Below, we offer a complete checklist to help you plan and execute a memorable and successful event. 

Pre-Planning: 4-6 Months Before the Event 

Before diving into the details, it’s crucial to have a clear understanding of your event’s purpose and objectives. Ask yourself what you aim to achieve with this event. Are you raising funds for a cause, celebrating a milestone, or launching a product? Consider who the right people are to help achieve those goals – think: partners, vendors, sponsors, staff, volunteers, etc. Having the right people in place and clearly defining your objectives sets the tone for the rest of the planning and process. 

In this stage, be sure to: 

• Identify goals and objectives
• Identify key audience 
• Pick a date
• Pick a venue
• Outline a budget and set KPIs
• Put together a planning committee
• Develop a timeline
• Create branding for the event 
• Determine pricing strategy
• Determine a marketing strategy, including social media, email, web and any print or broadcast advertising
• Identify and reach out to potential partners or sponsors
• Begin negotiations with entertainment or speakers
• Select a registration software or ticketing system 
• Announce event and registration dates to audiences 

Get the Ball Rolling: 3-4 Months Before the Event

At this point, the event date is set and you should be rolling full steam ahead with planning. It’s important to secure partnerships, such as sponsors and collaborators, early on. These relationships will help amplify your event promotions as you build interest and anticipation for your event. Consider hosting early bird sales to lock in audiences that are already engaged with you. These folks can also help spread the word about your event. 

In this stage, you’ll need to: 

• Develop workflow for planning committee
• Balance the budget with potential spending and expected revenue earned from sponsorships and ticket sales
• Secure early sponsorships and funding to cover early event costs
• Create an event website and open registration
• Execute marketing and promotions strategies 
• Finalize agreements and pay deposits for venue, vendors and entertainers
• Launch early-bird registration 
• Boost marketing efforts
• Monitor sales and determine if any other special sales or promotions are needed 

Ramp up Sales and Promotions: 1-2 Months Before the Event

It’s time to spread the news far and wide about your event. Finalize and use event details, such as partnerships or novel experiences, to pique interest and build interest in your event. Tease your audiences with news about what they can expect and encourage those who have already committed to refer others to your event. 

During this phase, it’s important to:

• Lock-in sponsorships, partnerships, entertainment 
• Develop run-of-show to share with planning committee, event partners, vendors, entertainment, etc
• Update event website with more finalized details (speaker/entertainment/partner info)
• Incorporate all finalized details into event promotions to pique more interest and sales 
• Organize marketing campaign around sponsors, entertainment, speakers, etc
• End early bird sales and activate general ticket sales
• Meet with all sponsors, partners, vendors and entertainment to lay out plans and expectations for the day of the event
• Encourage referrals to boost registration 
• Finalize any design or printing projects for day-of event (programs, posters, etc)
• Develop contingency plans in case of weather, vendor or other planning issues
• Send out event reminders to contact lists and other audiences

Tie Up Loose Ends: 1-3 Weeks Before the Event

The last month leading up to your event is your chance to make sure all of your ducks are in a row. Start thinking about what your event will look like from start to finish, run it by all who are involved and ensure you have all the people and mechanisms in place to execute it successfully. Additionally, if your ticket sales have become stagnant and you’re worried about attendance, it may be time to consider last-minute sales or promotions. 

During this time period, complete the following: 

• Review and edit run-of-show
• Regroup with event committee
• Recruit and prep any event volunteers or staff
• Check in with all vendors and review day-of plans (catering #s, tech needs, seating arrangement, etc)
• Review all technology or presentation needs and materials, print copies and save on multiple devices 
• Send event reminders to all confirmed ticket holders with any pertinent information within a week of the event 
• Identify any photo-ops 
• Organize any day-of or post-event marketing strategies 
• Prepare for check-in and on-site registration (name badges, ticket readers, etc)
• Invite media – issue media release 
• Close sales or run last minute promotions if needed

The Calm Before the Storm: 1 Day Before the Event

Today is the culmination of all of your preparation, when all the pieces come together to show the exact potential of the event you’ve been planning. During set-up, work closely with your event stylists to create a cohesive and visually appealing atmosphere that matches the theme and purpose of your event. Pay attention to details like table settings, lighting, signage, and seating arrangements to enhance the overall experience.

To prepare:

• Communicate last-minute needs and expectations with planning committee, volunteers and staff 
• Set-up physical space 
• Hang/display signage 
• Ensure you have copies of important materials 
• Test technology and ensure you have a back-up plans in place in case of loss of power, internet,etc

It’s Showtime: the Day of the Event

Take a deep breath. The day you’ve been preparing for is finally here. And because of your careful planning, you’re ready for it. On the day of the event, coordinate with your team and vendors to ensure everything runs smoothly. Assign someone to manage logistics, oversee the schedule, and handle any unexpected issues that may arise. Be prepared to adapt and make quick decisions as needed.

• Arrive early (ask partners, volunteers, committee members to do the same) 
• Greet all partners, sponsors, vendors, volunteers
• Distribute copies of run-of-show to volunteers, vendors, speakers, etc
• Keep calm 

Follow-Up: 1 Week After the Event

After the event, be sure to show gratitude to all of your attendees, partners and vendors while the experience is still fresh in their minds. This is important to preserve trusting, working relationships. Use your follow-up as an opportunity to gather feedback from everyone involved. This information will help you evaluate the success of your event, identify areas for improvement, and allow you to make informed decisions for future events.

Within the a week of your event, consider the following:

• Send thank you email to all attendees, along with a short survey about the event
• Send thank you to venue/vendors/entertainers and request any feedback about the partnership or the event itself
• Send personal handwritten thank you cards to sponsors, entertainers or major partners
• Post any highlights from event to website and social media – consider sharing these moments in your thank you letters and emails as well
• Review spending and revenue

Post-Event Analysis: 1 Month After the Event

After you’ve had some time to decompress, take time to look back on the experience, measure your success and identify any lessons learned. What you determine in this phase will go towards improving events for years to come. 

