We're diving deep into box office management in this article; go here if you need to brush up on your options when it comes to Ticketable Events and Event Instances. An understanding of how those two objects work is key to building subscription packages.

You can't build your subscription packages unless you know what you're selling. So start by gathering the following:

• The productions in your upcoming season, with their performance dates and times
• What subscription options you'll be selling- i.e. a Pick 3, a Pick 5, etc.
• The price points for your subscription packages
• The price points for your single tickets

In PatronManager, the total cost of the subscription is the sum of all of the price levels in the subscription. 

This means that you should divide the total cost of your subscription by the number of events in that subscription, and the resulting number should be the cost of your subscription price levels. Sometimes the numbers won't divide evenly, in which case you can make the individual event price levels slightly different from one another. For Choose Your Own packages, it is best if your subscription cost divides evenly.

In this example, we want the subscription to cost $150 for a Pick 3 package. The customer can choose three events with this package. 3 divides evenly into 150, so the price will always be $50 per show.

It's time to set up a single Event that will be the first show in your season and subscription package.

Set up one Ticketable Event, and one Event Instance within that Event, for the first show in your upcoming season that will be part of your Choose Your Own subscription package.

When you set the Venue on the Event Instance, it automatically has a set of allocations that are created for your Event. Rename them and/or reallocate them if they aren't correct - here's where you can read up on that process.

You'll create both your single ticket Price Levels and the set of subscription Price Levels that you'll use a bit later to build your subscription packages. Here are specifics on creating those subscription Price Levels:

Once you have your first Event Instance set up to your liking with both single ticket and subscription Price Levels and correct Allocations, clone the Event Instance until you have as many Instances (i.e. performances) as you need for that particular Ticketable Event.

Got your first full Ticketable Event set up? Great! Now, clone it and edit the details (and delete or add Event Instances, as well as adjusting names and dates for each) to build the rest of the shows in your upcoming season.

This is the top-level grouping for the set of subscription packages you'll sell within this Event.

We recommend you set up your Subscription Event Inventory as follows:

• Ticketable Event: the year of your subscriptions, or a subset of the type of subscription for that year
  • e.g. "2025 Subscriptions" or "2025 Choose Your Own Subscriptions"
• Event Instance: each subscription package you plan to sell
  • e.g. "Pick 3", "Pick 4" etc.
• Allocations: create Allocations to mirror the sections in your single ticket Event Instances (the Event Instances that make up your season)
  • e.g. "Premium Balcony", "Mezzanine", etc. or "Tier 1", "Tier 2", etc
• Price Level: if you're selling different price points for subscription packages in the same Allocation, detail those
  • e.g. "Adult Subscription", "Senior/Student Subscription", etc.

The Instances are going to be the individual subscription packages, so name your Event Instance after the package you're offering. Set the Instance Date to be the last possible date someone could buy the package - i.e. if it is a Pick 3, pick the date of your third to last eligible performance.

Select "Choose Your Own" from the "Subscription Type" field, then fill in the number of shows the patron will need to pick in the "Number of Subscriber Selections" field.

Only set a Venue here if all subscription performances take place in that same venue. If your retail Events take place in multiple Venues, leave this blank.

If you'd like to give your patrons the ability to choose their own seats online when they purchase this subscription, you can turn on Pick Your Own Seat (PYOS) subscriptions.

To do this, first click "Edit"

Then check "Enable Online Seat Selection" and save.

Set the Sale Status to "Public" if you want to sell subscriptions online (remember they'll only be available to purchase online after the "Sale Start Date" on this subscription Event Instance), or "Private" if you only want to sell the package internally.

For example, "Adult" and "Student".

You'll notice the Price column is blank. Don't worry! We'll take care of that later.

Once all your Allocations and Price Levels are set up, click "Clone" to make more package options (e.g. a "Pick 4" and a "Pick 5"). Clone for as many packages as you want to offer, adjusting the dates and Number of Subscriber Selections as needed for each one.

Set the "Visibility" filter to "Subscription," and use the Price Level and Allocation filters as well. You can filter by Ticketable Event," and use the "|" character to search for multiple events at once. In this example, we've entered five of the Events in this series by typing a "Zorba | Chicago | Kiss of the Spider Woman | The Scottsboro Boys"

If you've been able to isolate only the specific Price Levels you're adding to this subscription Price Level, you can click the "Associate All Price Levels" button - otherwise you can use the checkboxes on the left and then click "Associate Selected Price Levels".

The associated price levels will move to the top. You can adjust filters and repeat this process if you need to add more Price Levels for this subscription package.

Back on the subscription Event Instance, you'll now see the number of retail Price Levels associated with the subscription Price Level, as well as the resulting price of the package.

Because this is Choose Your Own package, you'll see more price levels than the patron will be able to select (yay, options!).

That's it - you've built your Choose Your Own subscriptions! Nice job!