[nkokonas]

I think it would work for almost any restaurant -- or for that matter any business or service that has time slots... think dentist, hair cutter, spa, etc. If a restaurant is less in demand then they can use pricing as an incentive, never charging a premium but going under baseline for quiet times.

Aviary is the example that I use because we never go all night to full capacity. We've done 350+ covers, but we could do more. Most Wednesdays we do 125-150. So take a non destination place, add in a deposit for prime slots or other perks, and I believe the psychology is that you can move patrons to those times.

I think the entire industry was afraid to take the risk that patrons would hate tickets -- you spend $ 2 million building a restaurant and you want to minimize risk. I felt Next had so many people interested in the concept that I could afford to take that risk... indeed in some ways it was concepted FOR the tickets because I was so nutty about them for a year or two before.

And yes, I was very very worried. Up for several days in a row beforehand. Didn't shower or shave... ate pizza, drank cheap wine. Usual stuff.

[infinitone]

Funnily enough, we're working on scheduling for detailers and cleaning businesses (http://carwashy.com). We haven't look into ticketing because well, to be frank, most of our customers never really mention the problems you guys face. And looking at the data, no-shows account for less than 2% of bookings.