one time.
• One ticket can, however, be added to more than one Apple Wallet - unlike with Google, there is no check that prevents this.

Ticket transfer functionality is not built into this feature. If you would like to see that in PatronManager, submit a Product Idea in the Client Community so we can track interest!

If a patron wishes to share a ticket with their friend/fellow attendee, they could take a screenshot on their mobile device and text that image to their friend. They could also print their online ticket, clip out their friend's ticket, and give it to them in person (just as they could with a physical Boca ticket).

It depends on how the patron is accessing their ticket. Here are details for each method!

The online ticket:

• The information on the online ticket page is fetched fresh each the patron accesses it. In other words, they will only see currently valid tickets, and those tickets will have current information, when they load the online ticket page.

Google Wallet:

• Tickets in Google Wallet update automatically if information changes - e.g. if relevant information on the Event is updated, it will also update Google Wallet tickets. And when a ticket is refunded, it is also automatically deactivated in Google Wallet.

Apple Wallet:

• Tickets in Apple Wallet do not receive updates. If the Event information changes, the patron would need to re-add the ticket to their Apple Wallet to reflect the new information.

Yes! If you've enabled mobile tickets, PatronPortal users can see their mobile tickets from the Orders tab.

Absolutely! All the text that appears on the online ticket and mobile ticket can be read by screen readers, so you can be sure all your patrons have the same information. Google Wallet tickets also have safeguards in place to ensure that text has sufficient contrast for accessibility, while Apple Wallet tickets use the brand colors from your Public Ticketing Site, so as long as you've followed our accessibility guidelines for those colors, patrons with Apple Wallet won't have any issues.

Note that the old PDF ticket is not fully accessible since images on that ticket do not include alt text, so any text information embedded in those images is not readable by screen readers. We encourage switching to mobile tickets at your earliest convenience to ensure the best experience for all ticket holders.

Read more about online accessibility and PatronManager features in Online Accessibility Guidelines.