Timed Ticketing a ‘Game Changer’ for Maggiano’s Restaurant and Its Experiential Dining Events

Experiential dining experiences are the future of restaurants. That’s according to Bobbi Jo Ballard, who manages private dining and off-premise experiences at the 50-strong restaurant group Maggiano’s Little Italy.

“Our most successful events are ones that have an interactive component, like our cooking classes or our wine pairing dinners” Bobbi Jo explains. 

“It’s not just a formal sit down and eat a meal anymore, guests are truly looking for an experience and one that starts with their meal—whether that be one of our signature cocktails served tableside or an interactive cooking class in which guests can pick up a few techniques.” 

In addition to amplifying the dining experience, Maggiano’s recently forged a first-of-its-kind partnership between the Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition and Maggiano’s Boston location ushers in a new era for the restaurant group with dining experiences at the forefront. 

And it wouldn’t be possible without Eventbrite’s new timed entry tool, which allows event organizers to create fully-customizable recurring events in minutes—and save even more time using our AI tool.

Using timed entry on Eventbrite also allows organizers to inspire attendee confidence with a seamless checkout experience and accelerate growth by connecting with the 93 million event-goers looking for things to do on the platform.

We spoke to Bobbi Jo to learn how restaurants and the hospitality industry can embrace this elevated timed entry tool to save time and effort, and future-proof their businesses in 2025 and beyond. 

A time-saving tool for busy organizers

When the opportunity to partner with the exhibition for its six-month run became a reality, Bobbi Jo was excited but hesitant. 

“It’s going to be a lot of work,” she recalls thinking at the time. “Somebody’s going to need to physically create all of these dates and times for ticket sales.” 

Bobbi Jo needed to create event listings from October to May, with multiple time slots for each date. She wanted to ensure everything was done right and ran smoothly, not just for the restaurant but for their new partner, too.

Thanks to timed entry, the task—which she expected to take an entire week—took far less time. She’d initially blocked out 40 hours to program the events and it only took her one hour. 

“It took longer for us to work on the verbiage and approve it than it did to actually create the timed entry event,” laughs Bobbi Jo. “It was incredible.”

Reflecting on her initial concerns, she says: “When you do something new, you always have that fear of messing it up and not doing it right. But once you get past that initial hesitation and reservation, [timed entry] is pretty self-explanatory and extremely user-friendly.”

💡Pro tip: Save even more time by using Eventbrite’s AI tool, which generates event descriptions at the click of a button. Goodbye, writer’s block!

Easy to set-up and customize

The timed entry function is fully-customizable for event organizers, with helpful prompts to ensure the event listings fulfill the unique needs of each event.

“I didn’t think it could be this easy,” Bobbi Jo adds. “The prompts are great. It leads you into the next step, asking: is it every day? Is it repeating? Does it work for these time frames?”

After a few weeks, when Bobbi Jo noticed they needed to make changes to how the partnership worked, editing existing event listings couldn’t have been easier. 

The team noticed multiple guests arriving late for their restaurant reservations and quickly realised they needed to make changes to how events were ticketed. Bobbi Jo decided it was more effective to create time slots based on exhibition entry, rather than trying to get event-goers to adhere to set times for both the exhibition and meal. This allows for flexibility for attendees to take as long as they want around the exhibition and perhaps do something in-between the attraction and their meal. 

But rather than having to go in and change each event instance manually, timed entry allows for batch edits. Again, saving time on unnecessary admin so event organizers can spend their valuable time on other pressing matters.

“Editing was literally three or four clicks,” recalls Bobbi Jo. “I just deactivated one listing, made some edits on the menu, and applied it to all instances and time slots moving forward.”

💡Pro tip: Looking to improve your event offering? Consider running a post-event survey to learn what attendees thought of your event—and, crucially, where you could make improvements. Our post-event survey guide will show you how.  

Future-proofing growth with timed entry

Timed entry is a “game-changer” for facilitating partnerships of this kind, according to Bobbi Jo.

“A lot of our restaurants are in big cities,” she explains. “So a lot of vendors come in and have this type of exhibition, show or performance. We’ve always wanted to have the ability to partner with these companies to make a night out seamless for our guests. While we have a lot of great working relationships, we have never had an opportunity to be able to combine forces and sell tickets together.”

Timed entry bridges that gap and Bobbi Jo plans to roll-out the partnership model to other restaurants across the U.S..

And when it comes to growth, the proof is in the pudding: Maggiano’s Boston has seen over 20% lift in experiential event sales in 2024.

And timed entry won’t just be used for partnerships. Busy periods and seasonal events, such as Easter and Mother’s Day, are also an opportunity to utilize the tool.

“We are looking at using timed entry for other restaurant-hosted events because of the flexibility with time frame repetition and then being able to replicate it across multiple dates if needed,” Bobbi Jo explains.

💡Pro tip: There are plenty of outside-the-box ideas in hospitality to reach new audiences and appeal to people looking to celebrate a special occasion. Here are 30 restaurant event ideas to WOW guests this year.

How Eventbrite tools support the brand’s evolution

What’s next for Maggiano’s? As well as dining experiences, Maggiano’s long-term plans include finding ways to continuously elevate the experience for its guests—and Eventbrite tools and data are supporting that journey.

“We are elevating our service, our quality ingredients and menu items offered,” she explains.  “Timed entry allows us to partner with other vendors to offer an amazing Maggiano’s experience paired with a show, night at the museum and much more.”

Eventbrite’s reporting and data analytics provide Bobbi Jo with the insight to notice trends from across the restaurant group and make strategic decisions about growth.

From her analysis, she’s noticed ticket sales for wine dinners growing by 10% between November 2024 and February 2025. This appetite for such experiences means they’re hoping to increase the frequency of dinners from once a quarter to once a month in certain locations.

Similarly, the success of their murder mystery dinners in certain locations led them to offer two time slots on the same day—an early seating at 4pm and another at 7pm.

Through analytics reporting they’ve learned to list their events months in advance, in order to create demand and cater to tourist groups.

Having joined Eventbrite in 2009, Maggiano’s offers a masterclass in how to evolve as a business. 

“I love all of the advancements and steps that Eventbrite’s taken internally to move the needle in the event planning and ticketing industry,” says Bobbi Jo. “I think we’re all headed in the right direction and I’m appreciative of our partnership.”