Box office software for community theatres

Your box office, open every night. Even the ones without a show.

ShowLayer is the website and online box office for community theatres. Patrons choose their own seats, pay by card and get their tickets by email. Your volunteers sell, print and check tickets at the door from the same system.

Book a walkthrough See what it does

Try the seating plan. Tap a few seats.

The Importance of Being EarnestExample show · Fri 20 Nov · 7.30pm

Your seats

Pick a seat

0 tickets$0

Act I · Front of house

Everything a patron sees, and everything they don’t.

One system runs your public website and your box office. Patrons book online. Volunteers sell at the counter. Your manager sees the numbers in the morning.

Pick-your-own seats

Patrons book from a plan of your actual auditorium, whether that’s cabaret tables, straight rows or a curved house.

Card payments, straight to you

Checkout runs on Stripe, using your theatre’s own Stripe account. Ticket money goes to the theatre, with no monthly gateway fee.

Tickets by email, ready to print

Every booking gets a confirmation email and printable tickets with your theatre’s name, address and note on them.

Door list on the night

Check people in at the door, sell walk-ups at the counter, and see at a glance who’s still to arrive.

Your words, not ours

Managers edit the home page introduction, the ticket note, the email footer and the terms and conditions from Settings, without touching code.

Past productions and Get involved

Keep an archive of past shows, and a page for auditions, membership and the committee. Switch either on or off per theatre.

Act II · The house

Two seating engines. Your room, drawn to scale.

Every theatre is shaped differently. ShowLayer draws yours, and either layout can include an unreserved area sold by number instead of by seat.

Cabaret tables

B3-2

Row B, table 3, seat 2. For venues where the audience sits at tables with a drink in hand.

Any number of tables per row, any number of seats per table
Patrons can book a whole table or a single seat
Add a gallery or standing area sold by count

Rows

C07

Row C, seat 7. For traditional auditoriums, with straight or curved rows.

Rows of any length, curved around the stage or straight
Leave room for a sound desk, an aisle or wheelchair spaces
Mix row lengths, such as rows A to E of 18 seats and row F of 12

Act III · Set design

Dressed to suit your theatre. By us, or by you.

Start with one of six ready-made designs. Ask us to design a theme around your theatre’s logo and colours, or build your own with the ShowLayer theme guide.

These are sketches of the six ready-made designs. Every design takes your own colours, logo and wording.

yourtheatre.co.nz

Your TheatreWhat’s onVisitHire

Now booking

The Importance of Being Earnest

12 to 28 November · Evenings 7.30pm · Matinee Sunday 2pm

Choose your seats

Summer revueDecember

Open auditionsJanuary

Youth theatreTerm 1

We design it for you

Send us your logo, colours and a few photos of your theatre. We’ll design a theme to match, install it and switch it on, ready for opening night.

Built around your brand and your venue
Works with your seating plan and every ShowLayer page
Light and dark versions included

Build it yourself

Got someone handy with HTML and CSS? The theme guide takes them through every file step by step, with a starter theme to copy.

themes/your-theatre/
  theme.json   name, colours and fonts
  home.php     your home page layout
  theme.css    the styles
  assets/      images and logos

Zip it up and send it to us. We’ll check it over and switch it on. Your manager can still edit all the wording in Settings.

Act IV · The company

Everyone gets the part they need.

Two roles keep the counter simple for volunteers, and the prices, settings and reports with your committee. We look after the website itself.

Box office

Your front-of-house volunteers

Sell tickets: counter and phone
Find bookings: by name or email
Shows: dates and times
Door: check-in on the night

Manager

Your treasurer or committee lead

Everything above: plus
Settings: prices, Stripe, email
Wording and terms: edited in place
Reports: sales by show
Staff: volunteer accounts

Act V · Curtain up

Rehearse in private. Open when you’re ready.

Your site has three modes. Build the season behind a closed curtain, open the doors when you’re ready, and put up an Intermission page while you make changes.

yourtheatre.co.nz

Rehearsal

This site is still in rehearsal. Enter your preview code to take a look.

noindexDisallow: /bots: 403staff bypass

Act VI · Backstage

Your theatre owns the whole show.

ShowLayer runs on ordinary web hosting under your own domain. Your patrons, bookings and money stay with your theatre.

Yours

Your domain, your data

Runs on standard PHP hosting with SQLite or MySQL. No shared platform holds your patron list.

Direct

Your own Stripe account

Each theatre connects its own Stripe account, so payouts and receipts carry your name.

Auto

Updates that install themselves

New releases deploy from Git, and the database upgrades itself on the first page load.

Safe

Built with care

Private files locked away, strong passwords by role, and every change in the activity log.

Current release 26.110209Wording editor · feature switches · terms at checkout