Normal Tickets:
All Formals must be attended by purchasing a ticket from the appropriate vendors as with any other kind of event. The tickets issued are similar to those you might see from TicketMaster or Ticketek.
They contain all the details of the event, dates, times, venue address. They also contain specific information such as the Ticket Holder's name and seating allocation. Each ticket is individually numbered and bar-coded for electronic entry processing.
A compendium of the rules and information pertaining to security is printed on the back of every ticket.
Normal tickets are small enough to be carried in a wallet or purse for safeguarding until the event and you keep them as souvenirs afterward.
Normal tickets are custom printed in a single print run and dispatched to the committee for distribution to the guests well in advance of the Formal.
E-Tickets:
A ticket purchased after the deadline for normal tickets has passed is an e-ticket. This is similar in many respects to a normal ticket. It contains all of the same relevant information except instead of being printed, it's dispatched digitally as an e-mail and needs to be printed by the guest and brought in printed form on the night.
Because e-tickets are processed individually and manually, there is a $5 processing fee to cover the labour time involved.
Stand-By Tickets:
The Stand-By system is our unique innovation for this industry. It's very similar to an Airline Flight Stand-By system so we'll use that for a comparison in this explanation.
With an Airline, if you want to get on a flight that's already full, you can apply for "stand-by". Once you've been accepted for stand-by, you need to have your luggage packed, paperwork in order and be at the airport, ready to depart, at whatever time the airline says. Once the plane has boarded, if there are any spare seats left by passengers that didn't show up, you may be granted one of those spots and pay your fee on the spot before boarding to fly.
The Prom Night system is very similar. Once the deadlines have passed for both Normal and Late Ticket purchasing, we consider the Formal "Full". We will however still make a certain small number of seats available for stand-by on every event. For instance, on a formal of 200 guests, we may have a stand-by allocation of 5 seats.
Once stand-by opens, the first 5 people (chronologically) to apply on-line with valid credit card details will be charged half the normal ticket price (+ $5 processing fee) and dispatched a Stand-By E-Voucher. They must then print and bring this voucher with them on the night. Each voucher will be numbered in order of when the applications were received. This will be the order of their entry if successful. There will be a row of chairs outside the door of the function area for the valid E-Voucher holders to sit at while the entry process takes place from 7 PM until 7:45 PM of normal ticket holders. Once the MC for the event determines that a certain number may not have shown up, the stand-by voucher holders may be offered entry in the order of their allocated numbers.
When a voucher holder is accepted for entry, they must pay the balance of their ticket price in cash at that time.
A couple of things to note here that make the Stand-By system a bit of a gamble. We need to make this very clear so there's no chance anyone can be upset later.
- An application for Stand-By IS NOT a guarantee of acceptance as a stand-by guest because we may receive 20 applications for 3 places.
- If an application is accepted for Stand-By, but the credit card is declined, the application is eliminated and granted to the chronologically next applicant.
- If an application is accepted, the credit card debited for the half-fee and processing, then that person does not show up to take their stand-by position on the night, there will be no refunds.
- If an application is accepted, the credit card debited for the half-fee and processing, then that person shows up to take their stand-by position on the night BUT all the normal ticket-holders show up leaving no stand-by seats in the event, the stand-by voucher-holders may still be refused entry and there will still be no refunds.
These are the chances that a stand-by applicant will have to weigh up and accept if it comes to that. Of course, our best advice is to purchase your tickets by normal deadlines.