During your post-event analysis, be sure to: 

• Send survey reminders and review responses from those who attended your event
• Meet with planning committee to debrief and discuss successes and failures
• Evaluate event’s success (financial, attendance, experience), measured against KPIs set in the initial budget 

Planning a successful event requires careful preparation, attention to detail, and effective teamwork. By following this comprehensive guide, you can create an event that not only meets its objectives but leaves a lasting impression on your attendees. 

Remember that flexibility and adaptability are key, as unexpected challenges are a part of event planning. But through dedication, trusting partnerships and the right planning strategies, you can host a memorable and successful event.

The post A Complete Event Planning Checklist appeared first on Ticketbud.

Enter timed-access ticketing, a feature on Ticketbud that enables event organizers to allow entry to a specific number of ticket holders during allocated time slots. This prevents everyone from showing up at once, which can cause issues with capacity restrictions, create long delays and lead to having to ask attendees to come back at another time. It also ensures the entire event runs more smoothly, creating a safe and enjoyable experience for all.

Benefits of timed access for attendees:

• Convenience. Attendees get to choose a time and day that works for them. 
• Peace of mind. Knowing their time is secured allows attendees to calmly arrive for their booking at the designated time. 
• Easy entry. Attendees don’t have to waste time lining up early.
• Enhanced experience. Because there are limits on bookings per time slot, attendees get to have a better event experience without the overcrowding that can happen at popular times.

Benefits of timed access for event organizers:

• Sell more tickets early. Attendees will buy sooner to ensure they secure their desired time/day. Capacity constraints at different entry times triggers a scarcity motive, which may influence people to buy in fear that space is running out. 
• Maximize sales. As spots sell out, bookings will spill over to available times. This is much less likely to happen at events without timed access because people can’t see that limits have been reached until it’s too late.  
• No overcrowding. Timed access helps organize the flow of people, particularly at larger events and festivals that have multiple attractions, reducing congestion, wait times, and potential risks.
• Predictable staffing. You don’t have to worry about understaffing and overwhelming staff when you know exactly the number of people to plan for.
• Guarantee a positive experience. The success of an event can impact an organization’s reputation. Overcrowding or long wait times can lead to chaos, accidents, or negative incidents that may harm an event’s image, result in legal liability, or deter future attendees. Timed-access ticketing limits these risks and ensures a smoother customer experience.
• Customize communication. This is useful if you have to close the event for a period of time for an unexpected reason, or need to share alternative access or preparation information. This also gives organizers a mechanism for tracing exactly who was at their event and when in case organizers needed to contact attendees that attended during a certain time period.

“The Ticketbud team was a great support helping us create timed access ticket programming with scheduled drive-thru times. By limiting the number of vehicles able to enter each hour, attendees could secure their time and plan their evening without everyone turning up at once. This new programming helps us distribute and maximize tickets over our five-week event.”  

Teri Smart, VP of Marketing at Forefront Networks, which produces the Austin Trail of Lights.

Below you can see an example event pages offering multiple time slots for events. Check out this video for a more detailed view on how organizers can set up their profiles and events with timed-access ticketing.

Ticketbud’s event page calendar makes multi-day timed-entry ticketing much easier for ticket buyers to navigate to find the convenient date and time they need.

To learn more about working with Ticketbud visit the How It Works page.

The post Minimize Lines and Maximize Ticket Sales with Timed-Access Event Ticketing appeared first on Ticketbud.

Below, we showcase five examples of epic event failures and lessons learned, from serving fast food at a national championship dinner to leaving high-paying festival attendees stranded on a remote beach. Though these mistakes may seem obvious, they happen when proper planning and risk assessments are not at the forefront of the event organizing process. 

Better to learn from the mistakes of others, than make them ourselves. Read more below about how to prepare for and avoid common event failures, including how Ticketbud can assist in your event success.

FAIL 1 – Not Living Up to the Brand 

In January 2019, the Clemson University football team was scheduled to be honored with dinner at the White House after their National Championship win against The University of Alabama. But instead of a 5-star, multi-course meal plated and served, the champs were met with a buffet of “everyone’s favorite fast foods.” 

The assumption was presumably that college-aged men would like popular fast foods, or more likely there was a catering fail that led to a last-minute fix. Regardless, the honorary meal was subject to criticism from a national audience, many of whom believed the winners deserved better. What was delivered did not meet the expectations for what the White House brand represents, and the brand took a PR hit because of this. 

How to avoid this epic fail:

When planning your event, it’s important to be clear about your brand positioning, who you’re planning the event for and why. Whether you promote yourself as a luxury brand or a family-friendly brand, your event needs to reflect that. Revisit these ideas throughout your planning process to ensure each decision aligns with your brand, event goals and audience. 

Ask yourself: What is the purpose of the event? What are we hoping to achieve? How does our brand align with that? 

If you choose to use Ticketbud as your ticketing or registration provider, you can create a custom webpage from an easy to use template. Add all your event details, graphics (artwork, photos, videos and maps), ticketing information and clear terms and conditions to ensure attendees get a clear picture of the event experience.

FAIL 2 – Busting the Budget

Financial shortfalls are sure to cause event failures, which is why defining a clear budget should be one of the first steps in your event planning process. Not every event needs to offer a swanky, over-the-top experience. But if you promote a premium experience, you need to build a budget for it with a firm understanding on how expenses and revenue streams (vendors, tickets and sponsorships) might make or break your bottom line.

Take it from the organizers of DashCon, a convention hosted for Tumblr fans in 2014. Marketing for the event touted celebrity guests, top-level speakers and a highly anticipated ball pit. When the reality of the costs to achieve what was promoted was realized, the organizers did not have the funds to cover what was promised. 

The only way organizers avoided canceling the highly-anticipated event was by asking attendees to fork up $17,000 to the hotel venue – by midnight! Somehow, they were able to crowdfund the debt; but then, speakers who were left unpaid began to drop from the conference. Those who stayed and assisted with the unexpected payments were rewarded with raffle tickets for extra time in the ballpit, which turned out to be a half-deflated kiddy pool (and the butt of the biggest meme of the year).

