New subject: [External] Re: Electronic admission payments

29 Aug 2022

As local dances begin starting up again in the "post-pandemic"  (?) era--or at
least in an era when vaccines, tests, and good masks are readily available--a topic has
come up that had already been mentioned occasionally in the late 2010s but that my local
dance organization (BACDS, but I'm not writing officially on their behalf) had not yet
addressed, namely people showing up at dances and wanting to pay admission
electronically.

I'd like to hear about experiences of any other dance organizations that have made the
transition to accepting electronic admissions payments. For example, you might address any
of the following topics:

* What forms of payments have you started accepting? (Venmo? PayPal? Apple Pay? Google
Pay? Square? credit cards? ...)

* What other forms, if any, have local dancers--or prospective dancers--been asking you to
accept? Are there specific reasons why you've started accepting particular forms but
not others?

* What general tips can you offer?

* What pitfalls would you warn other organizers to avoid?

* Did the transition to accepting electronic payments cause your organization to change
anything about your admission price structures, or about the way you calculate and deliver
performer pay, or about your organization's internal bookkeeping practices? (For
example, if a dance series goes from getting almost all admission payments in cash, with
only an occasional check now and then, to having a very high percentage of dancers paying
electronically, then paying performers in cash at the end of the evening may become
problematic.)

* Do you know of cases where dance organizations did things regarding electronic payments
that created unpleasant surprises for performers or for series programmers or for dance
managers or for the treasurer or ...? It is apparently starting to be an unpleasant
surprise for some prospective dancers to show up at a dance and learn that they can't
pay with their phone, but it would be good if fixing that didn't create unpleasant
surprises for anyone else. 

* What other important question(s) should I be asking that I've neglected?

Note that my inquiry here is about regular dance series, not about special events such as
dance camps and weekends, where attendees typically preregister and pay in advance.

Note also that even without electronic payments different organizations have had different
ways of doing things. So please consider whether there's anything people ought to know
about how things work in your village in order to make sense of your reply. For example: A
dance series might or might not have performer pay vary depending on total admission
receipts or headcount. Performers might be paid in cash or by check, and if paid in cash
they may or may not be asked to sign or initial a form acknowledging payment. One
organization might run a single dance series and have a single person (say, the treasurer)
always present to handle the money. Another might run multiple dance series in different
cities; any series might have multiple dance managers so that no one person has to be
manager too often; and there might not usually be a person present who has check-writing
authority. Dance managers might have different degrees of facility with math and/or with
technology. And so on.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Regards,
--Jim