The Three Types of Passport Events

Fundamentally, Passport events are defined as a single ticketed event where a consumer can purchase a ticket (aka passport) and use it at any of the participating businesses attached to the event. However, over the last few years, CellarPass has introduced new features that allow you to control how guests redeem their passport.

The benefits of using the CellarPass Passport platform is the flexibility of how to run your event. There are 3 fundamental ways how a CellarPass passport is managed, starting from the simplest to the most sophisticated. Before you launch ticket sales, we recommend understanding the Pros & Cons for each as the configuration cannot be easily changed once the first ticket has been sold.

1. Standard Passport Features
This is the traditional approach to managing a passport event. You create a Ticketed Event in CellarPass and set the Event Type1 = Passport. You then map the participating businesses that will support the passport at their location. In this case, we recommend using the "Self Print" option so that guests can print their passports and show them to the participating business when arriving.

The participating business can use our Guest Link Pro account to scan the barcode on the Passport, which will then provide access of the guest's contact information to the business that scanned the passport within the CellarPass admin panel.

NOTE: Throughout this document we refer to a Passport as a Ticket since it's technically the same as they use many of the same basic features.

• PROS- Super easy to use, provides simple features that traditional passport events need to manage. Guests are not limited to number of properties they can visit for the duration that their ticket is valid. Participating properties can use the Guest Link pro app to scan tickets to receive the ticketholder's contact information.
  
  
• CONS- You can limit sales by the following; Total Tickets Sold, Number of Tickets Per Ticket Level. 

2. Will Call Limits Passport Features
Building upon the Standard Passport setup outlined above, we add the ability to control the number of tickets sold for a particular Will Call Location (aka their first check-in location). You can preset a limit or set as unlimited on each of your participating locations. Doing so will prevent further tickets to be set for Will Call for a specific location once that preset limit has been sold. This is designed so that there's not a flood of people checking in at a particular location. 

The advanced level of this features is that this is managed at a per ticket level basis. So if you were selling a single-day passport or multi-day passport, you can control the Will Call limits on each ticket level sold and to which Will Call Location.

• PROS- The ability to limit the number of Passports sold for each participating business as their first stop (aka Will Call). Once a Will Call Location is sold out, that location is no longer offered to a ticket buyer.
  
  Participating properties can use the Guest Link pro app to scan tickets to receive the ticketholder's contact information.
  
  
• CONS- Larger groups may become frustrated as specific Will Call Locations' inventory dwindles as sales progress and cannot accommodate their large group. You can make adjustments to your Will Call numbers at any time, allowing you to coerce new ticket sales to lesser-booked businesses. Towards the end of your sales cycle, we recommend massaging the numbers daily to ensure ticket sales are optimized.
  
  CellarPass does not provide any 3rd party access to participating Will Call Locations on the number of tickets sold to a particular tasting room. Therefore, you must use CellarPass admin panel's Will Call report get Will Call numbers and provide that data as an Excel file to EACH of your participating properties. This data is not provided through the Guest Link Pro app to any of the participating businesses. 

3. Passport Events Managed Using Reservations
This is the most complex setups of all passport events, but is typically the most preferred by participating businesses. This combines the power of our ticketing features with our reservation features, providing the upmost control over how many guests can arrive at each property and at what date and time.

• PROS- Full control over how many guests can be checked into each property down to the date, time, experience and table layout configuration. Each participating property can use the CellarPass Guest Link Pro app to see the upcoming reservations made by each ticketholder.  NOTE: Reservations booked in this manner will not appear in their CellarPass calendar as this data is limited to the app only.
  
  
• CONS- Being that this is the most complex, attendees will gripe about having to plan and book their itinerary as part of their ticket purchase. In most cases, you will see few tickets sold, but participating businesses find this feature as a benefit.