Press Releases

Boyertown, PA - (August 2007) Following a two-year, $41 million expansion project, the Seattle Aquarium, located on the Seattle waterfront, reopened its doors equipped to meet the crowds with Gateway’s Galaxy ticketing system and the expert help of the Gateway Implementation team.

Sue Donohue Smith, Seattle Aquarium’s Guest and Volunteer Services Manager, said that the aquarium had decided to move forward with upgrading the ticketing system and replacing the 15-year-old hardware since they were opening a newly-renovated entrance and introducing two major exhibits to an annual visitor base of 700,000.

“I had heard about Galaxy from my colleagues in other aquariums and zoos. This system has the right application for our industry. In my research I found the ease of operation and speed of credit card approval would be well received by my admissions staff,” Donohue Smith said.

The new system included Galaxy’s Point of Sale, Resource Management, Order Entry, Admission Control and Manager’s Workstation modules, as well as Gateway’s ticket stock and hardware solutions.

As a result of the newly upgraded ticketing system, Donohue Smith reports experiencing significant improvements over the old system. “Speed of admissions is the biggest improvement I see. I also like the fact that I can log on and see live how many people have come in at any time. Our reporting has been cut down to fewer pages and our accounting will soon be much easier,” she said.

Petion Rivera, Gateway Implementation Specialist, was on site to help configure the new Galaxy system in order to support two major Seattle area programs in which the aquarium participates. The first is a Microsoft employee discount program. “The aquarium has an agreement with Microsoft that provides employees with a discount when they present a special card at the time of ticket purchase. The information on the card needed to be captured for reporting purposes, so to accommodate this we configured the system to prompt the user to enter the employee card number when selling a ticket,” he said.

The second program the aquarium needed to support is Seattle’s City Pass program. Using Galaxy’s City Pass interface, users can gather and export the information required for participation in the program. The City Pass program consists of buying a booklet with tickets to major Seattle attractions for a reduced price.

“Galaxy supports the capture of City Pass booklet sales and ticket redemption. The aquarium can export information on the usage of City Pass tickets so that they can be paid by City Pass for the tickets used in their facility,” said Rivera.

Flexibility like this in Galaxy is one of the most popular benefits of the system with administrative staff at Seattle Aquarium. Sue Donohue Smith said, “The ease of customization is what I like the best. We can manipulate the system to see the reports we want and we can customize our tickets and receipts at any time.”

How does the rest of the aquarium staff feel about the new Galaxy ticketing system? “My admissions staff love it. They are happy with the simplicity of the system for their jobs,” said Donohue Smith.

“It has made my work group more efficient. We use less staffing overall now because of this efficiency. I am looking forward to online registration in order to cut down more staff time. Galaxy made our summer very successful! We were able to bring in over 300,000 people with virtually no issues at the entrance because of it,” she said.

The go-live deadline came down to the wire in many areas of the aquarium renovation, but the Gateway team was able to deliver on time despite the circumstances. Tim Kuniholm, Director of Marketing for the aquarium said, “We were very pleased with how smoothly installation went. Everything was delivered in time and on time as promised.”

About Seattle Aquarium:

Providing a hands-on marine experience and preservation education in the Pacific Northwest, the Seattle Aquarium offers exhibits and programs designed to help people discover the marine life of the Puget Sound area.

About Gateway Ticketing Systems, Inc.:

Gateway Ticketing Systems, Inc. is the world leader in high-speed, access control, admission control, and ticketing software for the attraction, amusement, and intercity bus transportation industries. Located in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, Gateway Ticketing Systems provides sales, service, and support for point of sale and ticketing systems throughout North America and worldwide.

For more information on Gateway Ticketing Systems, visit www.gatewayticketing.com or call +1 (610) 987-4000.