Late-day admission at a lower price is an old idea, and it works. Someone who arrives at 3:00 with two hours left before closing doesn’t feel good about paying the full adult rate. Cutting the price after a set time turns that hesitation into a sale, fills the slow end of the day, and gives locals a cheap way to stop by for an hour.
The catch in Altru is that, as far as we know, it doesn’t switch admission prices automatically based on the time of day. Prices belong to price types and price lists, not to the clock. So an afternoon rate is something you build out of pieces Altru already has, plus a clear rule for staff. Below are the three setups we see work, what each one costs you, and the details to settle before the first discounted ticket goes out.
Option 1: A separate afternoon price type
The simplest approach is to add new price types such as “Adult – Afternoon” and “Child – Afternoon” and put them on the price list for general admission. After your cutoff time, cashiers ring up the afternoon types instead of the regular ones.
Why it works well:
- It takes very little configuration.
- Reporting is clean. Afternoon sales show up as their own price types, so you can see volume and revenue without guessing.
- You set the price directly, so there’s no math at the register.
The tradeoff: nothing stops a cashier from selling an afternoon ticket at 10:30 a.m. Enforcement is training and supervision. To make mistakes less likely, list the afternoon types together and name them clearly, so they’re easy to spot and hard to tap by accident.
Option 2: A discount applied at the register
If you’d rather keep your price list short, you can set up a discount (a fixed amount or a percentage) that staff apply to regular admission after the cutoff. This suits a flat “half price after 3” policy that should cover every age category without duplicating each one.
Before choosing this route, check two things in a test environment or with Blackbaud support:
- Whether the discount can be limited to certain items. You probably want it on admission only, not on membership, programs, or gift shop items.
- Whether it can be restricted by time. We’re not aware of Altru limiting a register discount to certain hours. Expect the discount to be available all day and plan to enforce the cutoff yourself.
Reporting takes a little more work here. You’ll be looking at discount usage alongside regular price types instead of seeing a separate line, so build and save the query or report you’ll use before launch.
Option 3: A timed afternoon program
If you already run timed entry through advance sales, you can treat the afternoon as its own program or set of time slots with a lower price list. Each afternoon entry becomes a scheduled event, which gives you two things the other options don’t:
- The time is built into the ticket. A 3:00 entry ticket is clearly a 3:00 ticket, which makes it easier to sell online without relying on staff.
- Capacity control. If afternoons get popular, you can cap them.
The cost is more setup and more events to maintain on the calendar. If you only sell walk-up daily admission today, this is probably more than you need. If you already sell timed tickets, it’s often the cleanest fit.
Selling it online
Options 1 and 2 are mostly front-desk tools. Putting an afternoon price type on a general admission web form means anyone can buy it for any time, and the ticket itself won’t show when the guest arrived. Before you sell afternoon admission online, decide how it will be checked:
- Sell it only at the door, and say so on your website.
- Sell it online only as a timed afternoon program (Option 3), so the entry time is on the ticket.
- Sell it online with a stated “valid for entry after 3:00 p.m.” rule and have staff check at the door. This depends on staff remembering to check.
Policy decisions to make first
Whichever setup you choose, the part that causes trouble later is usually an undecided rule, not the configuration. Settle these in writing:
- The cutoff time. A fixed clock time works better than “the last two hours,” especially if your closing time changes with the season.
- Which days it applies. Many places skip it on holidays, during special exhibitions, or on days when they’re already near capacity.
- Stacking. Can it combine with military, student, or reciprocal discounts? Most organizations say no, and your discount settings should match.
- Upgrades. If an afternoon visitor decides to join at the desk, does their afternoon ticket count toward the membership price? If you already credit admission toward membership, decide whether that applies here too.
- Who can override. Name the person who can approve an afternoon rate a few minutes early, so cashiers aren’t left negotiating alone.
Knowing whether it’s working
Give it a full season before you judge it. Compare late-day attendance and total daily admission revenue to the same period last year. The question isn’t whether afternoon tickets sold. It’s whether they brought in new visits or just gave a discount to people who would have come and paid full price anyway. If you set up separate price types or a separate program, a saved query by price type and date answers that quickly. If you used a register discount, track how often it’s applied and when.
Watch the earlier hours too. If full-price sales between 1:00 and 3:00 drop as guests wait for the cutoff, your discount may be too deep or your cutoff too early.
Quick answers
Can Altru change the admission price automatically at a certain time?
Not that we know of. Plan to switch price types or apply a discount manually, or use timed afternoon events with their own pricing. If you’re unsure about your version, test it in a sandbox or ask Blackbaud support.
Which option is easiest to report on?
A separate afternoon price type or a timed afternoon program. Each puts afternoon sales on their own line, so you don’t have to reconstruct them from discount usage.
