RMA Feature Focus: Production Wizard
Spring is on the horizon and for many of you, that means forecasting sales for the upcoming season is at the forefront of your mind. By now you have taken into account the timing, programming, financial considerations and, with the upgrade to RMA v6, you now have the Production Wizard forecasting module. This new tool, along with the RMA Comparator Finder Dashboard in Tessitura Analytics, will allow you to build a number of different forecasts for an entire production in just minutes. Today, we’re going to show you how easy this is to accomplish.
THE COMPARATOR FINDER DASHBOARD
Before we dive into the Production Wizard, it’s important to determine which past productions to use for comparison, in order to get the most accurate forecast. The Comparator Finder dashboard, included with your RMA dashboards in Tessitura Analytics, allows you to review potential comparators on which to base your forecasts. Simply filter the dashboard for past productions that you think are good comparators for the future production that you are forecasting. The Comparator Finder dashboard will help you choose which to use by comparing total income, tickets sold, weeks of the run, number of performances, sales curve, and length of sales cycle, among other measures. After confirming which past performances will work best for our forecast, we will be ready to use the Production Wizard.
THE PRODUCTION WIZARD
The Production Wizard is the quickest and simplest way to make a forecast. You can make different forecasts for different days of the week or performance types with incredible ease. For example, let’s take a look at how to make a forecast for an entire production, with different forecasts for different days of the week, in just 5 quick steps:
Step 1
First, we will select the production for which we want to set the forecast. No need to add any extra filters at this point:
Step 2
Next, we will choose our comparator performances. These are previously produced performances that will form the forecast for our upcoming production:
Step 3
Now, we will select the type forecast to set. For this example, we want to create a trajectory for the number of single tickets we’ll sell, so we’re going to select Tickets and Singles Only:
Step 4
Choose whether to apply your forecast, or refine further. Since we want different forecasts for different days of the week, we will make that selection and make our Sub-Trajectories:
Step 5
The final step is to decide how to group our performances to make up to four separate forecasts. In this case, I want to split my performances into separate forecasts by weekday evenings, Friday and Saturday Evenings, and Sunday Matinees:
And voila, you have a forecast for single ticket sales for an entire production completed in minutes!
By streamlining the forecasting process, the Production Wizard is a very powerful tool that can help your organization forecast your upcoming season effectively and efficiently!
ANALYTICS AND PRODUCTION WIZARD
You’ll always have the RMA application to create and edit your forecasts. But, with the RMA Dashboards in Tessitura Analytics, you also have new ways to both plan and view your trajectories! The Overview dashboard includes eight (8) different widgets that allow you to track progress towards your weekly and overall targets, and the Monitoring at Performance Level dashboard shows your sales and income targets for each individual performance. These dashboards give you more options than ever to track your forecasts, and even give access for non-RMA users to view the results.
Confidently forecasting your upcoming season can be challenging. But, with tools like the Production Wizard and new RMA Dashboards at your fingertips, you can make your forecasts for the upcoming season more quickly and confidently than ever before!
JCA Arts Marketing collaborates with cultural organizations to increase revenue, boost attendance and membership, and grow patron loyalty. We provide consulting and software services to hundreds of cultural institutions across multiple genres, including dance, museums, opera, performing arts centers, symphony, and theatre. We can help you achieve your marketing goals.