Computer handled arts festival bookings

Press, 1 May 1984, Page 22

Computer handled arts festival bookings

The computer system used to handle the bookings for the Christchurch Festival was pronounced “a very worth-while experiment” by the director of the festival, Mr Ray Sleeman, despite some teething problems. The system was developed by the Burroughs LINC Development Centre as its contribution to the festival and run on the centre’s 81985 mainframe computer. Mr John Page, the festival’s event manager, said that the festival organisers realised, around the middle of last year, how timeconsuming a manual system would be. “With events planned for nine different venues we needed multiple booking outlets with the ability to constantly update information and avoid over-book-ing,” said Mr Page. He took his problem to the Burroughs LINC Development Centre, a Burroughs laboratory where the locally designed LINC product is maintained. Mr Robert Rae, a support analyst at the centre, wrote the system in four man weeks using the current version of LINC plus a “few goodies” from a version soon to be released. Burroughs terminals and printers were installed in

the three festival booking I locations — the Town Hall, ,< the Arts Centre and the railway carriage in the City I mall — connected by tele- t phone lines to the LINC ] Centre in Bumside. I The first teething problem was discovered just < before Christmas, when the , system was due to go live; ] 9600 baud modems were | supplied by the Post Office, but they would not support ] the multi-drop circuits re- ] quired. j Three weeks later 4800. < baud modems were in- ] stalled and the system be- j gan working. j Details on the 93 perform- ; ances were entered into the ; computer, including seat layouts that enabled the j mahine to estimate the best < seats available at any time, j The information was l entered by P.E.P. workers. ] Using the terminals, operators were able to show < the public which seats were < available at the different < venues, make the reserva- ; tions and issue the tickets. The system also maintained < accounting information for < the organisers. | With only limited time i available for training the i operators of the terminals, i there were problems in getting existing booking staff ; adjusted to the system. 1 “When one is used to a ] particular system,” said Mr

Sleeman, “any change is .quite difficult.” After the booking had been made on the screen, a ticket was printed on the Burroughs printers in the booking offices. “The presentation and design of the ticket was really good,” said Mr Dennis Breeze, public affairs manager for the LINC Centre. With assistance from Moore Paragon New Zealand, Ltd, a special ticket form on continuous stationery was designed using a heavy quality paper. The printer used reversed-image. printing and expanded characters to get a professional appearance. However, the ticket-print-ing did slow down the operation. “We knew the printers would be the Achilles’s heel,” said Mr Rae. “We really needed a specific printer for the job,” said Mr Breese, “but we had only Burroughs printers available to us.” Mr Sleeman noted that, over all, the system was slower than a manual system. “We had a system where we were using machines that weren’t really the best,” he said. On occasions there were also equipment malfunctions which caused headaches for booking staff. “You can’t tell people, ‘The

computer is down’,” said Mr Breese. In particular, there were terminal faults and communications faults. “There are lessons to be learnt by Burroughs’ engineering services and the New Zealand Post Office in servicing real-time systems,” said Mr Rae. “There was an immediacy required with this system.” Mr Sleeman described the computer system as an attempt “to move with the times. “There was a terrific amount of information that we were able to store on the computer and get back afterwards,” he said. Daily reconciliations were produced, by booking location, and there was an instant summary available at any time on the seating and financial status of any event. The names and addresses on all mail bookings were entered into the computer so that the organisers have a list of potential patrons for the next festival. The system was also a useful experience for the staff at the LINC Centre. “It gave us a few ideas to put back into LINC,” said Mr Rae, “in particular in the area of printing and spooling and in improving the speed of output’’