While some found humor in the crisis, most participants got angry. Organizers were forced to refund registrants who paid through PayPal, but those who paid cash were out of luck.

How to avoid this epic fail:

To avoid repeating a massive financial mistake like this, you need to create a comprehensive budget and balance sheet. Know your upfront costs, from the venue to construction, lighting, sound, security and catering, as well as speakers and entertainment. Take into account hidden costs like permits, production costs, extra security and safety requirements.

Review and understand your budget and costs from the beginning, so you are clear about how you will cover expenses  and make a profit.

It’s ok to expect to cover some upfront costs with ticket revenue. If you need that early cash flow from ticket sales, you will want a ticketing provider that ensures early payouts, so you’re not scrambling close to billing deadlines. 

Ticketbud offers daily, weekly and monthly payouts, so you can access those funds before your event.

FAIL 3 – Overpromising and Under Delivering 

We couldn’t talk about the ultimate event failures without mentioning the infamous Fyre Festival, an overhyped, luxury music festival set to take place in the Bahamas in May 2017. With endorsements from the likes of Kylie Jenner and Ja Rule, the festival promised beachfront parties, gourmet food, private jets, and performances from Migas and Blink 182. 

This was a classic case of big dreams and no follow through. The organizers were inexperienced with grand ideas but no practical execution plans. Attendees paid between $500 and $1,500 for day tickets, with VIP packages that included flights and accommodation costing around $12k for the once-in-a-lifetime event. In the end, the high price tag got them stranded on an island, fed FEMA sandwiches, and set up in shabby tents. The event was a failure of epic proportions and organizers faced jail time for fraud and $26 million in fines.

Similarly, organizers of the New York City Pizza Festival, also held in 2017, created a recipe for hanger with its promise of “a day-long celebration for the dough, cheese, tasty sauces and delicious toppings.” The event was dubbed the “Fyre Festival of NYC Food Events,” when attendees showed up to a parking lot with mostly empty booths with small samples of cold pizza. This was nowhere near the expected value of the $75 ticket price.  

In both cases, trust was shattered between the organizers and their audience, as well as everyone witnessing this unfold in the media. The lawsuits and documentaries that followed not only damaged the reputations of those involved, it also made the general public extra cautious about events that could be a scam.  

How to avoid this epic fail:

If you promise something, know exactly how you are going to deliver on that promise. Know how it will be funded and executed. It’s ok to be vague on some elements of your event until you have fine tuned the details, but don’t make promises you can’t keep. 

Also, don’t scam people, it’s not nice! 

FAIL 4 – Being Reactive Instead of Proactive

No matter how much time and effort you put into planning your event, something is bound to go off-course. However, failing to have any backup plans in place, especially for common issues such as weather, is just setting yourself up for unnecessary stress.  

Need convincing? Take TomorrowWorld 2015 for example. It was meant to be the perfect event: a weekend of music set on 8,000-acres of Georgia farmland. But what the organizers didn’t account for was rain, and lots of it. 

The rural resort quickly transformed into a vast mud pit. And because organizers closed off transportation access to the festival grounds, attendees were trapped and “left to rot like the walking dead,” as one festival goer put it. Many who set off to find rides outside of the festival grounds were forced to pay high-surging rates for rideshares, while others spent the night on the side of the road.

How to avoid this epic fail:

While being adaptable to the unexpected is a useful skill of event organizers, an even better skill is being able to put contingency plans in place. Avoiding another TomorrowWorld is reason enough for you to complete risk assessments on all aspects of your event beforehand. 

When things get out of hand and there is no back-up plan for your back–up plan, you may have to cancel or close your event. If mother nature or something outside your control takes place, it helps if your contingency planning includes coverage for your ticket revenue. Ticketbud has integrated event cancellation protection through Event Protect. So in the instance of a qualifying event cancellation, the organizer can claim ticket revenue back through the coverage, saving funds to help cover sunk expenses. 

FAIL 5 – Mispricing Tickets or Registration 

In 2009, two young blokes in Australia were sick of high-priced tickets and drinks at events and decided to take matters into their own hands by creating their own music festival. Thus, Blueprint Festival was born, promising the best three days and nights you could get in Victoria without breaking the bank. 

Marketing was a huge success, attracting 5,000 attendees looking for fun on a budget. But the 23- and 20-year-old organizers with no event experience ran out of money before paying the performers, vendors and the venue. They claimed they expected to make more money from food and drink sales than they did. But perhaps setting a higher ticket price could have also helped. In the end, the organizers faced bankruptcy and even death threats. And their performers, vendors and venue were left thousands of dollars out of pocket . 

How to avoid this epic fail:

We are back to proper budgeting. While it might seem that a low- or no-cost ticket would be popular with attendees and make your event a sell out, it cannot be at the expense of your event partners. Determining the right pricing strategy is critical to an event’s success. 

If you have a diverse audience, and want to limit barriers to entry, consider offering multiple ticket options or tiered pricing for your event (think: General Admission, Gold and VIP). Ticketbud makes it easy to create multiple ticket types for your event, or create ticket packages that include drinks, catering and other experiences. 

This allows you to offer different pricing levels and experiences to your various audiences. It also gives you opportunities to work with sponsors or partners to design branded, exclusive experiences that can bring in extra cash flow if people are willing to pay.

Additionally, Ticketbud helps you host and schedule ticket promotions or sales, further limiting barriers to entry for those within your customer base that are more price sensitive. The further out from your event you can see revenue the better. Consider hosting an early–bird special with lower ticket prices to get people excited and engaged early-on in your event planning, or schedule a limited-time sale with a holiday to boost interest and sales.

The post Fighting Fyre: Epic Event Fails and How to Avoid Them appeared first on Ticketbud.

To get started, sign-up for Canva, a free online design tool. All you need is an email and a password to start creating on the site. 

