What a cash gate really costs
A cash gate looks free. Count what it takes: two or three volunteers per entrance for every hour the gate is open, a float, a lockbox, someone to count and deposit, and a queue that families remember. Add the revenue you cannot see (nobody knows what the gate took until Sunday night) and the shrinkage nobody wants to talk about.
The operators who move admission online rarely go back, and the reason is not the money. It is that the gate stops being a job.
- Volunteer hours per entrance per day
- Cash handling, counting, deposit
- Queue length at peak arrival
- Revenue visibility during the weekend
What changes when tickets go online
Families buy the day pass, weekend pass or parking pass before they leave the house, on their phone, with the wallet they already use. At the gate a volunteer scans the pass with any phone; the line moves at walking pace. Revenue shows up on your screen as it comes in, and the money is already in your account by the time the bracket starts.
You also learn things: how many families are coming Saturday versus Sunday, which passes sell, whether parking is going to be a problem before it is one.
- Passes sold in advance, on phones
- Scanning at walking pace with any phone
- Live gate total
- Money in your account, not a lockbox
Pricing the gate: day, weekend, parking
Keep it simple: a day pass, a weekend pass priced to reward buying both days, and parking as its own line if you control the lot. Decide whether players and coaches are free (they usually are, and the roster tells the gate who they are). Children under a certain age free is common and costs little.
Whatever you charge, publish it with the schedule so families are not surprised at the door, and let the team's registration email carry the ticket link.
- Day, weekend, parking
- Player and coach policy decided
- Prices published with the schedule
Running the gate on game day
One scanner per lane, a printed fallback list of pass holders in case a phone dies, and a clearly marked lane for buying at the door (on the same system, on the volunteer's phone, so there is still no cash). Put the parking scan at the lot entrance, not the building. Brief the volunteers in five minutes: scan, wave, next; problems go to one person.
The gate that runs well is the one nobody notices.
- A scanner per lane, a fallback list
- Buy-at-the-door lane on the same system
- Parking scanned at the lot
- One person for problems
The honest trade-offs
Some families will still show up expecting to pay cash; the buy-at-the-door lane handles them, but expect it. Card processing has a cost, usually a small percentage plus a fixed amount per ticket, and you decide whether the buyer or the organization carries it. Connectivity matters: check the venue's signal and have a fallback. None of these outweigh the queue, the volunteers and the visibility you get back.
- Buy-at-the-door lane for the cash-expecting family
- Processing cost decided: buyer or organization
- Signal checked, fallback ready