Audience Republic spoke to a host of event professionals about their insights into maximizing event ticket sales.
In the second in a series of blogs collating that advice, here is a selection of real-world actions event organizers, venues and ticketing platforms can take to optimize their ticket selling efforts...
“It's sometimes shocking at the lack of clients who have actually bought their own ticket and have gone through the process of buying from themselves. Because quite often, there are roadblocks that they had no idea exist.
“And so going through that user experience and purchasing really helps reveal things getting in the way of that purchase process. Things that maybe are okay but could be a lot better. And then also maybe things that aren't yet implemented that could really help improve the process.”
Read Brian's full interview here.
“There was actually a country festival we were campaigning for. And we came up with an idea that all tickets over a 72-hour time frame come with two free drink tickets. That outperformed the early bird campaign at a discounted price. Economically speaking it was way more profitable for the festival, because what are they losing on a full price ticket? And this is a three-day camping event, so you're looking at like, $250 to $300, and they're giving away two Bud Lights!
"Everyone wants to focus on urgency and scarcity, and you need to leverage those, but not a lot of people feel you should focus on value adds: ‘Full price, but you get this too.’ And those are easier to sprinkle in throughout the entire lifecycle of an on sale campaign.”
Read David's full interview here.
“[You have to make] sure that before the show people are aware that it's coming. And then while the tour is happening, you should still be funneling content out so people see how much fun it is.
“Your first leg of your tour should be promoting your second leg. You have to show them why they're buying the ticket, right? If they're on that latter part of the tour, you're showing them what it is they're gonna come see.
“So, it could be a really great moment during a show with a crowd interaction of some kind, it could just be great footage of the show [with] the audio of your song up against it – it doesn't have to be live, it can be a highlight reel or something.
“That way, if you're online you're gonna see that this tour’s going pretty good. And you're gonna think, ‘Man, is it coming my way?’ And then you're gonna check and maybe you'll buy the ticket.”
Read Jamie's full interview here.
“It’s really important for festivals to build an army of superfans or build their tribe, where they have 100, 200 people that basically do their marketing for them.
“Whether they reward them with tickets or they get some drinks, or they get to go in a special area, or meet and greets or things like that, or there's a special party just for these people. I think this is where the word of mouth comes in. If you've got these 200 superfans, they're going to tell 10 of their mates, and 10 of their mates are going to come, all of a sudden you’ve sold 2000 tickets. And that all comes from really looking after them.
“It's all about building communities, and from building those communities that's where the word of mouth comes from, about how good the festival was or why people should go.”
Read Alex's full interview here.
“We’re really seeing a shift where people want to be connected; people want to feel things much more now. We want to have these real emotional connections with experiences that generally are amazing, that make us feel connected with one another and where we are.
“So if festivals can lean on that and not just say this is an event that we’re selling, [more] it’s an experience for our ticket buyers, then that will only increase your ticket sales and I think the landscape of festivals and events will be beautiful.
“Because then you're not in competition with anyone, right? If you can create your own market, you create your own experience, you eliminate your competition.”
Read Elle's full interview here.
To learn more about how you could be selling more tickets to your event, speak to our team today.
