Church events have many purposes, but you can be sure that your church isn’t holding events to frustrate ticket purchasers by taking up too much of their time trying to buy the tickets in the first place.

Many churches are well-meaning in planning and holding events like Christmas programs, drama programs, youth auctions, music concerts, and more, but haven’t considered that the process of standing in line after church on Sunday to purchase tickets might be sending people home early instead of selling more tickets.

If your attendees are like most, they have a variety of responsibilities on Sunday morning— attend a class, pick up kids from childcare, drop off a bag of canned goods, and maybe even purchase a copy of the sermon on CD to listen to during the week. Most people rarely have time to stand in line to purchase tickets for an upcoming concert or performance that was advertised from the pulpit—even though the desire is there.

Online ticketing is one of the best ways to overcome this hurdle. Sure it’s important to still set up a table in the lobby, or put a notice in the church bulletin, but if churchgoers could order tickets from the comfort of their own home—this would provide greater flexibility and more access to ticketed events. Well, lots of churches are realizing that this is the way to go. With so many services being offered online for churches and their members—including online ticketing, online registration, online donations, and more—technology tools are once again making all things church-related more efficient.

Online ticketing can cut costs by reducing postage fees to mail tickets, can reduce the need to have volunteers on hand to sell tickets on Sunday, and can reduce the administrative load of processing payments manually, keeping track of funds, and time spent mailing out tickets.

Another great aspect of using online ticketing for outreach is the follow up capabilities your organization has once someone has purchased a ticket. With TicketU, ticket purchasers can enter their email addresses when purchasing tickets and check a box if they are interested in other events. This gives churches another way to communicate with people in the future.

Churches might also consider selling reserved seating for large events. Tickets can be a powerful tool for outreach. However, a general admission ticket is anonymous. A prospect may accept tickets to be polite, with no intention of attending. A reserved seat creates a deeper commitment – the prospect knows that the seat will be empty if he or she does not attend. Reserved seating also eliminates the hassles of finding a seat or meeting a friend.

TicketU offers the ability to allow purchasers to choose delivery options—e-ticket, mailed ticket, will-call, or on-hold. For reserved seats and general admission, some systems show color-coded seating charts online that make it easier to choose seating arrangements.

Overall, providing a way for event-goers to buy tickets online can be a sure fire way to increase traffic to your website and increase interest in your church, not to mention sell out the event and attract new people through all your event outreach efforts.

To see how using reserved seat tickets as an outreach tool helped one of our customers get people involved, click here.