Help needed for database that registers theatre bookings and allocates seats

[Neil Martin Productions]

Hi, This is my first posting and hope that you guys can help me. My knowledge of FM is reasonable but not at a professional level - I think!

I am building a database to take bookings for a theatre that I am involved with (London's famous 'Magic Circle'). The database will store information about the various magic shows and register customers bookings.

I envisage so far using three databases. One to store information about the shows (title, curtain up, show finish, artistes, ticket prices, etc); one database to store information about the bookers or customers (can also hold credit card/payment details); the other database will show the seating plan of the theatre (only 162 seats).

I need to be able to relate the customers to the seats (some will book just a few seats, others many) and in turn I need to relate the theatre seats to a specific show.

Once a seat is booked it cannot be available for sale to someone else and this needs to be shown. In the 'shows' database, each show will be a different record so that I can accept bookings for a number of different events at the same time (IE monday evening show, tuesday daytime, saturday evening, etc). Once a show has finished I can delete the show's record but the customer database will still hold all the details of the audience (customers)in case they books for a different show in the future.

My problem is creating the relationship/link for the three databases. How do I create a relationship between each of the 162 seats and potential customers and then link all the seats in the theatre to a specific show??

Any help would be greatly appreciated. You can email me privately at [email protected] if it is too lengthy or complicated to post in the forum.

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Neil Martin

Managing Director

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Neil Martin Productions Ltd

Premier Corporate Entertainment

PO Box 981, Wallington, Surrey, SM6 8JU

www.nmp.co.uk

[email protected]

(T) 020 8669 3128

[LiveOak]

This might be getting a little beyond the scope of questions to be answered in a forum. This is a fairly sophisticated application and you should expect to pay a FileMaker consultant/developer to design such an approach, if you don't feel you can do it yourself. This is kind of a "How do I design a Mercedes?" or "How do I write a broadway play?" type of question. -bd