Webtix and Webtix Rental
Webtix provides customers with an integrated platform to sell tickets online via the internet. It provides real-time integrated internet sales and reporting. People in your office will have access to the same seats at the same time as everyone on the internet.
Many of our customers, especially non-profits, cannot afford the Webtix module. For them, we offer Webtix Rental at a very affordable $2 per day. Click here for a downloadable PDF to learn more.
Features and Webtix Options:
- Seat selection is by a ‘best available,’ or user-selectable listing. If you are using best available, the seats get selected in whatever order you choose. Because of the wide variety of opinions as to what is the best available, there are three separate criteria for what is considered best available.
- Emailed response with invoice.
- Separate home page possible for each show.
- Print at home tickets with bar codes are possible.
- Promotional price codes with each show: these codes include a valid date and time range, special code to be entered, maximum number that can be sold and price.
- You can click here to read a PDF listing all the possible options.
- See who uses Webtix.
- IMPORTANT - Webtix Rental allows your customers to easily buy tickets but it is very important for you to have a good internet connection. The data is stored on a remote server, so you need fast
speeds to sell tickets, look up customer information and seating charts. Here is the test for you to run to check the speed of your internet connection.http://www.broadbandreports.com/speedtest
When you're choosing the speed test, the next thing to click on is the Flash plugin based
speed test. We recommend a download speed of 2000 k and an upload speed of 500 k.
Webtix Rental Agreement
Download a Webtix Rental Agreement. Please fill it out, sign and date, then email to diane@centerstage.com or fax to: 831-583-0643. Thank you!
The Center Stage Forum is an excellent
resource to learn and ask questions about Webtix. Click here to join the discussion!
Technical Information
Webtix is a collection of PHP functions to connect the internet to your sales files. The usual way is to think of Webtix as another clerk on your network – with severely limited privileges. However, it is a “clerk” that works 24 hours a day for less than the minimum wage.
Webtix is supplied as a set of PHP scripts. The scripts are actually small programs that are interpreted by PHP. These scripts can be modified by an HTML editor or text editor.
Ticket delivery methods are included. These are things like Will Call, Mail, UPS, Fed Ex. Each one has a separate price and separate date range.
System requirements for the full Webtix Module:
If you want to do it yourself, you need a LAMP stack and a static IP. You need Apache 2, PHP 5 and MySQL5. You must be able to bring up the default web page from a browser. A residential DSL connection will work - slowly. A 2.0 GHz computer with 2G ram is the minimum.
You can have your web site at one ISP and Webtix on a local machine. This makes a lot of sense for the organizations that use a lot of graphics. They keep their site at a local ISP on top of a large pipeline with lots of bandwidth. The Webtix computer usually has a lower bandwidth requirement and can be kept locally. All the customer sees is a button that says, “Click here to purchase tickets.”
Other things that are handy to know:
- You will want a firewall with ports 80 and 443 open.
- You will want a site certificate. You don’t need it for Webtix to function, but lots of people will want you to have it (including your bank). This certificate is what gives you the little lock on the bottom of your screen. Certificates are available from companies like Comodo.com, Thawte.com, RSA, Verisign and Geotrust for a fee.
- Handling credit cards puts you at risk. You must follow the guidelines of the PCI standard. If you don’t, you can be put out of business in a matter of minutes. Click here for the cardholder information secuirty program. Among other things, you need a firewall with “stateful packet inspection,” anti virus software, security procedures and a policy manual. There is a short list for merchant levels of compliance criteria.
- Because complying with the regulations is so difficult and important, a service like Authorize.net or MerchantPlus.com makes a lot of sense. You avoid the regulations by not keeping the card numbers on your computer or in your office.
- You need a static IP address. 99% of Windows internet users use what are called "dynamic" IP addresses. That means each time you connect to the internet, your ISP assigns you an IP address to use when you connect. The next time you connect, you might get a different address. If you're only connecting out to the internet, that's all you need. If you expect people to connect in to buy tickets, you'll need a static IP address. A static IP is assigned by your ISP to you permanently, and identifies your server to the world.
To install Webtix, you need to do a few things:
- Talk to your bank. Bankers are the ones who set the rules here. Tell them that you are planning to do sales over the internet. They will tell you that you need an e-commerce account, as well as an e-commerce certificate. They may insist that you have a site-certificate (to give you the little lock at the bottom of your browser window). Do things the banker’s way. If you don’t, fines start at $10,000 and they will revoke your merchant account.
- How are you processing credit cards now? We recommend taking a look at Authorize.net or MerchantPlus.com. Both of them store the credit card numbers on high security sites. You avoid the CISP regulations by not keeping the card numbers in your office. Any maintenance (refunds, cancellations, extra charges) is done through a web interface.
- Set up an email response form. It takes about five minutes to enter a “mailto” command in your home page. This will encourage your customers to order over the web.
- Get a simple HTML form to post the data with a submit button. This will take a bit longer since it is an actual web page that uses CGI scripting. You will need to enter your list of shows, performances and prices. Let your customers know that if they submit an order on the internet, they will get first priority. This form is the one you will expand on when you finally jump into Webtix.
The whole process can take a couple of weeks.
