Theater ticket numbering quandry

I've done numbering before so that's not a major issue. This event is a little trickier. I have 5 sections: Orchestra Right which is from row A to Q, seats 2, 4, 6, 8; Orchestra Left which is from row A to Q, seats 1, 3, 5, 7; Orchestra Center row A to Q; 101-112; Balcony Right AA-FF even seats 2-16; Balcony Right AA-FF odd seats 1-17. There are three nights to this event. I'm trying to wrap my head around how to print in two short runs. The Balcony and Orchestra have fairly similar number of seats so I thought I would do that in one run and then the Orchestra tickets a separate run. I would love to do one print run even if I throw stock away. The more runs, the more click charges which won't hurt me if bw but will add up quickly if in 4C. Any advice on best way to merge into one doc or two appreciated. Here is a photo of the seating chart.

Theater ticket numbering quandry

In a lot of ways this looks like a datamerge project to me, with different masters applied after the merge, but I'm not sure that will really work with the numbers of seats in each section. You might, however, do it manually, that is lay out a ticket grid and make enough pages to get all the seats, in any order, and put the numbers in by hand. Put all the more or less common info on masters, then apply them to the pages. You could use layers to differentiate the nights, or new masters for each night.

Theater ticket numbering quandry

I suspected this may be part data merge, part manual. This may turn into a regular, several times a year thing so once I get it figured out, I'm good for the future.?Thanks.

I've done a few ticket jobs with data merge and agree that will likely be your best bet. I think for the number of odd seats you're going to have some issues with keeping everything sane.

Two documents may be your best bet. I see that particular job as a good copier job. get some 18x12 paper on a nice card stock and design it to not have any unique bleed. 2x5 is a good sized ticket, can get 16 tickets to a sheet and that would incorporate your orchestra seating which is 15 rows. That's 20 sheets of paper there. You could get your largest balcony row on the 16th spot and run the rest of your balcony as a separate document.

Remember that if you are getting these trimmed you want the tickets in sequence for the people handing them out or they'll be in a world of pissed off. Something like this would be your best bet for Orchestra