Calvary Chapel is a thriving mega church with its home base in Ft. Lauderdale and campuses in Boca Raton and Plantation—with membership totaling over 26,000. Through their ministry they serve thousands of people by preaching the gospel, holding Bible studies and small groups, holding drama and music events and running Calvary Christian Academy, a private K-12 school. Calvary Chapel and Calvary Christian Academy have been with ServiceU for over two years. During the first year, the church used EventU internally for scheduling room and vehicle usage; in the second year they went live with EventU, TransactU, and TicketU, making online registrations, online payments, and online ticketing a reality.
“The IT staff went through a thorough reviews process to find a solution that could grow with us and address our mega church sized needs. Our accounting staff reviewed ServiceU to make sure it would fit our organization while our IT staff reviewed the technology side—everything checked out and we proceeded to customize ServiceU tools to fit us,” notes Jenny Joyce, administrative assistant to Pastor Clay Hecocks in the Worship Ministry department.
Online Registration
Both organizations have made good use of EventU’s online registration
features: They use online registrations both for events that require
payments (together with TransactU) and for those that don’t. Calvary
has found that having online registrations has automated the process
of registering people for everything from Bible studies to missions
conferences, and has taken many burdens off their church and school
administrators.
“Prior to our use of TransactU, our entire school registration process was all done on paper. It was difficult to reconcile data coming into the school and monitor accounting details. Synchronizing numbers of children who had registered and who had paid was incredibly challenging,” says Dianne Kleckner, controller for Calvary Chapel and Calvary Christian Academy. “Now, we all have access to the same data that is always current. At any time, anyone in the office can see who has registered and who has paid—it makes all of our lives easier.”
Before ServiceU, it was difficult for the school to see the number of kids registered for each grade and who had paid. But now, school administrators have access to all this info online in an instant. “We love it,” adds Kleckner. The school loves the reporting features that allow them to produce reports that have all necessary information present.
Because the church has three locations in Ft. Lauderdale, Boca Raton,
and Plantation with buildings that seat 800 and 1,500, keeping track
of events and not over scheduling was a chore. Calvary uses online
registrations to book events so that both the church and school
are able to use the same software to keep track of separate events.
“Everything is transparent to the user because they see the exact
events from link location on the home page for each church location,”
Joyce remarks.
Online Ticketing
Calvary has had immense success using
TicketU since its implementation
in 2005. The church hosts music concerts such as Barlow Girls, performing
arts dramas such as the Sound of Music, Sussical, and Bibleman.
As of January 2007, the church has sold nearly 15,000 tickets, all
assigned seating.
“We used to only offer general admission and had security problems. We had no way to assign seats prior to using TicketU. Now, having the ability to take tickets online ticking brings an ease over the whole process and makes the ticketing process much more manageable,” comments Joyce. Both the church and the school share the 3,500 seat sanctuary, often packing the house for every event held.
Calvary loves the ability to generate each individual seat where people want to sit and even take pictures and upload them for each section. They offer a seating chart online with subcategories for different seats along with pricing breaks. They even have discounts for students and seniors in the system.
“Managing all aspects of the ticketing process online in real-time allows us to see everything clearly and get a sense of how to monitor what’s going on. We can put up events and take offline as needed. Previously, we were not able to pre sell tickets, minimizing chaos and streamlining everything. Now, we take no cash in hand, everything is handled online. Consumers really appreciate being able to see seats online and gives users hands-on use. People like to go on early and pick seats, people are starting to go early and buy tickets,” says Kleckner.
Calvary is planning to build an additional 6,500 seat sanctuary in the next few years, and will be adding a 600-person theater to its school campus this summer. “We’re really looking forward to using TicketU to streamline ticketing in our new venue,” Joyce notes. “This is a great program. It has helped us tremendously in what we do and what we strive to accomplish.”