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Box Office Staff track

Lesson 12 of 16

Issuing a comp at the box office

Box OfficeVenue Admin

A comp gives a whole sale away. The tickets are issued exactly like a paid sale — they scan at the door and the guest gets the usual ticket email — but nothing is charged: no ticket price, no fees, no tax and no box office fee.

Go to AdminBox Office, pick the performance and choose the seats or quantity as usual.

Who sees the Comp choice

Comp appears next to Card, Cash, Check and Other only if your venue has turned comps on and allows you to issue them. Each venue chooses one of three settings:

| Venue setting | Who sees Comp | |---|---| | Nobody (the default) | Nobody. The box office works exactly as it did before. | | Venue admins only | Venue admins. Box Office staff do not see it. | | All box-office staff | Everyone who can sell at the box office. |

If you don't see Comp, ask a venue admin — they control the setting.

Issue a comp

  1. Choose the buyer (a patron, a new patron or a guest), the same way as for any sale.

  2. Under Payment method, choose Comp.

  3. Fill in Reason (required) — for example "Press night" or "Artist guest list". You cannot record a comp without one.

  4. Choose the Delivery method as you would for any sale — a comp takes one like every other sale, and any delivery fee is waived.

  5. Check the summary: the face value is shown as comped and every amount is $0.00.

  6. Click Record comp, then confirm.

A comp covers the tickets only, and the whole sale. Remove any add-ons, donation or promo code first — the sale is refused with a message if one is still on the order. A patron who has member free tickets available is also refused: ring that up as a regular sale so their membership covers it.

What gets recorded

The order is stored as a Comp with your reason, your name and the time. Reports count the tickets as issued and the money as zero; the ticket's price shows as its face value, fully discounted. No cash drawer changes and nothing is sent to the payout.

To take part of a sale off rather than all of it, use a discount code instead — see Applying Promo Codes at the Box Office.

Open this topic in the help center

Try it

Ask a venue admin which Box office comps setting your venue uses. If you are allowed to comp, start a box-office sale, choose Comp as the payment method, type a reason and read the summary before recording it: every amount should be $0.00 and the face value should be shown as comped.

Checkpoint

Answer all 4 questions correctly to mark this lesson complete.

  1. 1. You do not see Comp next to Card, Cash, Check and Other. Why?

  2. 2. What is charged on a comp?

  3. 3. The order has a donation on it and you choose Comp. What happens?

  4. 4. What must you enter before a comp can be recorded?