It would be easy to assume that improving the user experience of buying a ticket online requires a singular, one-size-fits-all solution. In reality, however, barriers to booking aren’t all the same – they’re almost as unique as the individual user.

So, rather than thinking about the purchase pathway entry point as a singular thing to ‘fix’, the wonderful team at Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) asked us to take one group of users – Access Pass holders – and investigate improving the purchase process specifically for them.

In anticipation of this year’s festival, EIF created the Access Pass. Registered Access Pass users received a brochure along with an Access Guide – filled with useful information about venue access, accessible performances, and more.

Importantly, when people sign up to the Access Pass, it also allows Box Office and venue staff to know about specific access needs in advance, enabling them to offer the best possible experience to those individuals.

Plus – here’s where it gets interesting for us techies – by signing-up for EIF’s Access Pass, audience members are also able to book specific types of ticket and/or event online.

These include:
• Booking a wheelchair space

• Booking a free essential companion ticket

• Booking a seat with the best view for British Sign Language (BSL) interpreted performances

• Booking a ticket for a Touch Tour, which complements Audio Described performances

• Booking any of the above ticket types as a caregiver, on behalf of someone else

These tickets are all 'locked seats' in EIF’s Box Office system (Spektrix), and available only to users with the 'Access' tag in their Spektrix user account.

Logged-in users can therefore access these seats – that’s all gravy. But when an event is sold out of non-locked seats, the ticket booking button (which is automatically updated based on availability) says “no availability”. Even if there are locked seats still available. That means Access Pass users aren’t able to enter the purchase path.

Luckily, we love a challenge at Supercool! We’ve created a nifty new system that tells the booking button to check 'user eligibility' in Spektrix before checking availability.

This means that even when an event is sold out of non-locked seats, if a logged-in user is eligible for any available locked seats, the button says “Buy Tickets”. And they can access the purchase path!

The primary benefit of this solution is that there is no 'othering' of users – nothing draws attention or unwittingly discriminates by requiring Access Pass holders to perform extra steps within the purchase path. They can simply access any available tickets that are relevant to them.

We like to make the most of the things we build for clients so another nifty thing about this feature is that it has flexibility built-in, so could be used for any audience segment in future – for example, teachers or members of the press.

But we're particularly pleased that the feature is first benefitting people who can so often face barriers to buying tickets online.

That fits perfectly with both Supercool's mission to use technology to help as many people as possible to access great art and culture, and the Edinburgh International Festival team's priorities:

"We noticed that the experience for our access customers was very text-dense; for example, if you were a wheelchair user, you were still swamped with information about audio description and vice versa.

By collecting data on our customers, we were able to tailor communication with them, and directly email them about things they may be interested in. This took away the stress and admin of their visit and helped Access customers feel more listened to and valued, which is a big priority for us."

Jessica Freeman – Customer Experience and Access Officer, Edinburgh International Festival