This article explains how to configure the Event Availability page settings on your Spektrix Subsite. It also includes steps on how to link your primary website to each of the Events on your Subsite.
Before reading this article, make sure you’re familiar with:
What is the Event Availability page?
The Event Availability page on your Subsite is where a customer can choose an Instance and continue along the purchase path to buy tickets.
The Event Availability page for an Event lists all of the available dates and times, along with a Book Now button and extra details.
You can add an optional image and description to the Event Availability page by populating the Website Content section when setting up your Event in Spektrix. You can also add styling to your Website Content using Wikitext:
TIP: You do not need to add the wikitext for $ShowImage$ or $ShowThumbnail$ to your website content as your image will already be displayed on your Subsite.
How to configure the Event Availability page
You can configure the Event Availability page in the following ways:
- Availability buttons - dynamically change your button message based on the status of each Instance.
- Instance Information - add icons or captions alongside specific Instances to display extra information.
-
Link your primary website to your Event Availability page - move customers from your primary website’s events page directly into the purchase path.
Availability buttons
Instances will show a Book Now button unless:
- The Instance has no available seats. If there are no available seats, then it will display a Sold Out message.
- The percentage of available tickets falls below the Limited Availability threshold. You can set the threshold in your configuration settings. When a certain percentage of seats are left available, the Book Now button will display as Limited Availability instead.
Manually Changing Button Text on an Instance
To manually change the text on an Instance button, you can create a new Instance Attribute as a Text Field or Dropdown List named:
- SLBookNowText
The Attribute must be marked as visible in the API.
TIP: The Instance Attribute name must match the SLBookNowText exactly and is case sensitive.
Once you have created the Attribute, populate the Text Field or Dropdown List fields with the Attribute Value which will display instead of the Book Now text.
To add the Attribute Value to an Instance, edit the Instance in the Admin Interface:
If any Instance has a Value against this Attribute, it will override the default text regardless of ticket availability. This means that if an Instance becomes sold out, you will need to manually update the text in the Attribute Value because it won’t automatically update.
TIP: You can apply this Attribute to multiple Instances at once using the Bulk Instance Updater Tool.
Waiting lists
On Instances with no available seats, instead of displaying a Sold Out button you can configure your Subsite to display a waiting list message.
Optionally, you can also add a link to a waiting list form in Dotdigital to collect customers details.
For example, when there are no available seats for an Instance, the custom button will display and clicking the button can direct you to the waiting list form:
To do this, you will need to set up two new Instance Attributes as text type Attributes that are visible in the API:
- SLSoldOutText: This text will replace the Sold Out button
- SLSoldOutRedirect: Add a URL to redirect to
TIP: The Instance Attribute name must match the above text exactly and is case sensitive.
Once you have created the Attributes, choose an Instance and populate the Attribute Values:
TIP: You can apply this Attribute to multiple Instances at once using the Bulk Instance Updater Tool.
Event Instance Information
On the Event Availability page, you can add icons or captions alongside specific Instances to give extra information.
To add these icons, create and apply the following Instance Attributes to the relevant Instances in Spektrix.
The following Attributes should be created as a checkbox and marked as visible in the API to appear as an icon alongside the Instance.
-
SLCaptioned (for captioned performances)
-
SLSigned (for signed performances)
-
SLAudioDescribed (for audio-described performances)
-
SLTouchTour (for touch tour performances)
-
SLPreview (for previews)
-
SLOpeningNight (for opening night)
-
SLMatinee (for matinee performances)
-
SLPWYC (for Pay What You Can performances)
-
SLRelaxed (for relaxed performances)
REMINDER: The Instance Attribute names must match exactly and are case sensitive.
You can also choose to add a free text message to an Instance.
Create this Instance Attribute as free text and marked as visible in the API:
- SLFreeText (for adding free text to appear alongside an Instance). Add the free text into the Attribute value.
The colour of captions or icons is informed by the background colour of the Button Styles colour you set under Website Styles.
How to link your Primary website to your Subsite
You can link your primary website directly to the Event Availability page on your Subsite so that customers do not get navigated to the View Events page.
In this approach, when a customer clicks an Event from your Primary website, they’ll then be directed to the Event Availability page for that Event on your Subsite:
To link your primary website to each of the Event Availability pages on your Subsite, first you’ll need to:
- Find your Event ID in Spektrix or create a Web Event ID for each of the Events you want to add
- Add links to each of the event listings on your primary website.
1. Find your Event ID
To find your Event ID, follow the steps below:
-
Navigate to the Admin Interface.
TIP: To access the Admin Interface, you’ll need the General Administrator Role. If you don’t have this Role, ask the Settings Administrator in your organisation to add this Role to your User Account.
- Select the Event
- The Event ID can be found on the Basic Details tab:
Alternatively, you can create a Web Event ID in the Website tab when setting up your Event. This approach means you can enter a user-friendly ID, such as the name of the event, and reference this in the URL rather than the automatically generated numerical ID.
For Events with a single Instance, you can link directly to the Choose Seats page.
To do this, you’ll need to find your Instance ID.
- Navigate to the Instance
- The Instance ID can be found on the Basic Details tab:
2. Add links to your primary website
Next, you’ll create the URL for each of your Events which you can use to link your primary website to your Subsite.
Event Availability page
To find your Event Availability page URL, use the following URL:
https://purchase.mytheatre.com/EventAvailability?EventId=000000
or
https://purchase.mytheatre.com/EventAvailability?WebEventId=abc123
- Replace purchase.mytheatre.com with your Subsite URL
- Replace 000000 with your automatically generated Event ID
or
- Replace abc123 with your manually created Web Event ID.