Once registered, use Ticketbud’s banner template to begin designing your event banner within the proper size specifications (1024 x 512 pixels). The design toolbar, to the left of your template, hosts a range of options to add images, graphics and text to your design. 

Need inspiration? Keep scrolling through Ticketbud’s design starter kit for eye-catching templates. Or, check out explore Canva’s templates by searching through the “Design” tab in the top left of the design toolbar. Once selected, elements within template designs can be easily transformed to suit your branding needs.

Upload Your Image

Aligning your event branding across platforms will help build recognition of your event. So, if you already have an image you are using to promote your event, we highly recommend repurposing on your Ticketbud page. 

To add your own image to the banner template, click “Uploads” from the left edge of the screen and select the desired image from your computer files. This will add the image to your “Uploads” collection within the toolbar and make it available to drag and drop on the template. 

Once you add the image to your design, pull on the corners and edges to fit it to scale. Be sure your adjustments don’t harm the integrity of the image by cropping off letters or distorting images.

Adding Text 

Beyond branding, your banner also offers the opportunity to communicate important details about your event, such as registration deadlines or headliner announcements. To add this information, select “Text” from the left-side toolbar, and click “Add a text box.” 

Once inserted, click the text box to edit the copy. And, use the top menu to change the font, color and style.   

Adding Details & Graphics

Under “Elements,” you can search and add specific shapes and images to your design. Options range from simple lines to videos. However, avoid adding any audio or video elements to your banner design as the space only supports image files for now. 

The post Create Custom Event Page Banners appeared first on Ticketbud.

Getting people to attend an event requires eye-catching, multi-channel marketing, but not all event planners have the time or resources to produce attractive promotional materials across their platforms. 

Enter Canva, a free and widely used online graphic design service that provides users with a suite of tools to design engaging graphics and video for social media, email, posters, and more. Trusted by many, the online platform generates more than 3,000 designs a minute. And it’s easy to get started. 

Sign up at canva.com

All you need is an email address, or other online account, and a password. 

Once you verify your account through email, every tool and resource for both individuals and teams is easily accessible through the homepage, including design templates, educational resources, as well as your soon-to-be saved projects. 

Once logged in, use Canva to create a banner for your Ticketbud event page that sets the tone for your entire event marketing strategy. 

Click “Custom size” in the top right corner of the page below the “Create a design” button, and input the dimensions for the banner (1024 width x 512 px height). 

Select “Create new design.”

Once in your design, you can use the design dashboard to search thousands of free and customizable templates, source free-use graphics and media, upload photos, and add text. When placed in the design, each element can be easily transformed and edited to reflect your event and brand. 

Once finished, share or download your design by clicking “Share” in the top right corner of your screen. You can generate a share link for your team to access and edit, or download the file and upload your design as a photo onto your Ticketbud event page. 

As you work, Canva automatically saves your progress. You can access previous and in-progress projects anytime through the “Projects” tab on your Canva homepage. 

Modify your banner design to promote your event consistently across your channels. 

On average, your audience will need to receive your message 5-7 times before making their purchase decision, so publishing graphics with a similar look and feel across email, social media, and other platforms will help build interest and recognition of your event.

Upgrading to Canva Pro, Teams, Education and Non-profit plans enables you to easily “copy & resize” designs. But with Canva’s free account, you can create new sizes for your design by simply starting a new design project from your homescreen..

Canva has thousands of pre-formatted designs for Facebook posts and covers; Instagram posts, stories and reels; printed invitations and posters; and more. Simply select your desired template from its menu of options to begin creating your next piece of content.  

Once in your design, you can easily transfer all of the elements from your banner design to the new layout by selecting the design from your “Projects” folder in the design dashboard, then modifying to fit. Or, you can utilize the design tools to create a new design, borrowing similar fronts, colors and elements from the banner design to create a consistent look.

With Canva, you can directly post your designs to social media and messaging apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and more. 

By upgrading to a premium plan, event organizers can streamline their workflow by scheduling and auto-posting to social media with Canva’s Content Planner. 

For more on how to use Canva to promote your event, check out Canva’s 20 tips on spreading the word on social media. 

Canva is always free for every individual and team. 
To unlock premium features, individuals can upgrade to Canva Pro to easily create professional designs and content for free for 30 days. More info here.

The post Create Eye-Catching Event Marketing with Free Design Help from Canva appeared first on Ticketbud.

To get started, check out this 6-minute video, which walks you through how to sign-up for Ticketbud and create your first event.

Already a fan? Keep scrolling for five tips on how to utilize Ticketbud’s event tools to promote and manage your event: 

STEP 1 – Create your event page with Ticketbud’s easy-to-use template, allowing you to plug in important event details (time, date, location, description), add a custom banner and supporting images to the page. Still ironing out details? No worries – these fields are editable even after your event is live.

STEP 2 – Add ticket types. You’ll need at least one type of ticket (GA) but can create as many ticket types as you’d like for your event. Think tiered pricing based on seating section or VIP, early bird registration, parking passes, etc.

STEP 3 – Connect payment processor. If you’re hosting a paid-ticket event, you will need to configure a payment processor, such as Stripe, PayPal, or WePay, to hold and process the money from your ticket sales. Don’t have an account? Don’t worry, Ticketbud helps you get an account organized.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Once your event is set-up, Ticketbud makes managing and monitoring your event easy with built-in communication and reporting tools, offering unique promotional capabilities to help drive sales and attendance. 

Here are five golden tips to using Ticketbud’s event toolkit to better plan, promote and manage your holiday event: 

Tip 1 – Centralize Your Communication

Invite and communicate directly with attendees through the “Promotion” tab on Ticketbud’s event dashboard. 

Share your event page with potential attendees through personal email invites or upload your entire guest list to spread the news of your event fast. 

Ticketbud’s email tools allow event planners to streamline communication through scheduled reminders and mass email updates sent directly through the platform, with delivery reports included.

You can target communication to specific ticket types if customized messaging is needed. Event organizers can also customize the sender or ‘reply to’ address so responses to Ticketbud-sent emails come directly to your inbox.

