Here are 5 ways that online ticketing can assist your church with outreach:

1. Online ticketing reduces costs and frees up money for outreach
 Online ticketing cuts costs by reducing postage fees to mail tickets. Participants can simply print out their tickets at home. In addition, online ticketing reduces the administrative burden of selling tickets. This releases more financial and personnel resources to utilize in other areas of your ministry.

2. Fewer volunteers in the box office
 Online ticketing can reduce the need to have as many volunteers on-hand to sell tickets. This allows them to help in other ways, including meeting and greeting the guests.

3. Follow up
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™, patrons enter their email address 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.

4. Reserved seating encourages guest attendance
Reserved seating eliminates the hassles of finding a seat or meeting a friend. This makes guests feel much more comfortable and more likely to attend your event.

5. Flexibility
Many guests may not feel comfortable going to the unfamiliar church office to purchase a ticket. By offering online event ticketing, your guests can order tickets from the comfort of their home.

Learn more about how TicketU can make your church box office management easier—and increase  ticket sales and outreach.

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Why we made these changes
In addition to updating and modernizing the look of the interface, we made these changes to enhance the overall usability of My.ServiceU.com. The improvements to the user interface yield “lighter” pages that will load faster in browsers. These changes will also provide better support for a wider variety of web browsers. Many elements have been improved to provide better readability and usability, including the Home page, Search Events pages, as well as buttons and other graphics throughout the system. This new design will also enable us to provide a better and more consistent display of errors and warnings.
Here’s a look at some of the updates at My.ServiceU.com:
• Smaller, faster pages – Improvements to our interface make pages load faster than before.  In addition, we have significantly reduced the size of each page making faster load times for you!
• Clean, visually appealing pages – You may have noticed the new look for the www.ServiceU.com website. We wanted to bring that fresh, updated modern look to the My.ServiceU.com interface as well. We hope you enjoy the fresh new look.
• New calendar and Home page – The main calendar page has also been updated with new visual styling.  Also, the Home page has been decluttered to make it a much more visually appealing Home page.
• New Popup Calendar - Gone is the old browser popup window for selecting dates in the system.  The new, unobtrusive calendar slides in under the date textbox and allows for fast access to date selection.  It no longer triggers popup blockers or hides behind the current window.  This small change greatly improves usability.
• New Newsletter Editor - One of the greatest improvements in usability is on the newsletter creation page.  We have replaced the editor with more functional, efficient editor.  Unused options have been removed, and the new editor works on all browsers!
• Better browser support – The changes and updates we’ve implemented have allowed us to take a major step toward the site becoming more consistent across all browsers and operating systems.   By implementing current web standards, we will have the ability to use innovative features in new web technologies (CSS3, HTML5) in the future.  The site has been tested with Internet Explorer (6,7,8), Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari.  While the supported browser list hasn’t officially been updated, we hope users of the unsupported browsers will have a much better experience.  While Internet Explorer 6 is still supported, we would encourage users to upgrade to a more secure browser for the best experience possible.   Some visual aspects of the site will not be supported in IE6.

So, what do you think?
 We hope you enjoy and benefit from these changes and updates. We absolutely value your suggestions for improvements and new features. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions via email at support@serviceu.com.

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Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn., has been putting on its Memphis Passion Play since 1991. Bellevue’s Passion Play has been instrumental in reaching many people with the Easter message, many of whom may not have heard it before.

For the last three years, Bellevue has utilized ServiceU’s TicketU to sell performance tickets online and onsite to its members and the community. The simplified ticketing process is easier for their staff and volunteers to manage, and it allows them to focus on the outreach that accompanies an Easter performance that draws in crowds from the community.

“TicketU has made it easier for our members to invite guests, which helps with our outreach to those who may not have a church background,” says Candy Phillips, church hostess for Bellevue Baptist Church. “Last year, our Easter Memphis Passion Play drew more than 25,000 people. Although we still sell tickets at our box office, more than 50 percent of the tickets we sell are sold through TicketU via online sales.”

“And, TicketU is convenient to use,” states Phillips. “Attendees no longer have to stand in line before the performance to purchase tickets. They just go online to our website, choose where they want to sit and purchase tickets…all from the comfort of their own home.”

