Advance Ticket Sales, Specialty & Outdoor Event Promotion

Years ago, I tried to convince a beer festival client to use online ticketing. At the time, the client was manually processing thousands of ticket orders through PayPal.

Each year, it took between 30-40 hours to manually fulfill all the ticket orders. All the ticket fulfillment work was relegated to one staff member. Not exactly time efficient and that person was less than thrilled! Have you ever addressed by hand and stuffed thousands of postal envelopes? Not fun!

A recurring mindset I hear from event organizers, "we don't have enough space to do ... X,Y, or Z!"

Until a few years ago, that assertion seemed perfectly logical. I also didn't have any hard data that showed otherwise.

That was until some fascinating findings came to light.

Bold title, eh. I stand by it 100%! Let's make this short and sweet.

Are you delighted with the revenue from your event, or do you yearn for more moolah?

If you're completely satisfied, terrific! You can stop reading here and have a fantastic day!

If you are NOT satisfied, opportunity awaits you ...

Here's the tale of two outdoor ethnic festivals.

Both derive most of their gross revenue from scrumptious food and beverage sales.

One festival clears around USD 100,000 and the other approximately USD 300,000 in food and beverage. They're both 4-day events. Neither festival charges admission. And one festival has an event footprint (total useful square footage / meteres) approximately 55% smaller than the other.

Wanna guess which one takes credit cards?

A quick question before we begin, did you think the mailbox reference in the title was regarding your email inbox? It was not. The subject line mailbox is referring to the old school mailbox. That place where you occasionally receive postal mail and printed bills.

During a recent call with an event organizer, the subject of traditional mailboxes was broached. How did we get on the topic? Because of a paper mailer (large postcard) that I would receive every year for a local ethnic festival. The organizer on my telephone conversation above was from the ethnic festival sending postcards.

I'd use the proper word in the subject line, but the SPAM filters freak out. I digress ...

Today, I spoke with two event organizers over the telephone. My calls included research on selling raffle tickets. What I discovered was fascinating!

"A" writes the follow ...

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HI

Thanks for the response. It is appreciated.

What proportion of sales are advanced tickets, compared to within a few weeks or days?

How early do you suggest event sites be put online compared to what actually happens with event site timing of going online?

Should much effort be used on generating backlinks from all the event calendar sites?

Perhaps that is another difference between the one time, limited product of the event and the 1000 page business site that offers continuous product - thus having a page for every possible niche for lead generating and sales.

Much success to you!

A

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I'm going to answer one of the most common questions from above. Because it's applicable to every event organizer!

Back in 2006, I was introduced to Doug Doebler, a real estate broker from Rochester, New York, USA. During that time, there was a real estate boom in the United States.

Doug started a real estate marketing project by hiring a direct response marketing consultant. The consultant strongly recommended a single page website. At one point, the consultant told Doug, "if you don't put the page by tomorrow, per my recommendations, I will fire you as a client!"

Two weeks ago, my lady and I were looking for a quaint dinner spot in Athens.

A man on the street attempted to woo us into his family restaurant. He went through the usual litany of ... great menu items, reasonable prices, and a complimentary glass of wine. Then there was the final part of his offer, "if you don't like your dinner, I will pay for it." The previous statement was presented with cool and sincere confidence. Truth be told, it was hard to resist. After an approving look from my lady, I responded with "ok, we're in!"

Are you exceeding your customer's expectations? Chances are, probably not. Events are often falling short according to customers feedback, online reviews, and survey data. Still, event organizers insist their event execution is beyond reproach. Hmmm!

It's rare, but on occasion, I attend client events. When I do visit, my goal is to stay in the background and observe.

Two weeks ago, I was honored to speak in Athens to an audience from over 25 different countries. After my talk, a few event organizers approached me to ask questions. One event organizer caught my attention. He told me about his 8,000-person email database that had yet to receive a single email.

Before emailing his database, he wanted to first create a brand and select performers for his event. Basically, he's afraid. That's part of being human. And as a recovering (and occasional relapsing) perfecting procrastinator, fear causes the loss of amazing opportunities. Both in life and in business.

"Hookers host successful annual Wine Tasting event." Believe it or not, that was an actual article headline.

"Eugene, what the heck is going on here?!?!" I'm asking you to do a little research for your event. Specifically, research that involves successful modeling of events. Research regarding hookers?

Below is an excellent question to the "An important lesson learned from Queen" post.

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hi

wouldn't 1000 pages of info, (besides giving the very interested person much info) offer 1000 ways to generate leads and sell tickets -- targeting niches, keywords etc

your comments would be appreciated

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Thanks for the question!

Here's some quick context on yesterday's email. In short, I recommend an event web site not be more than 15 total public pages, with few exceptions. In the email, I pointed out an event that had over 1,000 pages indexed in Google.

My answer to the question above ...

Queen?!?! Like the band Queen? Yup! Like the band Queen. Here goes!

On Sunday, the film Bohemian Rhapsody won 4 Academy Awards. The movie regales the adventures of the British band Queen as see through the eyes of Freddie Mercury.

Let me ask you a quick question, "have you ever purchased a ticket to your own event?" You might think this a preposterous question. How could this possibly be that important? Because you'd be amazed at how something as simple as selling a ticket could get royally messed up.

In 2011, a client was selling air show tickets at a local grocery store. My focus at the time was on online ticket sales. Honestly, there a very few reasons not to sell a ticket online for your event. But that's what the client decided, and it's their event. For whatever reason, curiosity got the better of me. The web site which I maintained for the client clearly stated that you could buy online or at the local grocer. So, while going to pick up a few groceries, I decided to try a ticket to the event.

Date: 2/24/2019

Right now, our local area is under a severe wind watch for the next 12+ hours. The forecast is calling for wind gusts up to 75 Mph / 120 Kph. Forecasters are predicting widespread power outages and property damage due to high winds. If you listen to the local media, there is plenty of discussion about being prepared. "Are you ready when the power goes out?"

The same cautionary approach above needs to be applied to any event. "Are you ready for when things don't go as expected?" It could be anything. Hopefully, it never happens. But if something bad happens, are you prepared?

Years ago, a not for profit organizer was forced to sell their event because they couldn't pay their debts.

Years ago, I found myself in a heated argument with an event client. The discussion ensued after I asked this question, "would you rather get the attention of 1 million people or 20,000 in the local area?" The client adamantly argued for 1 million people, "we want everybody to know about this event in the local area!" How dare I suggest anything different! My position was to focus on 20,000 people.

Which would you choose 1 million or 20,000 people?

One of the first places I start with any client is a customer marketing assessment. This proprietary assessment is a deep dive into several important marketing and financial data points.

Assessments involve straightforward questions that make most event organizers blush. Why? Because most event organizers cannot answer basic questions about their own event. Questions like, "approximately how many tickets did you sell last year?" Their response, "we're not really sure."

Or, "What was your most effective advertisement?" Then, several different answers are given. In some cases, event organizers don't even know where to find their own information. That's not good!

One of the most common questions I receive is, "Eugene, do you have any suggestion on when to start selling tickets to my event?"

My answer is directly out of the "The Top 10 Event Marketing Mistakes ... and How To Avoid Them!" Report. If you haven't received your copy, please reply to this email with your request. There is a powerful Client ONLY 60-minute video training BONUS at the end of the report. If you skip all the good stuff and go directly to the video, it's still well worth your time!

Here's an all-too-common phrase: "We have to get tickets on sale as quickly as possible so that people can buy early!" This "logic" gets applied regularly to event marketing campaigns. There is one major flaw with this thinking: it's completely wrong!