5 Tips to Make Sure Your Event is Sold Out

Making an event successful is a challenging task. There are so many events taking place every month in major cities. People have plenty of choices and hence, decide carefully which one is worth their money. If you work as an event manager, you have to handle various responsibilities, but the most important of them all is to ensure that tickets are sold out before the special night.

In order to boost seat reservation rates, you should start your marketing activities a couple of months before the date of the event. Use all the marketing mediums your budget permits and make sure your promotional message is good enough to encourage people to spend their hard-earned money on seat booking. You have to give them a reason to be present at your event.

For example, if you are organizing a fashion show, a common question that a potential visitor may ask is “there are other fashion shows taking place in the city, what’s so special about yours?”

Hence, your marketing message should be like this “Come and celebrate the latest fashion with us. Top 25 designers of Paris are showing their collections and the showstopper is a Hollywood celebrity who was nominated for Oscars this year. Want to know who he/she is? Then book your seats right now!”

If your ticket selling rate is not up to the mark, don’t panic because most of the times, the seat reservation rate increases just 1-2 weeks before the occasion. However, that does not mean you can wait comfortably, do nothing and hope to have a full auditorium. In case, not enough people show interest and the event is just a few days away, here are some of the things you can do last minute to grab target audience’s attention and make the auditorium full with spectators

  • Telemarketing is the key: If you have a list of potential ticket buyers, telemarketing is a good option to sell seats faster. Start calling people interested in your event and try to convince them. As telephone allows one-on-one interaction, you may be able to convince people faster

  • Launch a video: You may have an event promotion video on the website, but how about uploading it on YouTube? By uploading the clips of previous years’ events and giving a teaser of what to expect this year, you can generate enough interest among the national and international audience within a very short span of time. Make sure there is a link of the website in the video so that people can visit your website and book seats using their credit cards

  • Ask people to refer: You can send emails to the last year’s visitors and ask them to come this year as well. Mention in the mail that if they refer the event to their friends and they reserve seats, you will offer them a certain amount of money or certain level of discount on the tickets they buy. For example, spread the word, “for every booking, you get 10% discount on the tickets you buy.”

  • Use social media: You should use the reach of Facebook and Twitter to inform people about your event. However, instead of boring posts like “our event is only 2 days away” you can post/tweet something interesting like “Want to know the ways to make your start up company successful? Book your seats today for Annual Business Seminar Asia Pacific.” It sounds far more convincing and since you are giving people a reason to visit the event, they won’t mind to spend a few dollars.

  • Update your website: You can change the website header and post an image with a catchy sentence about the event. Web users notice the header portion of a website as soon as they land and by highlighting the upcoming event on the header, you can increase the conversion rate really fast.

Apply the aforementioned suggestions and you will certainly see improvements in last minute ticket sales. People are always interested about the latest things happening in their city. All you need to do is make your voice heard and give them a good reason to attend your event.

AUTHOR/BIO:- Monik Makadiya is a technology enthusiast and loves to write about online event management. He works with iVvy, iVvy event management program provides easy functionality for sending bulk event invitations to your contact database. You can find him on Twitter at @painstakingMM.

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