OpenTickets launches as an alternative to TicketMaster

Today we launched OpenTickets, an open-source Event Management and Online Ticket Sales platform, at OpenTickets.com .

“OpenTickets was created to offer small and mid-size organizations and businesses a real solution to level the playing field,” said Michael Cremean, Founder and CEO of Quadshot Software. “Buying tickets online should be simple for the customer, but unfortunately it is often frustrating. By creating OpenTickets using open-source technologies, we’ve made the process easy for the customer and affordable for organizations selling tickets.”

 OpenTickets first helped solve online ticketing issues for Artisan Center Theater, a 200-seat theater located in Hurst, Texas. Since implementing OpenTickets software during the second quarter of 2013, the growing theater in the Dallas-Fort Worth area has experienced a record-breaking year in ticket sales – over 40,000 just in the last 6 months.

With help from OpenTickets, Artisan Center Theater has seen a 30 percent increased revenue growth and a successful donations program.  Due to this success Artisan Theater will be opening a second stage in January 2014 – doubling their capacity after ten years of being in business.

In an open letter to Quadshot Software, Artisan Center Theater Founder and President, Richard Blair wrote, “What you have done for our business is very difficult to express in words, but I will try. OpenTickets has been the most refreshing and exciting professional business relationship I can remember in 35 years of business. Artisan Center Theater recently celebrated our 10th Birthday. We are now one of the top 10 community theaters in America with over 70,000 patrons attending each year. OpenTickets has insured we will have many more to come. Thank you.”

OpenTickets Software was built to leverage two widely used open-source software packages. WordPress, used by about 1/5 of the top 10 million websites, provides constantly updated, powerful, secure web content management tools. WordPress creates a strong, proven backbone for OpenTickets. WooCommerce, an open-source and free e-commerce toolkit, handles a large portion of the E-Commerce component.  Using open-source tools and technologies like PHP, HTML5, JavaScript, and AJAX, we provide a cross-platform, mobile-enabled, user-friendly way to sell online tickets.  For management, we also created an easy interface to manage event-related product and tickets sales and generate reports.

“When we began developing OpenTickets and working with Artisan, we noticed that there were some basic concepts that the available ticketing platforms just did not cover – flexibility, open-source access to code and easy management tools. ” said Chris Webb, Co-founder and CTO for Quadshot software. “Artisan’s online ticketing problems were not unique, but rather industry wide; every theater owner, promoter and venue manager we talked to had the same issues with their current ticketing solution.”

OpenTickets rivals other ticketing platforms by offering an array of features through open-source technologies including:

• Open-source Code Flexibility

• Available as a download to run on your server or SaaS

• Venue Management

• Event Management  – Single and Recurring

• Seating Charts – Simple Tools to create GA, Zone or Reserved Seating

• Ticket and Product Management

• Reporting system with Audit Trail and Exports

• Permission-based Roles

• User Management

• Coupons and Sale Support

• Wait List

• Event Check-in with QR Reader Support

• System Administration and Custom Settings

OpenTickets customer Rick Blair added “From our very first contact, working with (OpenTickets) has been a pleasure and rewarding experience.  Please feel free to share my hardy endorsement