This year, in 2023, the annual festival celebrated its 65th season. Every Tuesday evening in June, the festival brings a diverse range of music performances to the public at Garibaldi Plaza in Washington Square Park.
Seating is limited, with only VIPs having the privilege of reserving seats. The executive director, in her 80s, hadn't fully embraced digital technology. Throughout the past 64 years, there had been no seating chart or similar arrangement. She used to assign VIP seats on the spot and attach name tags to chairs before VIPs arrived. As the seats weren't numbered and the gates opened, people would stream in, occupying open seats regardless of those reserved for VIPs. Ushers couldn't effectively manage this situation as they didn't recognize the VIPs.
As a creative consultant, I introduced a ticketing system for the first time in 65 years. This year, our focus was on implementing the system for VIPs, and I provided training to the executive director and ushers.
Tool used: Google Sheets
At first, I established a standard concert ticketing webpage. However, given the executive director's age of 85, navigating it was still challenging for her. I observed that her comfort zone with digital tools was primarily within MS Office. As a result, I created a Google spreadsheet using functions to design a VIP seating chart.
This chart is linked to the main VIP list, with their names available in a dropdown menu for each slot. Once a VIP's name is selected to match the corresponding reserved seat number, their name will be automatically removed from the dropdown menu.
This seating chart empowered the executive director to complete a process that originally would take around half an hour in just 5 minutes. I was on the phone with her while she worked on the seat assignment, accessing the same Google Sheets file on my laptop and providing her with real-time instruction and support.
Tool used: Google Apps Script
The seating chart drew names from the VIP list, which was organized based on the alphabetical order of their last names. During my correspondence with the executive director, I discovered that she was manually sorting the names. To address this, I added a button to the list containing a script that would automatically sort the names in just one second. Once again, this proved to be a significant time-saver.
I recalled reading an article that mentioned how our ability to learn new things becomes more challenging as we age due to the shortened attention span. As a result, I created a brief tutorial video, as shown above, to showcase the button's functionality for her. The video also featured some lighthearted details aimed at enhancing her memory.
The final aspect of the VIP ticketing system implementation involves receiving VIPs on the day of the event. Due to the lack of time for advance training and the presence of different ushers for each event, the process needs to be as simple and straightforward as possible. Click the button above to access the guidelines I prepared for on-the-day training, in case I couldn't be present and another person needed to train the ushers.