Tip 2 – Get to Know Your Attendees

The ticket editor in the event dashboard allows organizers to create custom questions for attendees that may help plan for the upcoming event or for future promotions. Questions can be customized to appear only for specific ticket types or required for all attendees.

Consider utilizing this tool to identify dietary requirements or to collect background information that might be pertinent in shaping the event. The tool could also be used to prompt guests to submit questions in advance or gather information for future marketing efforts, such as asking if they’d like to be added to your organization’s mailing list.

Tip 3 – Customize the Tickets

Once registered, ticket holders will receive tickets via email from Ticketbud. The auto-generated, full-page ticket template contains a QR code for easy check-in along with event time and location details at the top of the page. There is plenty of white space to customize your ticket with additional event information, design, or branding opportunities.

For example, if you’re selling parking passes to your event, you may choose to create a specific layout for your parking ticket that includes a map and parking instructions. You could also choose to include an ad for future events on the current event ticket.

For more info on how to customize your ticket layouts, check out this video tutorial.

Tip 4 – Utilize Holiday Sales and Promotions

Harness the spirit of holiday savings by creating your own ticket discounts with Ticketbud’s promotional tools. Click here to learn how to generate custom promo codes for event discounts or exclusive sales opportunities.

The promotional tools also allow event planners to create special access codes that unlock hidden or VIP tickets so event planners can customize the event features for different audiences. 

Tip 5 – Amplify through Ads on Social Media

If you have an advertising budget, use Ticketbud’s Ad Engine, designed to make highly targeted social advertising easy and intuitive for event organizers. Ticketbud Ad Engine seamlessly integrates social media advertising with Ticketbud events to target the right audience for your event, so you can build ads that drive sales and maximize your ROI. 

What are you waiting for?

Get started and create your first event.
If you need a little more information, get a custom demo walkthrough with a Ticketbud Team member.

The post 5 Golden Tips for Managing Your Holiday Event appeared first on Ticketbud.

A recent survey, commissioned by Wildfire, found that 90% of people are more interested than ever in getting discounts, using coupons and earning rewards when shopping online; and that businesses that offer incentives are more attractive to customers. In fact, the Department of Commerce reported a 1.3% growth in retail sales in October, driven largely by marketing efforts of retailers like Amazon, Target and Khol’s, which rolled out pre-season savings to boost shopper spending ahead of Thanksgiving. 

“Economic pressures are driving the broad adoption of shopping rewards programs, which are ‘crossing the chasm’ from coupon clippers and early adopters to mainstream consumers seeking to cut costs any way they can,” writes Jordan Glazier, CEO of Wildfire, in a recent article published by Entrepreneur. 

Below, learn how you can harness the spirit of holiday savings by creating your own ticket discounts with Ticketbud, and explore resources to develop a marketing campaign for your sale that taps deep into the psyche of buyer behavior.

Easily Create an Event PROMO Code with Ticketbud

According to the Wildfire survey, people also seek ease of use when accessing or redeeming rewards and discounts online. Ticketbud’s promotional tools are designed to help you offer discounts your customers can access without any detours or hurdles. 

After creating an event in Ticketbud, follow these steps to create a unique promo code and discounted link to share with your customers for instant access to exclusive savings. 

Step 1 – Event Dashboard
After creating your event page and setting-up ticket types in the Ticket Editor, you’ll be ready to create your first promotion.
To do so, navigate to the Promotion drop-down menu in your event dashboard, and select “Promotion Codes”

Step 2 – Promotion Codes
Here, you’ll have the option to add a discount code.

Step 3 – New Discount Code

Creating your promo code is simple with this short form.

First, pick a unique code, and remember that it is case-sensitive.

Then, choose if you’d like the savings to be in a percentage or dollar-amount (50% off vs. $50 off), and select the ticket types you’d like to make the promotion available for.

To make your deal even more exclusive and enticing, you may set quantity or time limits.

Step 4 – Promotion Codes
Once you’ve created your discount, it will be listed under Promotion Codes, with information on how many times it’s been used, as well as tools to edit and share.

The share button will generate a link that allows people to access the discount seamlessly, without having to type in the specific code at check-out. Share it on social media, or use it to offer exclusive savings to important stakeholders.

Promote Your Holiday Sale 

Let your savings shine through a thoughtful marketing campaign that gets people excited about scoring discount tickets to your can’t-miss event. 

The fear of missing out, FOMO, can influence people to commit to an event, as well as drive people to act impulsively when faced with a good deal. Shopping incentives trigger a buyer’s sense of scarcity, a fixation on the limit of time or quantity of something. Here’s how emphasizing both in your marketing campaign might help push people to check-out:

• Time: The holiday sale and the event itself are limited by time. Use this to your advantage when planning and creating your content. Schedule announcements for flash sales and deadlines, promote limited-time savings and build anticipation for the event.
• Quantity: Your ticket sales may be limited by the venue capacity or the number of discounts you’re willing to offer. Alert people when tickets are selling fast or running low, or consider limiting quantities to offer exclusive savings to key stakeholders as part of your strategy. 

To spread the news of your sale fast and far, utilize social media and amplify your reach to the right audience with low-cost targeted ads. Ticketbud’s Ad Engine can be a great tool for this.

To build loyalty with current customers or stakeholders, pass along exclusive savings to your channel’s subscribers or mailing lists. Use Ticketbud’s promo code sharing options to create personalized email invitations that link directly to your discounts, or design printed materials with QR codes that link people directly to the savings, using this free online tool. 

Design content across all your marketing channels with help from Canva, a free and easy to use design tool which offers a great range of holiday sale templates for various online and print channels.

Check out their free templates including these Black Friday Sale templates, Christmas Sale Templates and countless other resources for designing any online, video and print materials you might need for your next event:

• Sale templates
• Event templates
• Holiday templates
• New Years templates
• Presidents Day templates 
• Easter templates
• Memorial Day templates
• Fourth of July templates
• Back to school savings
• Labor Day templates
• Halloween templates

The post Tis the Season to Save: Hosting Holiday Sales to Sell More Tickets to Your Events appeared first on Ticketbud.

