Smoother payments for St Helen's Theatre Royal with Ticketsolve Pay

Before the move, the venue was taking payments through Global Payments alongside using Ticketsolve. It worked, but it meant the payment side of things sat across both systems, and created additional work for box office and finance teams.

Reconciliation was where this showed most clearly. With the figures spread across two separate systems, finance had to pull them together and match them up by hand at the end of each day. It got the job done, but it was slower than it needed to be.

In addition to this, every extra step at the checkout was a chance for a customer to drop out.

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St Helens Theatre Royal moved to Ticketsolve Pay and has now been running on it for four months. The team took a deliberately low-risk approach to the switch, keeping their previous system running in the background to handle refunds on older shows while every new booking went through Ticketsolve Pay.

The reception from the team has been positive across the board. Box office has been able to process new bookings through Ticketsolve Pay without any issues, and, crucially, there have been no complaints from customers.

The biggest difference has been seen by the finance team. As all payment reporting now sits inside Ticketsolve, reconciliation is much simpler and no longer requires bridging the gap between two systems. The transaction dashboard has been a particularly welcome addition - the team can see every payment in one place and reconcile far more quickly than previously.

Mobile payment has also made a real difference. Apple Pay has removed friction at checkout - and this can be seen in the numbers. Close to one in seven transactions now go through Apple Pay, and it converts better than any other method, seeing a 97.65% success rate.

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• 94% of payments succeeding
• Apple Pay makes up close to one in seven transactions (13.95%) and has the highest success rate of any payment method, at 97.65%
• Reconciliation now runs through one system rather than two, with the transaction dashboard helping finance reconcile far more quickly
• Nearly £475,000 processed through Ticketsolve Pay since going live in March 2026 (£475,463.29 across 5,785 transactions)

With payments running smoothly, the team is now looking at recurring payments to support their restoration appeal, letting supporters set up regular giving at the point of checkout. It is a natural next step, taking the same simple experience customers already trust and using it to underpin activity supporting the venue's long-term future.