If you're going to "do it," do it for real
If you're selling your event tickets online or off, maybe a combination of both, I recommend the following. Run a live test of a ticket purchase.
It's simply not enough to run a "test" transaction or in a "test" environment. And ideally, you want to run multiple tests.
It's fascinating to me that with thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars in ticket sales on the line, event organizers don't want to run a simple $20 USD "live" ticket transaction.
I hear things like, "oh, I don't want to ding my credit card twenty bucks." Even worse, is when ticketing companies refuse to run live tests. It's enough to leave one fit to be tied.
Just today, there were two critical issues identified before a client's major ticket launch. The problems in question never showed up during multiple test transactions.
Fortunately, the issues were identified early enough to make the needed corrections. Had the problems not been identified during testing, a two-year data set would have been ruined.
If you're going to sell tickets to your event, make sure you test the entire process from start to finish. I cannot recall a single client project where a significant problem wasn't identified during live ticket testing.
Test to ensure your success!
Here are some additional resources regarding selling event tickets online:
- Leveraging Huge Ticket Discounts to Drive Advance Tickets Sales
- How to Sell Even More Tickets to Your Event
- Event Promotion: The Psychology of Ticket Prices
- Event Marketing: Multiple Ways to Engage Your List
- Constantly Go Back to Your Ticketing Well
- Event Marketing Idea: Blocking Your Tickets
- Smart Advance Ticket Strategies
- Why Buy Tickets For Your Own Event?