This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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What's the best ticketing strategy for an event? This is a fun question because I have been doing ticket sales myself recently, after a couple of years of not doing live events. I'm really excited to do a new event on neurodiversion next spring in Austin, Texas. And so here we've got a listener who has also been producing events. She's wondering about ticket sales and what's the best strategy for it.
Should she release tickets on a rolling basis or use more of a waitlist strategy with limited dates of sale? So we're gonna talk about the pros and cons of both methods, help her decide which approach might lead to more engagement in higher sales or better conversion, basically. So if you ever wanna do any kind of live event, or if you're just interested in why people buy, when they buy, this applies to more than just events, but we'll look at it in the context of running an event. Ticket sales strategy, what's the best way to do it? Detailed question and my answer coming right up.
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Hi Chris, this is Laura from San Diego. I'm planning to sell tickets for an event I'm hosting and I'm trying to decide on the best strategy. Should I release the tickets on a rolling basis to keep the sales open or use a waitlist with limited sale dates to create a sense of urgency? I'm not sure which approach would lead to more engagement in sales. So I'd love to get your thoughts on the pros and cons of each method.
- Hey Laura, good for you. Events can be tough, but I think they're really worth it when you do it well and when people come and they're excited and you're like, wow, this is so much work, but it makes people happy. So therefore it makes you happy too. It's a codependent relationship running events, I'll tell you, but let's stay on topic and talk about how to sell the tickets, deciding between a rolling ticket release and a waitlist strategy. As I said, great question.
The very short answer is I think it's better to do the waitlist strategy. You can do it either way. We'll talk about pros and cons, but with the waitlist strategy, one word, urgency. When there is a waitlist and people are like, they've been on an email list or even without a waiting list, if they just know that ticket sales are happening on this date at this time, then it creates that sense of urgency, especially if other people are also buying tickets and competing for perhaps a limited amount. Then you have FOMO.
You have, oh, I need to schedule this into my life. I need to make sure I get these tickets on this day. You can just buy them at any time and they're unlimited and they never sell out. That's tough, right? There is no urgency in that case.
Now here's a little trick. If you want to get the benefits of the waitlist strategy, but then also be able to sell tickets on an ongoing basis, you can do that too. And so what you do there is you start with the waitlist strategy. You do that for one or two launches, let's say. And then if there are tickets left over, then those can go on a rolling basis.
That creates increased accessibility, continuous marketing. People can still buy as the event approaches, but hopefully you have done a good job with the waitlist and you're going to sell out or at least sell a good chunk of the tickets then. And then also make sure you reward people who purchase early. It's great to do early bird discounts or some other incentive just to encourage people to take that step of buying. And then that way, you know, you have your costs covered, you can breathe easy and focus on running the event.
So all things considered, I think it's better to do the waiting list strategy, but of course every event is unique. So you got to do what works best for you. That's just my advice. Listeners, let me know if you have a question or an experience of your own, sidehustleschool.com/questions. If you're interested in my new event on neurodiversion, we'll just go to neurodiversion.org.
You can see what's happening with tickets there. And of course new episodes on the podcast every day. This was 2,905, subscribe or follow for more. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
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From the Onward Project.