However, we do like to be helpful, so we have highlighted below some ticket resellers that might be able to help you sell that concert ticket.

Ticket resellers are also helpful for event organizers. It’s inevitable that some ticket buyers won’t be able to attend your events after purchasing a ticket. You determine your own refund policies. In some circumstances you may want to recommend a secure ticket reseller solution for your attendees, as an alternative to refunds. It’s better for your events to be well attended and not have people upset about being stuck with tickets they can’t use.

Here are some ticket resellers to consider:

Ticketswap – Ticket reseller designed as a fair place to buy and sell tickets for concerts, festivals, sports events and more. Ticket markups are capped to a maximum 20% above the original sales price. Based in Amsterdam, Netherlands and founded in 2012. View current Trustpilot rating.

Ticketcity – Ticket reseller that highlights strong customer service and offers a 100% buyer guarantee, with tickets on time or your money back. Based in Austin TX and founded 1990. View current Trustpilot rating.

SeatGeek – Mobile-focused ticket resale platform for live sports, concerts and theater events. Based in New York, NY and founded 2009. View current Trustpilot rating.

Vivid Seats – Independent online ticket exchange and resale company based in Chicago IL and founded in 2001. View current Trustpilot rating.

Stubhub – A market leader in the ticket resale space. Based in San Francisco, CA and founded 2000. View current Trustpilot rating.

Event Organizers: If you are looking for simple solution for registering attendees or selling event tickets, sign up to Ticketbud or learn more here.

The post Ticketbud is not a ticket reseller. We help event organizers with registration and ticket sales appeared first on Ticketbud.

This has without a doubt been one of the most valuable features a ticketing platform could offer this year.  Event Organizers have been dealing with new challenges, adapting events, or creating ticketed events for the first time due to capacity restrictions. Getting a real person on the phone makes all the difference when you need it. 

Ticketbud’s platform flexibility and real human customer support has set us apart this year. 

“We really value the flexibility of being able to work with the Ticketbud team and saying, ‘this is the problem we’re dealing with, and we need a solution for it,’ then they come back and say, ‘Here’s your solution.’ It’s really nice to be able to have that level of support.” 

Amber Gunst, CEO of the Austin Technology Council.

2. Timed Access Ticketing 

As live events return, event organizers are looking for solutions to facilitate social distancing and manage capacities. Timed ticket access allows a specific number of attendees at allocated time slots, preventing overcrowding and maximizing ticket sales safely. Learn more about timed access ticketing.

3. Ticket Revenue and Refund Protections

Now more than ever event organizers and ticket buyers are looking for a little extra reassurance in these unpredictable times. Event Protect coverage is a great optional extra for organizers wanting to protect their event ticket revenue in case of cancelation or adverse conditions. This coverage helps reduce the financial liabilities of event cancellation. 

Refund Protect is the broadest optional refund protection program available to ticket buyers, and now includes Covid-19 coverage. By integrating refund protection, Ticketbud can offer enhanced terms of sale where customers can request a 100% refund should they not be able to attend their event due to unforeseen circumstances.

4. Contactless Ticketing

Digital tickets make it easy to scan without contact or exchanging paper. Getting people to buy tickets online gives you the ability to collect all their details before the event and quickly scan their digital ticket when they arrive to check them in. 

Ticketbud tickets are also integrated with Apple Wallet, making it easier for attendees to store and find their digital event ticket quickly. 

5. Early Payouts

Getting early access to event funds is always something desirable to event organizers, but with tighter event budgets this year it has become a  major priority. Some ticketing companies hold on to your money until after your event, sometimes months after. This just doesn’t work for a lot of event organizers who need early payouts to help fund promotion, pay vendors and cover other upfront event costs. 

Ticketbud offers flexible payout options (daily, weekly, monthly).

6. Online Ticketing for Virtual Events 

Virtual events hit an all time high this year with many organizers having to figure out the logistics of an entirely online event for the first time. Ticketbud made it easy for organizers to quickly set up an event page and start selling tickets right away. Then using our inbuilt communication tools and your chosen video platform (such as Zoom), an event access link can be sent to attendees after they have purchased a ticket.  Learn more about  virtual events. 

7. Inbuilt Promotion and Communication tools 

Tools that make it easy to promote, manage, communicate and track are important to save valuable time. Custom link tracking, referral and promotional codes (including discount and access codes) are very useful, as is the ability to send email invitations. Communication tools that allow for individual or group communication,  including the ability to target those holding specific ticket types.  Event organizers want to keep in touch with attendees leading up to and after the event, particularly important if any contact tracing is required after an event. 

Ticketbud Ad Engine is an optional advertising extra. Access powerful social advertising with advanced targeting features, made easy for events. Optimizing Facebook and Instagram ads based on your ticket sales data, automatically focusing ad budget on ads that sell more tickets.

8. Simple Custom Event Pages 

Event organizers generally need to create an event web page, unless they have an existing  website and are just looking to sell tickets from it. Ticketbud has a simple ticket widget that allows you to sell the tickets right from your own website. However many event organizers are looking to create a custom event landing page where they can sell tickets. Organizers want something that is quick and easy to set up, with no technical skills required. 

Ticketbud provides organizers with a simple template for creating a custom branded event web page that is search engine and mobile optimized.

9. Unlimited Ticketing Types 

Event organizers want the freedom and flexibility to create effective ticket programming with multiple ticket types to help maximize sales. 

With unlimited ticket types you can create early bird sales, exclusive VIP experiences, group packages, tiered pricing, family passes, food and beverage packages, event merchandise, donations, complementary and sponsor tickets, and more.

Even Organizers want to be able to create multiple ticket types without paying more for it. Many have been caught out in the past with ticketing companies that limit the number of ticket types you can have before they charge more. Ticketbud allows organizers to create unlimited ticket types at no additional cost.

