General admission is the easy part. The planetarium show at 11:00 with 60 seats, the behind-the-scenes penguin encounter capped at 12, the train ride that leaves every 20 minutes are where things get messy. These are timed attractions inside the venue. Guests buy them on top of a ticket or membership, they sell out, and if the setup is wrong you end up with an overbooked show or a half-empty one.
Altru can handle most of this, but it doesn’t have one built-in “attraction” object. You have to decide how to model each attraction using the program and event tools you already have. This article covers those decisions, the trade-offs behind each one, and the operational details people tend to forget.
Start with how the attraction actually runs
Before you build anything in Altru, answer four questions for each attraction. The answers determine the setup more than any software setting will.
- Does it have fixed start times? A show that starts at 11:00 and 2:00 is different from a ride that runs continuously but can only hold so many people per half hour.
- What is the real capacity per slot? Use the number your operations staff will actually honor, not the fire-code maximum. Hold back seats for walk-ups or accessibility needs if that’s your practice.
- Can someone buy it without general admission? Almost always the answer is no. That affects how you sell it online and at the desk.
- Is it paid, free-but-reserved, or member-only? A free timed reservation still needs capacity control. It just has a $0 price.
The usual way to model it: a scheduled program with timed events
For most attractions with fixed start times, the cleanest setup is a separate program for the attraction, with an event for each showtime and the event capacity set to the slot size. That gives you:
- Capacity that decrements per showtime, so a 2:00 show can sell out while the 3:30 stays open.
- Its own price types (adult, child, member), separate from admission pricing.
- Clean reporting. Attendance and revenue for the attraction don’t get mixed into general admission totals.
The cost is setup and maintenance. Every showtime is an event, and someone has to create the schedule ahead of time and change it when a show is canceled or a time moves. If you run several showtimes a day, year-round, decide early who owns the schedule and how far out you build it. Running out of built events is a common reason online sales stop without anyone noticing.
Continuous attractions
For a ride or experience with no fixed start, treat each time window as an event (10:00–10:30, 10:30–11:00, and so on) and set capacity to how many people can realistically go through in that window. Guests and staff understand “your entry window is 10:30” more easily than a vague throughput number.
Selling it alongside admission
Here’s where teams run into Altru’s limits. The guest wants one purchase, general admission at 10:00 plus the 11:00 show, and it isn’t always obvious how to package that in a single transaction, especially online.
- At the desk: staff can sell both items in one daily sales transaction. Put the attraction near the top of the item list and train staff to always ask about it. It’s an easy upsell to miss.
- Online: how well this works depends on how your web forms are set up. Some organizations sell the attraction on its own page and tell buyers to also purchase admission. Others build a combined option. Whether a bundled admission-plus-show item fits your configuration is worth testing in a sandbox or asking Blackbaud support about before you promise it to marketing.
- Members: if members get the attraction free or discounted, set up a member price type on the attraction program and confirm the online flow actually recognizes membership status before launch.
Whichever route you choose, write the rule down. “Show tickets require general admission or a membership” should appear on the website, in confirmation emails, and at the attraction entrance, so the person scanning isn’t left to decide.
At the attraction entrance
A timed attraction only works if someone checks tickets at the door. Decide whether staff at the attraction scan or check off tickets, and whether they’re checking the specific showtime or just “has a show ticket.” If you don’t check the showtime, guests holding 11:00 tickets will walk into the 10:00 show, and your capacity numbers stop meaning anything.
Also plan for no-shows. If paid guests often skip the show, some organizations release unscanned seats to walk-ups a few minutes before start. That’s an operational policy, not a setting, so make sure the attraction lead knows they’re allowed to do it.
Reporting worth setting up early
- Sold vs. capacity by event, so you can see which times sell out and which barely move. That’s how you decide whether to add or drop showtimes.
- Attraction buyers who are not members, as a query you can use for membership outreach. People who buy add-ons are often good membership prospects.
- Revenue for the attraction program on its own, since leadership will want to know whether the planetarium or the encounter is covering its costs.
Showing availability on your website
The weak spot for many venues is the website. Guests want to see which showtimes are still open before they plan their day, and a static schedule page doesn’t show that the 2:00 show is full. Social Good’s Calendar Builder creates embeddable timed-ticketing calendars that pull real-time availability from Altru, so the website reflects the event capacities you’ve already set up instead of a schedule someone has to update by hand.
Quick answers
Should each attraction be its own program?
Usually, yes. Separate programs keep capacity, pricing, and reporting distinct. Grouping several attractions into one program saves setup time but makes reports and price types harder to read.
Can attraction capacity be tied to general admission capacity?
Treat them as separate pools. If you need one to limit the other, confirm how your Altru configuration handles it with Blackbaud support or in a sandbox rather than assuming.
How far ahead should showtimes be built?
At least as far out as you sell advance tickets, plus a buffer. Set a recurring calendar reminder to extend the schedule.
