A science center rarely sells just one thing. A typical family visit might combine general admission with a planetarium show at 11:30, a traveling exhibition with its own entry window, and maybe a 3D film after lunch. Each of those has its own capacity, and some of them sell out. That mix is what makes ticketing harder for science centers than for a museum that only sells one admission ticket.
When you already run Altru, the question usually isn’t “which ticketing system should replace it.” It’s “how do we sell this mix online without double-booking the dome or rebuilding our data somewhere else.” This page covers what to look for, what Altru handles on its own, and where add-on tools fit.
What science center ticketing has to handle
Before you look at any software, write down how you actually sell. For most science centers the list looks something like this:
- Timed general admission, either all the time or on weekends, holidays, and school breaks.
- Capacity-limited shows such as planetarium, dome theater, live science demonstrations, or labs, where each showtime has a hard seat count.
- Separately ticketed exhibitions with their own entry windows and pricing, often with a member discount.
- School field trips and group visits, booked weeks ahead, frequently with deposits, invoices, and headcounts that change.
- Camps, classes, and workshops with registration rather than walk-up entry.
- Members who get in free but may still need to reserve a show seat or an entry time.
- Special hours such as adult nights or sensory-friendly mornings, with different prices and limits.
Your software choices should follow from that list. A tool that handles timed admission nicely but can’t show planetarium seats in the same view will still leave staff answering the phone.
What Altru already does
Altru covers the core of this. Daily sales handle the front desk, advance sales handle tickets bought ahead, and scheduled programs with capacity limits are the usual way to model showtimes and timed entry. Exactly how you structure those programs (one per show, one per exhibition, and so on) is worth testing in a sandbox before you build out a full season. Group sales cover field trips and other booked visits. Memberships, constituent records, and revenue all live in one database, so a family who buys tickets, then joins, then donates stays one record (assuming duplicates are kept under control).
Where science centers tend to feel friction is on the public website. Altru’s web forms work, but many teams find the online buying experience harder to brand and harder to use on a phone than they’d like, and it can be awkward to show guests a clear calendar of what’s available across admission, shows, and exhibitions on a given day. How much of this matters depends on your setup, so test your own web forms on a phone with someone outside your team before deciding anything.
Questions to ask before buying anything
Does availability come from Altru in real time?
If a calendar or checkout keeps its own copy of capacity, you will eventually oversell a show. The safest pattern is for the website to read availability from Altru and for sales to write back to Altru, so the front desk and the website draw from the same seat count.
Can guests see shows and admission together?
Families plan around showtimes. If the planetarium schedule is on one page and timed admission on another, people guess, then call. Look for a calendar where a guest picks a date and sees everything with real availability.
How do members reserve?
Decide how a member should claim a free show seat or entry time online, and confirm the tool you’re evaluating supports that against your actual Altru membership setup. Ask for a demo using your own programs, not a generic one.
Where does the money and data land?
Every sale should end up in Altru as a normal transaction tied to a constituent. Anything that requires exporting orders from another system and importing them later becomes a monthly reconciliation job.
What about school groups?
Field trips usually don’t fit a public checkout. Teachers need quotes, deposits, and final invoices. Plan for group sales to stay in Altru’s group sales process, with a way to collect payment by link rather than over the phone.
A sensible way to roll it out
- Start with the product that sells out first, which for most science centers is the planetarium or dome show.
- Put that calendar on the show page and the plan-your-visit page, and watch phone volume for a few weeks.
- Add timed admission and exhibitions to the same calendar once staff trust the counts.
- Leave camps and field trips for last; they have their own workflows and deserve separate attention.
Where Social Good fits
Our Calendar Builder creates embeddable timed-ticketing calendars for your website, with real-time availability pulled from Altru, so guests can see open showtimes and entry times before they buy. Altru remains where the sales, capacity, and constituent data live.
Quick answers
Do we need to replace Altru to sell timed tickets and shows online?
No. Altru handles timed programs and capacity. Add-on tools mainly change how that inventory is presented and purchased on your website.
Can planetarium shows and general admission be sold in one visit?
That depends on how your programs are set up in Altru and on the checkout you use. Build a test order in a sandbox or with your vendor before promising it on the website.
