How To Sell Lots Of Tickets To Your Event
Are you struggling to sell tickets to your event?
You've pressed go on your event and.....crickets. What do you do? The 'make or break' date is faster and faster approaching, and there's only a limited number of long lost relatives left to try and convince to buy a ticket....help!
There are a few tried and tested tips out there that can really help when you're in this situation. These tips are surprisingly simple, and can make a world of difference to your ticket sales (and stress levels!). Here they are!
Tip One – make it a no brainer
Make buying tickets to your event an absolute no-brainer. Your ticket offer needs to be so attractive that people have no reason not to buy a ticket. So how do you do this?
A great way is breaking down and elaborating on the different features of the event. For example – your venue could be really amazing. It might have this incredible history that you could tell your potential guests about. Perhaps it is a brand new venue that lots of people haven’t been to before, or it’s an old favourite that everyone knows for a good time.
Another way to make buying tickets a no-brainer, is to get really specific on what your target audiences knows and likes. For example – does your target audience love food? Then make sure they know that the food is going to be absolutely delicious, and there’ll be a lot of new, photogenic (!) and different options to try.
Important note to remember – you don’t need to make your event tickets free or cheap in order to sell them. Think about a steak – would a $10 steak be better than a $50 steak? Definitely not. Price is good to consider when looking at your audience, however if people feel they are getting value for money, price isn’t an issue.
Tip Two – proofread your event
It is crazy for me to think of the amount of event invites that I've been sent in which the website link doesn't work, the phone number is wrong, the address doesn't make sense, the date and day of the week doesn’t match up….. all of these things can be an instant deal-breaker when someone is considering buying a ticket to your event.
In this day and age, people want things fast, and they want them simple. They won’t be interested in mucking around trying to get your website to work, and will move on and forget about your event unless they have a personal relationship with you or your business already. It is super important to take time out for proofreading, and I’d even suggest asking a friend/colleague to proofread it for you too, as ‘a second pair of eyes’.
Tip Three - create a sense of urgency
New Zealanders in particular like to leave things until the last minute – not ideal! They want to see who else is going. They want to see if anything else comes up. But no, we want them to buy tickets NOW. So this is where you need to make your audience think, "Wow, if I don't buy a ticket right now, I'm going to miss out on this amazing experience”.
Some ideas:
Offer an early bird price
Release a statement saying, "Tickets have been on sale for a week, and they're going really, really fast. Make sure you don't miss out."
Offer a VIP package (in my experience, these sell out way before general admission!!)
Tip Four - give away a small number of tickets
Facebook is a really easy platform to do a giveaway, but be careful! You'll need to search online for an updated list on what language and words are appropriate/effective for a Facebook giveaway. Why? Facebook quite often gets swamped with competitions/’tag and win’ promotions and have started cutting the reach of posts who use particular spam phrases and wording. Don’t let this be you, and do your homework first so you reach the people you want to!
After picking your winner, message those who didn’t win with a discount code. I did this for an event recently, and we sold a huge number of tickets using this trick. All the people trying to win were already interested in the event, and even though they didn’t win, a small discount was really all that was needed to get them over the line. Definitely worth it!
Tip Five - make sure that you have talk-worthy entertainment
We recently sent out a survey that showed having entertainment makes people more likely to attend events and also really increases enjoyment at events, so entertainment is definitely worth it if you want to sell tickets. When planning entertainment, you need to take into consideration the venue, the crowd, the event itself and also the theme. However, if you need a hand, let our team know here as we’re always happy to do this hard work for you, and come up with ideas free of charge.
That is our top tips for selling out your event! We look forward to seeing you throw some massive events in the future, you’ve got this!
