Nashville Zoo moves from legacy ticketing to an open ecosystem with ACME
How one of America's fastest-growing zoos replaced a decade of legacy software with a best-in-class ticketing platform and made it the center of everything it runs.
The Zoo became a primarily online institution. Its platform didn't keep up.
In 2011, Nashville Zoo processed tickets and memberships on paper forms at the gate. Online sales grew steadily as the Zoo crossed one million annual visitors in 2018 and kept climbing with each new exhibit. Then COVID changed everything overnight: timed entry and advanced reservations became the standard, and the Zoo became a primarily online business.
Its ticketing platform of ten years, Accesso, was built for a different era. Reporting was limited, and data requests took about a week. Memberships could be renewed but not upgraded or changed. Timed entry was enforced so rigidly that guests arriving a minute outside their window were turned away or required staff intervention. And with no API, the Zoo's team couldn't connect or extend the platform themselves.
Grassmere
"ACME handles the day-to-day better than anything we've used, and the open API means we're never waiting on anyone to build what we need. It's become the center of how this Zoo runs."
Chris McBride, Director of IT, Nashville Zoo at Grassmere
A best-in-class platform, open at the core
The Zoo ran a thorough evaluation, and ACME stood apart from the first interaction. The team dug into ACME's documentation on their own and were on a demo call within an hour of reaching out. When the Zoo put the market through a detailed RFP, ACME checked every box it needed.
Powering the day-to-day
Events and scheduling. Staff publish and manage hundreds of events, time slots, and price points directly in the back office
Flexible timed entry. Guests arriving outside their window are handled automatically through rebooking rather than sent back to the ticket line, and staff can force a check-in when a situation calls for it
Scanning on standard devices. 15 iPhone-based scanners cover the front gate, carousel, zipline, animal feedings, and other attractions, with no separate scanning hardware to buy or replace
Location-aware check-in data. Terminal IDs identify where every scan happened, and custom fields on event templates mark whether a scan counts toward attendance or an attraction, so reporting stays clean downstream
Guest checkout. 84% of online checkouts complete on a phone, with a median checkout time of 3.4 minutes
Pricing that responds to the day
An Excel sheet and a PowerShell script push new pricing through the API, updating the rest of the year in about five minutes
Pricing factors in weather and expected demand, easing prices when conditions look poor and raising them for strong days
A daily operations email sends staff each morning's admission prices and presale totals so teams can anticipate volume
BrightSign digital displays pull live pricing from the API every 30 minutes, keeping onsite signage accurate without manual updates
Membership that works the way members do
Members upgrade, downgrade, and change membership levels in-platform, capabilities the Zoo previously lacked, and membership has grown to the highest count in its history.
Member service changed just as much. Summer camp registration and member pre-sales once flooded the phone lines with one question: "What's my member number?"
The Zoo's Voiceflow "Need Help" chatbot now answers it. Connected to ACME's membership API, the agent verifies the visitor, returns membership details in real time, explains who is covered under that plan, and estimates pricing for a planned visit. Members also receive early-access links for camp sales, which removes most manual validation entirely.
An open ecosystem that extends everything
Nashville Zoo prices admission differently by day, with staff reviewing conditions and making the call. ACME's API turns those decisions into updates across hundreds of events almost instantly.
Live business intelligence
ACME data flows into the Zoo's Azure warehouse every 30 minutes, where it sits alongside CampBrain camp registrations and DonorPerfect donor records.
Attendance they can trust.
Gate counters are measured against ACME check-ins every 30 minutes, producing a confidence score on reported attendance so planning rests on numbers the team knows are sound.
Weather-informed planning
The Zoo pulls National Weather Service forecasts and observations on the same 30-minute cadence, and is building toward recommendations based on how weather patterns affect attendance.
Multi-night Platinum Pass
The Zoo's holiday event pass admits a guest on any night. An automated process runs at 11 p.m., preserving that day's check-in data in a separate event and resetting the pass for the next night.
Growing the institution, not the workload
20% revenue growth, year over year.
Flexible pricing and a stronger online experience drove growth even through a major parking construction project, when the Zoo used daily pricing to spread demand across the week and hold attendance steady.
A record membership count.
In-platform upgrades and changes, plus a smoother join and renewal experience, brought membership to the highest level in the Zoo's history.
60% fewer member service calls and emails.
The chatbot returns 4 to 5 staff hours a day during peak event periods and serves members outside staffed hours.
Six custom builds, created in-house.
Strong documentation and examples make the platform workable for a lean team, and AI assistance has further reduced the effort to write and troubleshoot integration logic.
Just as important is the partnership. Requests get solved or land on the roadmap, and when something isn't possible, ACME says so and offers a better path. Next, the Zoo is bringing a voice AI receptionist online, enabling ticket sales and changes through the AI experience, and moving its storefront to ACME's new white-label web product.
“We've built everything from our pricing automation to our member chatbot against ACME's API. The documentation and examples are very helpful; enough that if you can think a workflow through, you can build it."
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