Ticketing software for theaters and performing arts centers

Pick the one that leaves you owning the website and the money, and SeatLayer is built that way: you paste one HTML block into the site you already have, whether that is WordPress, Wix or a plain HTML page, and buyers choose reserved seats and pay through your own payment gateway without leaving it. It costs $0.50 per confirmed ticket and nothing else: no subscription and no percentage of the ticket price. Box Office counter sales, per-seat QR and PDF tickets, the confirmation email, refunds, Control Room and door check-in are included. If you would rather not touch the site, the same event can sell from a SeatLayer-hosted page instead. The theatre suites you will also be shown, such as VBO Tickets, AudienceView and On The Stage, bundle a patron CRM and fundraising and quote on request; the comparison above sets them beside us.

SeatLayer, VBO Tickets, AudienceView and On The Stage all publish reserved or assigned seating for performances on their own websites. The differences are the price model and where the buyer sits when they pick a seat, which is what the comparison above sets out. In SeatLayer the auditorium is a reusable plan rather than a picture, every performance gets its own seat map and prices, seat holds expire on our server so two buyers cannot take the same seat during a rush, and the online sale and the box office counter work on one live inventory. It costs $0.50 per confirmed ticket with your own payment gateway.

Yes, as Fixed Renewable Seasons: a plan of 2 to 20 events where a returning subscriber keeps the same seat, with renewal offers and changes. Seasons run through the SDK, so your own system keeps pricing, checkout, orders and patron records while SeatLayer keeps the seats. To sell several dates in one purchase, use Performance Groups instead.

There is no subscription. Selling through SeatLayer costs $0.50 per confirmed ticket, and the first 25 are free. Buyers pay into your own payment gateway, which charges its own processing fee and sets its own payout timing. If you add only the seat map to a ticketing system you already run, you get 100 free seat credits every month, then prepaid credits from 10¢ down to 5¢ per confirmed sold seat. Purchased credits never expire.

Yes. Online checkout and the box-office counter act on one live seat map for that performance, so a seat sold at the window disappears online within moments and there is no separate counter allocation to reconcile. The box office records how the money was taken: cash, a card already taken on your own terminal, a method you add such as bank transfer, or a complimentary seat. Discounts come from presets you set up, such as Student 20%. It does not charge the card itself.

Yes, that is the normal case. You draw the auditorium once and reuse it. Every performance gets its own seat map, prices and sales. Performance Groups sell several dates in one purchase, and Fixed Renewable Seasons keep a subscriber in the same seat across a season.

Yes, and the price is the reason. It is $0.50 per confirmed ticket with no subscription and no percentage, so 120 tickets across a weekend run cost $60 and a month with no show costs nothing. Buyers pay into your own payment gateway. Box office sales, QR and PDF tickets, refunds and door check-in are included, and a volunteer can scan tickets in a phone browser with nothing to install.

Yes, through the SDK path. SeatLayer supplies the seat map, the live seat state and the temporary hold; your ticketing system keeps payment, orders, tickets, refunds and patron records. That path is billed in sold-seat credits rather than per hosted ticket, and the two are never mixed on one event.

Seasons, yes: Fixed Renewable Seasons keep a subscriber in the same seat across 2 to 20 events, with renewal offers. Your own system keeps pricing, checkout and patron records. Memberships and donors, no: SeatLayer is not a patron CRM, membership, donor, fundraising, email-marketing, concessions, accounting, volunteer or production-scheduling suite.

Wheelchair spaces, companion seats, hearing and sign-language provision, plus-size seats and lift-up armrests are labelled on the seat itself, so a buyer can filter for them and see the label on the confirmation. Empty wheelchair spaces stay sellable inventory, not skipped positions. Restricted-view and obstructed-view seats carry their own label and buyers can hide them. A label passes on what your venue recorded; it is not a sightline or accessible-route guarantee.

A reserved seating chart that stays a reusable venue document rather than a flat picture; holds that expire on the server, so two buyers cannot take the same seat during a rush; one live inventory behind both the online sale and the box-office counter, so neither oversells the other; per-seat categories and prices, with accessibility and restricted-view labels carried on the seat itself; and tickets that survive to door check-in. SeatLayer does all of that; judge any candidate on whether its chart is structured data and whether one inventory really drives every counter.

For the reserved-seating and ticketing layer, yes: it builds the auditorium once, sells online and at the window from one live inventory, supports Fixed Renewable Seasons, issues per-seat tickets, and scans them at the door. It is not donor or development software, a patron CRM, or a venue-rental and room-booking system. Performing arts centers keep those systems where they are.

It depends which path you take, and both are real. On the hosted path SeatLayer runs the whole sale: the event page, checkout on your own connected payment account, per-seat tickets, the box office, the control room and door check-in. On the SDK path it is deliberately not a complete system: it supplies the seating chart, live seat state, holds and booking underneath the ticketing system you already run, and your product keeps checkout, payments, orders and customer records.