Audience Republic spoke to a host of event professionals about their insights into maximizing event ticket sales. In the first of 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...
“One of the data points that's really unique in the ticketing world is the amount of abandonment that occurs when there's the requirement to create an account before checkout as opposed to just offering a guest checkout flow.
“Up to 35% will abandon if you force them to create an account with that ticketing platform. I think the concern that [event organizers] have is, ‘I'll miss out on their data.’ Even with a guest checkout flow, you'll still get their contact information, it's just that they won't have an account with the ticketing platform.”
Read Brian's full interview here.
“You really need to convert somebody in the shortest time span. And so you have to weigh [up] what kind of data do you need, what kind of data do you ask? The more you ask upfront before conversion, the lower the conversion will be.
“So realize what kind of data you can get from Cookies and that you might not need to ask. We still see some promoters asking full address details, and we always advise, is it needed? Do you want to send a physical letter? If not, why are you asking?”
Read Jos's full interview here.
“Price tier increases in this market are probably the most important tool available to an event marketer, a festival marketer in particular, because it creates a sense of urgency in a market where there often isn't a sense of urgency.
“And what's interesting is there's not just a lift in the week or two leading up to it. There's also a lift in the week or two after the price tier because people who didn't get that price tier recognize there's going to be another increase, they might as well lock it in before that happens and maybe they can't keep track of when that's going to happen.
“So we encourage our partners to have as many price tiers as they can within reason.”
Read Jesse's full interview here.
“We’re putting a lot of work into incentivizing presales, trying to make some early adopters of events, in particular at Hindley Street Music Hall, which is in Adelaide, which has never been known for being a quick buying, urgent sort of crowd.
“So for us, it's paramount to put a membership program and early access tickets and put merch packages together, really try and drive home the message that we're open for business, and if you support us and buy early then you can get a win out of it.
“And ultimately, that leads to our goal of being able to sell out events as much as we possibly can, which then starts the momentum of being able to develop that ticket buying culture, to know that when we announce something we plan on selling it out within the first month rather than the last couple of weeks.”
Read Mark's full interview here.
“What we see across the ticketing landscape is some horrendous examples of customers having to create an account with the ticketing platform before purchasing a ticket; they've got banner ads that pop up that distract them away from the checkout; you've got other events being advertised on their ticketing page in order to promote a different event during the checkout. If successful, the customer doesn't check out – that's the point of that advert.
“And on top of that, asking way too much data prior to the person checking out, complemented with bad payment options where you have to enter all of your card details rather than just using Apple Pay or Google Pay. Those are the types of things we see that cost a fortune of sales, and really, really hurt hosts.”
Read Adam's full interview here.
