Should a community theatre use reserved seating?

If you already know the rows, yes. If nobody has measured the room, open seating is the house you can run.

What is the difference between reserved and general admission here?

Reserved means the ticket names a seat. General admission means first come when the doors open. The volunteer at the table has to live with whichever you pick.

What does the door need either way?

The same sale as the ticket page. A reserved house that the laptop cannot see is just open seating with extra arguing.

Guide

Reserved or open seating at a community theatre

A volunteer house picks the seating it can actually run on opening night. Assigned seats if you know the rows. Open seating if you do not.

A community theatre does not lose the night because the seats were open. It loses the night when the person at the folding table cannot tell which chairs are already taken.

Houses argue this one out loud every season, and both sides are right. A black box stays general admission. A dinner theatre assigns tables. The question is not which is better. It is which one your house can run on a Friday.

What you are actually choosing

Open seating. Doors open, people sit, the good seats go to whoever showed up early. What you needed was a head count, not a map.

Reserved seating. The ticket names a row and a number. Grandparents sit with the family on purpose instead of by luck, and you can hold the front row for the donors who paid for the lights. In exchange, the volunteer at will-call has to see exactly the seats the ticket page sold.

If nobody has walked the room with a tape measure, you do not have reserved seating. You have a drawing.

The night-of test

Pick the house the volunteer can run.

Reserved only helps if the laptop on the table can show that row D, seat 4 is gone. Who is actually selling tickets the night of is that person, and they should not be rebuilding your seating chart from a printed list at 6:30.

Open seating still sells at the door. It just never pretends a seat is being held when the list is two hours stale.

One thing worth deciding on purpose either way: where the wheelchair spaces are and who can see them. A patron who needs one should be able to buy it the same way and at the same time as everybody else, and the volunteer at the door should not be finding out at curtain that the accessible row was sold as ordinary seats.

What Places charges for the house you pick

Tools are free. You only pay at the door.

Reserved seat: $1 to Places.
General admission: free for small events for a limited time.
Comps and free tickets: $0.

How a community theatre sells tickets puts this decision in order: name the production, date the first performance, then choose the house.

Apply is the form.

Frequently asked questions

Should a community theatre use reserved seating?: If you already know the rows, yes. If nobody has measured the room, open seating is the house you can run.
What is the difference between reserved and general admission here?: Reserved means the ticket names a seat. General admission means first come when the doors open. The volunteer at the table has to live with whichever you pick.
What does the door need either way?: The same sale as the ticket page. A reserved house that the laptop cannot see is just open seating with extra arguing.