Get started creating an event or request a demo. 

Learn more about ticketing with Ticketbud or check out our FAQ page. 

The post The 9 Most Popular Ticketing Features and Tools for Event Organizers: appeared first on Ticketbud.

“Access to a reliable system for managing event capacities has become a big priority for organizers. Ticketbud has been partnering with events across the US to provide these solutions, with great results. Many events are selling out, people want to attend events if they’re managed safely”.

Kayhan Ahmadi, Ticketbud CEO.

Attendee tracing and communication made easy

Scheduled access also gives organizers a mechanism for tracing exactly who was at their event and when. If organizers needed to contact attendees that attended during a certain time period, this is made easy with timed tickets  and Ticketbud’s inbuilt communication system.  

Community events partnering with Ticketbud 

Ticketbud has been working with local event organizers adapting their offerings to the new climate. Big holiday festival partners such as Austin’s Trail of Lights pivoted to a drive through event in 2020. While smaller community events and attractions have found working with a supportive ticketing partner, makes a huge difference right now.

Event organizers started making the switch to timed access in Fall. This included pumpkin patch visits, as well as haunted farms and Halloween drive through events. Ticketbud is excited to help event organizers get back on their feet by making the return to live events easier to manage. Right now it’s vital for people to have a system for managing capacities.

A safe return to family events

In New Jersey, state guidelines required family run Abam’s Farm Barnyard Petting Zoo to limit their barnyard capacity.

“The Ticketbud team have been nothing short of amazing in helping create and facilitate online ticket sales for our Barnyard Petting Zoo during the pandemic. The restrictions and guidelines given in the State of NJ forced us to limit the capacity of people in our Barnyard at one time, so we had to rethink how we could keep our barnyard open, while ensuring our patrons and employees safety. 

Our partnership with Ticketbud provided us with a ticketing system that allows customers to purchase online tickets that go on sale each morning, for same day purchase at a specific time slot. This allowed for less contact, no lines or groups of people waiting and a controlled environment that complied with restrictions.

I can’t say enough good things about the Ticketbud team with their superior customer service and efficiency. It’s been a pleasure to work with them and would highly recommend Ticketbud to anyone looking for ticketing solutions.”

Cailin Ptasznik, Abma’s Farm

Tickets for entry into Abma’s Barnyard Petting Zoo come on sale on the morning of the activity. They manage this with the Sales Schedule in Ticket Settings.

Below you can see an example event page for Abma’s Farm Hayride experiences.

Maximizing ticket sales for show house capacities

Home shows have been another popular user of the timed access option. The Junior League of Detroit Designers Show House have made great use of Ticketbud’s calendar feature and timed sessions throughout the day.  

“Selling timed entry with a limited quantity is an efficient way to manage social distancing at an event. Typically we would have crowds in the  mornings and then a big lull in the afternoon. Now we find that we have an even distribution of patrons all day. 

We can also add extra tickets for time periods that sell out quickly, search for lost tickets, access email addresses of ticket buyers, and send promo codes as perks to sponsors. We were pushed to use this platform because of the pandemic, but I cannot imagine going back to our old way of selling tickets next year”. 

Liana Dabir, Junior League of Detroit 2020 Designers Show House

To learn more about what you get with Ticketbud visit our How It Works page.

The post As Live Events Return, Event Organizers Embrace Timed Access Event Ticketing appeared first on Ticketbud.

Ticketbud is excited to introduce our powerful new advertising feature, designed to make highly targeted social advertising easy and intuitive for event organizers. Ticketbud Ad Engine seamlessly integrates social media advertising with Ticketbud events. 

While the audience targeting capabilities of social advertising is powerful for reaching specific audiences, they are rarely easy to navigate. Busy event organizers who have a long list of elements to coordinate, often miss valuable advertising opportunities and don’t get optimal return on investment. 

“Knowing the power of social advertising for events, we wanted to offer the best resources to help event organizers sell more tickets. The Ticketbud Ad Engine powered by ToneDen gives event organizers access to one of the most powerful ad tech networks, in a simple and intuitive way.”

Ticketbud CEO Kayhan Ahmadi.

Access advanced social advertising tools for events

Everything you need to run successful ad campaigns that sell more tickets. Use sophisticated tools to easily identify and target the right audience, with the optimal ad content to drive sales.  

What you get with Ticketbud Ad Engine:

Powerful Audience Targeting and Retargeting – easily set up and test multiple audiences to identify those that lead to more sales. Ad Engine curates the best tools to target the right audience for your event. 

• Audience targeting by demographic and behavioral information, including Spotify listening preferences.
• Create lookalike audiences from previous attendee and email lists. This targets your ads toward similar audiences.
• Retarget customers that viewed your event but didn’t purchase tickets. Your ad will follow them as a reminder to buy a ticket.

Build Ads that Drive Sales – automatically test various ad content combinations to find the perfect ads that sell more tickets.

Stronger Call to Action buttons – drive action on ads encouraging people to “Buy Tickets”.

Automatic Budget Optimization – smart budgeting ensures advertising spend is shifted toward ads that sell more tickets, maximizing return on investment.

Conversion Tracking with clear ROI – know exactly how much in ticket sales your ads generate. No more advertising in the dark.

Ticketbud customers see amazing results with Ad Engine

Ticketbud event organizers love what they can do with Ticketbud Ad Engine and have been blown away by the results. From the simplified set-up, to great functionality and trackable return on investment, customers are thrilled to have an easy solution to their event marketing challenges.

“The new Ticketbud Ad Engine was piloted with large and small events and delivered impressive results for both. Across the board, customers were able to increase ticket sales, and create over 10x ROI from ad spend to ticket revenue.” Ticketbud CEO, Kayhan Ahmadi.

Now available for all Ticketbud customers 

Create the most effective event advertising on Facebook and Instagram and sell more tickets. Ask us about Ticketbud Ad Engine, or get started today.