Simplify the ticketing process for your staff and volunteers

In addition, TicketU simplifies the ticketing process for the church staff and volunteers, and makes the ticket sales easier to manage.

“Prior to using TicketU, we were using a very outdated DOS system to track and sell tickets to our Easter event. The system was very slow, difficult to use for our staff members, and it was hard to fix when difficulties arose.”

Three years ago, Bellevue switched to TicketU and has been ecstatic with the results.

“The ‘ticketing ladies’ just love it,” she adds. “Since it is web-based, in just a few ‘clicks’ we have entered the person’s information and printed out their ticket(s) to the event they want to attend. Even ‘editing’ information is easy as it is, ‘just a click away.’”

Training new employees on the TicketU system has also been a “snap” according to Phillips.

“It takes just a short period of time to train new staff and our events registration group is up and running,” notes Phillips. “TicketU has indeed made our lives in the ‘ticketing world’ at Bellevue a lot easier.”

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The improvements to the user interface yield “lighter” pages that will load faster in browsers. These changes will also provide better support for a wider variety of web browsers. Many elements have been improved to provide better readability and usability, including the home page, search events pages, as well as buttons and other graphics throughout the system. This new design will also enable us to provide a better and more consistent display of errors and warnings.

So while we hope you enjoy the new look and cleaner interface, there are numerous “behind the scenes” modifications to the underpinnings of the system that are part of the ongoing improvements that will be rolled out in the weeks and months to come. We will keep you posted as we prepare to roll out more enhancements.

Let me be clear: we absolutely value your suggestions for improvements and new features. These changes, along with the many others that we made during 2009, demonstrate our commitment to not only listen to you but to take action. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions via email at support@serviceu.com.

Thank you for the privilege of serving you and your organization.

Tim Whitehorn
Founder and CEO

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EventU Green™ is an integral part of VCF’s “green initiative.” EventU Green allows VCF to automatically control room temperature for their events by coordinating their heating and air conditioning based on their event schedule.  By utilizing EventU Green and other energy-conscious steps, VCF has experienced a 25% reduction in their consumption and a near 20% utility and labor savings.

Here’s a look at how they’ve done it:

EventU Green reduces utility and labor costs
• Utility savings
As VCF evaluated their energy consumption, the church realized that they were using too much energy within their facilities. Before launching EventU Green, the heating and cooling would run in rooms and zones that were unoccupied for extended periods of time, resulting in a large energy expense for the church.  By using EventU Green, VCF was able to efficiently manage the HVAC to heat or cool a room only when an event is going on. This has resulted in tremendous energy utility savings for the church.

• Labor savings
In addition, labor costs have been reduced by the automation features of EventU Green.  Because EventU Green is integrated with VCF’s event calendar, the heating and air-conditioning automatically switches on in time for the room to reach the right temperature before the event begins. Because of this feature, VCF has reduced labor costs because staff members do not have to come to the church after-hours to “turn on” and “turn off” the HVAC for events.

• Reducing stress and confusion
Another way in which EventU Green has saved VCF on labor costs is by automatically adjusting the HVAC when an event runs longer than anticipated. Event organizers simply turn the air on and off from any computer with Internet access rather than chasing down a facilities person. This has helped eliminate confusion, frustration and stress among the congregants and the facility management personnel.

Additional ways VCF has reduced their environmental footprint

In addition to EventU Green, VCF has taken many other steps to reduce their environmental footprint. Here’s a few of the steps they’ve taken.
• Retrofitting the lighting throughout their entire building with energy-efficient light bulbs and ballasts, and installing motion sensors in areas to prevent lights being left on unnecessarily.
• Launching a recycle initiative. VCF estimates that they’ve recycled 24 tons of cardboard and 15 tons of paper. In addition, VCF recycles aluminum, plastic, glass, and batteries.
• Planting trees helps shade their structures and chipping tree branches that have fallen places them back into the soil as mulch
• Using only biodegradable cups, plates, cutlery, napkins, etc ., in campus facilities
• Planting a small fruit orchard to reap the natural benefits of the trees themselves and also to help provide fresh fruit that they distribute to the less fortunate and homeless through their Compassion Ministry that serves more than 3,000 families each month.

If you’re interested in learning how your church can reduce energy costs with EventU Green, visit us online at www.EventUGreen.com.

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