Daron Letts
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 21/05) - Birchwood Gallery has signed up the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre and Lunch Pail Theatre to offer online ticket sales for theatre events.

For seven years the gallery has sold tickets for a variety of Yellowknife venues.

"It's become a very popular free service in town," said gallery owner Tony Watier. "We've been accepting more calls for the ticket sales than for our gallery. We had to either let the service go or implement something to handle the demand."

The gallery invested in a web-based system called www.YKtix.com, developed by a US-based company. The secure website will offer online ticket sales for all kinds of events - plays, concerts, sports competitions, movies, festivals and conference kiosk reservations. Tickets can be sold more than two years in advance.

The system features database technology that can build audience profiles to record who is buying tickets when, eliminating the need for paper records. It also identifies the number of ticket holders who don't show up.

The online box office will feature maps of each venue, showing which seats remain and which are being sold in real time.

A counterfeit-proof bar code allows tickets to be printed on a home inkjet or laser printer.

The service does not involve a fee for tickets, Watier said. Instead, the gallery will recoup costs through user fees charged to the organizations using the service and pursue profit from web advertising.

The online system will be fully functional before the end of the month. Tickets will still be sold over the counter at the gallery.