Setting Up the Ticketing for Your Event
There are several aspects involved in successfully setting up the ticketing for your event, so here are some tips.
Determine Your Ticket Price.
Your biggest fear when organising your event will surely be not selling enough tickets. You need to cover your costs and meet your budget, and also make sure that your ticket price is not too high that you drive ticket purchasers away, which will cost more money in marketing to get them back!
There is a fine line in determining your ticket pricing, so take into account these factors…
The first step is to add up all the costs of your event, which may include the following; venue, catering, other suppliers such as equipment, speakers etc, staff and marketing costs. When coming up with your total event cost, keep in mind that some of these event costs may change if your ticket numbers end up being better or worse than you had planned for, and there will always without fail end up being miscellaneous costs which you had not accounted for. Allow for some flexibility then in your final cost, at either end of the scale.
Now that you have a total event cost, you can divide it by the projected number of tickets to be sold, to come up with a ticket price needed to break even, remembering that you may have different ticket types with varying costs. After you have done this, you will need to decide whether or not you want to add the booking fee for your online ticketing platform to the cost of your ticket price, or include it in the total cost. This will further help determine whether or not you add more to the ticket costs to absorb the fee or not. You can always check out an online calculator to help you determine the fee.
Look online also for similar events, and see what they are charging. This will give you a guide as to how much you can charge, and if you are providing good value for you money.
Please also keep in mind when setting your price that if you are registered for GST, you will need to include the cost of the GST in your ticket price.
You also need to decide what profit margin you would like to make, or may need to make. If you end up having costs which are much lower than you had expected, you may either need to revise these costs or you can make a higher profit margin than you had originally anticipated. Likewise if your ticket price seems too high, you might need to look at your supplier costs to see if you can reduce them. Now you are in a better position to work out what your ticket price might be.
Creating Your Ticket Types:
Early Bird Ticketing: To create some interest in your event and encourage early ticket sales, it is a good idea to set up an Early Bird Ticket. Set up this ticket type to go on sale before general tickets, and to end at a specified time. You can also write in the ticket field the time that it will stop selling, so that ticket purchasers know that the time is limited, and when they need to purchase by. Also in order to let them know that they are getting a good deal on their price, set up the General Admission (or full price) ticket to also be on sale at the same time, so people can see the value they are getting by purchasing early.
Make Online Ticket Prices Lower Than At the Door:
In order to try and discourage attendees turning up at the event hoping to pay at the door, make it known in your event description that the cost of entry at the door will be higher than the online price. This makes it easier for you to determine your numbers beforehand, and avoids last minute changes to plans and catering etc. It also means that you will hopefully cover the costs of those unaccounted for costs by doing so.
If Your Event Is a Fundraiser:
If you are holding your event as a fundraiser, you may want to also include a ‘Donation’ ticket type to help increase sales. This way attendees can purchase a ticket to the event, and also donate to your cause. In addition it might encourage donations from people who can’t attend the event, but would still like to help. You can set it up as set dollar amounts as a ticket type for each amount which people can select from, or you can allow people to elect how much they want to donate as a Donation ticket type. Please note that regardless of whether it is a donation or not, if the donation is made with a credit card it will still attract a booking fee, in order to cover the fees charged by banks and merchant facilities.
You may like to consider applying for our Charity rebate if your event is by a registered charity, or for the one off charity rebate if your event is in aid of a charity or other good cause.
There are many aspects involved in determining how to set up your tickets, and at what price. After your event when asking attendees for feedback, remember to ask them how they felt about the cost of the tickets, and the value for money. This will help you with ticketing for your next event!
This ebook has seven of our favourite tried and tested methods for increasing ticket sales, and most of them don’t require a lot of work or expense on your part.