Ticketbud Ad Engine Powered By ToneDen

The post Get the cheat code to one of the most powerful social advertising networks – with Ticketbud Ad Engine appeared first on Ticketbud.

People by nature are programmed to enjoy games, usually because they’re fun, social, competitive or challenging. We associate games with childhood, play and entertainment. Various businesses, educators, marketers and event organizers have taken this concept of game play and integrated it into other activities, to encourage interaction with content or an experience. This method is valuable because it creates a more immersive experience rather than a passive one.

In order for event attendees to have a positive and memorable experience you need them to have an engaging experience. This is where gamification comes into play.  

What is Gamification?

Gamification simply integrates the familiar elements of game play, such as competition, point scoring and rules of play, into other areas of activity. This can be used as part of a marketing strategy, in learning environments, or at events to increase engagement with a product, service or brand. The goal of gamification is to get people involved and engaged in an experience. Including familiar game elements makes it fun and easier to elicit participation.

Examples of gamification elements:

• Clear rules of play
• Reward structure – Incentives/awards/badges
• Competition
• Point scoring
• Leaderboards
• Challenges / levels
• Virtual currency
• Avatars

Why is Gamification Valuable?

People who have a higher level of engagement with an experience are more likely to:

1. Remember it.
2. Have a positive association attached to it (and the brand/product/service).
3. Talk about and share that experience with others.

When implemented correctly gamification has the power to:

• Change behavior by engaging an audience around an identified set of behaviors.
• Enhance learning and skills development through a more interactive and immersive learning experience.
• Encourage innovation by creating an environment where participants can collaborate, experiment and problem solve.

Before Getting Started

It’s important to consider your goal/objectives and your audience before attempting to incorporate gamification into your event strategy. It’s easy to go down a rabbit hole and lose sight of what you’re trying to achieve. Ask yourself:

1. What is the goal? What are you hoping to achieve through the engagement? What are the key outcomes that would enable you to measure the success of this goal?
2. Who is your audience? Be clear about who your audience is. Understand the people you are trying to engage. What technologies are they familiar with? What types of activities do they enjoy participating in.  
3. What is most likely to appeal to and engage your audience? Different audiences will be engaged by different tools and methods. It isn’t a one size fits all approach and it’s not about what interests you. There are various ways of incorporating gamification into your event. Carefully consider what your target audience is likely to be most responsive to.

Build Your Experience

Once you’re clear about the steps above, next you can build an experience that will engage your audience and achieve your desired outcomes. There are a variety of different tools and methods you can use, but you need to identify what will work best for your audience and help you reach the desired outcomes.

Gamification lends itself well to recording and measuring intended behaviour, which allows you to effectively evaluate the event or activity. However you need to be clear about what those metrics are. You can’t just run a fun game and say, everyone seemed to enjoy it. How is the interaction achieving your objectives and how are you assessing engagement?

There are a number of companies and apps that can help you create an interactive experience, from trivia to live interaction at a conference or event. Mobile devices and in particular smartphones are key to gamification at events, allowing you to use apps to engage an audience.

How to Incorporate Gamification (including great tools!)

Conferences and Expos

Conferences and expos use gamification to encourage key event goals such as networking, session attendance and interactions with booths and exhibitors. Customizable interactive experiences can be a great way to do this, using apps like EventMobi, The Go Game or SCANVenger Hunt. Attendees can receive points for desired behaviors such as check-ins or answering questions. Prizes can be redeemed with a certain number of points or when a position on the leaderboard is reached. Scavenger hunts with scannable QR codes at various stations can be used to get clues about where to go.

Presentations

Creating fun opportunities for participation is a great way to keep your audience engaged during a presentation. No one wants to sit through a boring lecture. Turing a passive audience into active participants by incorporating gamification, is a game changer for gaining and retaining attention during a presentation. There should always be at least one interactive element included. CatchBox is one option that takes the boring old crowd mic to the next level. What says fun more than throwing a colorful padded microphone cube around the room.  

An app like Kahoot specializes in creating your own quizzes. This can be used in many different ways for all kinds of events. You can ask multiple choice questions during a presentation to gain immediate audience feedback or challenge them to guess an answer. You could ask the audience to vote on what topic they want you to focus on. Alternatively, participants could be asked to answer short quiz questions at the end of a presentation, to show they understand key concepts.  

LiveTweetApp and EverWall are great tools to create a Social Wall (with Twitter or Instagram) to help you increase social interactions at your event. You can use these tools to search, moderate and display social media posts on a screen at your event. You could ask questions or poll attendees and get their real time responses via Twitter and Instagram for you to display. This both benefits the event engagement and social promotion.   

Learning and Training Environments

Gamification has been used extensively in formal and informal learning environments. From university learning and e-courses, to a mobile app that turns learning a language into a game. It is also used in staff on-boarding and training, designed to be more interesting and fun so that staff will engage and retain the information. The ability to earn badges are a popular way to encourage people to progress through learning levels, OpenBadges is one organization that facilitates this.   

Workplace Engagement

Gamification is used to encourage workplace engagement. Organizations use different methods and tools to encourage desired behaviors they want to see in their organization. This could be facilitated staff events and team building exercises to encourage collaboration, or a gamified employee recognition and rewards software program such as Redii.

Marketing Campaigns

Gamification can be incorporated into marketing campaigns to get an audience to participate in the promotion. Loyalty programs are a classic example of this. The McDonald’s Monopoly Game promotion is another popular example with the tagline – ‘The simple joy of being a winner’. Burger King just launched a new campaign that incorporates augmented reality and gamification. Burger King will give you a free whopper if you Set Competitors Ads on ‘FIRE’.

The Final Word

There are many ways gamification can be incorporated into your strategy, regardless of the type of event or business you have. It’s all about getting people to become involved participants in an experience. Start by being clear about your audience and objectives, before creating an event experience or implementing apps and tools. When it comes to incorporating gamification into your events, the strategy determines the game, not the other way around.

The post Increase Attendee Engagement with Gamification appeared first on Ticketbud.