These days, there's a lot of different options available for box-office ticketing software.... from low-cost software with rather limited features that you can purchase outright, to extremely expensive software that can be developed with all the precise features that you could possibly desire in conjunction with the ticketing company. Naturally,box office software companies offer products that fall in between these two extremes.

if you don't need the sophistication of online ticketing, then you would probably purchase some relatively low-cost software that would handle all the ticketing administration and ticket printing for your box office.

It however you require online ticketing, then you can either purchase the software outright (although this is generally expensive because development costs are quite high for such sophisticated systems) or you can sign up with a hosted service such as HandyTix, where you simply pay a charge based on the number of transactions or tickets that are sold through the system. This is generally a better option for most organizations, since box office software companies will normally have a continuous program of updating their software on a regular basis at no cost to the user. So you have some assurance that the company you are working with should always be at the forefront of technology, whereas if you are purchasing the software outright, it may quickly become out of date or you may be asked to pay additional costs for any and all updates or upgrades.

But with any box office ticketing software, there is a myriad of options available, so you really need to make a list of what features are important to you. Of course you also need to make sure that the system is as easy to operate from a box office operator's viewpoint, and the system does not take long to learn for the average operator.

Realistically, the only way to evaluate alternative systems is to get hold of a demo version... and ideally of course the demo version should have as many features enabled as possible.