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If you are an event organizer, you'd want as many people as possible come to your event. After all, that is how you will generate event ticket sales and revenue.
To do it, you need to follow the industry's best practices. But since the pandemic, the event industry has been heavily disrupted and taken a huge hit.
As per Forbes reports, more than 83 million events had been canceled or rescheduled due to COVID-19.
However, the event industry is making a common back. And it's happening with the help of contactless technologies such as QR Codes.
For the uninitiated, QR Codes are square-shaped 2D barcodes that can store a lot of information. And they are easy to scan. All you need is your smartphone to do the job.
Thanks to the increase in global smartphone penetration that went from 59.01% in 2017 to 78.05% in 2020. And also the access to high-speed mobile internet which increased from 48.8% in 2014 to 62.5% in Jan 2022. These factors have helped in the huge adoption of QR Codes.
In this article, we'll see how to push your event ticket sales to maximize your revenue.
A. Five essentials that you must follow
Here are the five most important things you must set up:
1. Create a secure and efficient guest entry system
The first and indispensable thing you need for increasing ticket sales is an efficient ticketing system. This system will help you create secure, contactless tickets for the guests, thus boosting entertainment ticket sales.
We recommend the one that helps you create tickets that are contactless and secure.
To understand how it works, you can check out this video:
Contactless tickets would help you ensure a safe environment for guests and your staff. And their secure nature would make sure only authorized people are given entry to the event. That means no scope for trespassing.
So make sure you choose the right ticket and entry management system for your event. Here are some features that you must look for while finding a suitable service provider:
a. Easy event registrations
Event registration pages aid in increasing ticket sales as it allows users to register and generate tickets simultaneously. Service providers offer an 'Event Registrations' feature that helps you create mobile-friendly registration pages. The result of this feature - is contactless, efficient, and increased event ticket sales.
This feature allows you to create a mobile landing page with a registration form. Once created, you can share its link with your target audience. It even allows you to choose whether you'd want the registrations to be approved automatically or manually.
After approval, the guests receive tickets in their email. In short, this process is contactless, efficient, and time-saving.
b. Seamless bulk generation of tickets
Since you are organizing an event, you'd need a large number of tickets. They could range from hundreds to thousands in number. Thus, you'd need a tool that allows you to generate unique tickets in a matter of minutes.
And Ticket Generator helps you do it easily. In addition to creating tickets in bulk, it also allows you to add unique information to them. For example, guest name, row number, and guest ID.
c. Digital ticket distribution
Since it is important to ensure your guests' safety amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, you must avoid paper-based tickets.
So make sure your service provider helps you send tickets via email, SMS, or both. When guests arrive, they can just show these tickets at the entry gate, get them validated, and enter the venue.
Hence, no need for guests to get them printed.
d. Contactless ticket validation
Contactless ticket validation is a safety norm that drastically helps to increase ticket sales. To adhere to the safety norms, you must adopt contactless ticket validation too.
But the traditional validation process for entry validation falls apart. Here's why the guests need to arrive with the ticket. It's then manually verified by the coordinators with guest details in their database.
This is a tedious process for both the guests and the staff.
However, QR Code-based tickets have got you covered. They come with a QR Code having a unique ID. As event coordinators can scan the QR Codes with their smartphones, they see if the ticket is valid, invalid, or duplicate. Here's how it looks like:
And there is no need for any expensive hardware installation to do the same. Cost-effective, right?
e. Queue management
Since the pandemic has changed the paradigm of event management, avoiding queues and crowding has become a necessity.
So it is your responsibility to ensure the same for the people waiting in queues at the entry gate.
And QR Code-based digital tickets help you do it. With their fast scanning ability, it doesn't take more than 2-3 seconds for a coordinator to validate each ticket. With QR Code-based tickets, you save on validation time, resulting in smaller queues and a safer environment contributing to increased event ticket sales.
The shorter the validation time, the smaller will be the queues. That means a safer environment and a better experience for the guests.
f. Event performance tracking
You know how important it is to track event performance. It helps you draw valuable insights about event performance. These include information such as the event attendance, peak time, and the number of tickets validated per coordinator.
With this data, you can optimize your future events more efficiently and generate even more sales.
2. Identity your audience
After selecting the right online ticketing system, you need to identify your target audience. This will help you know where to promote your event and how to draft marketing communications tailored to the audience's needs.
For example, say you want to host a graduation event. Here, your target audience would be school/college admins who will throw the party for the graduating batch. So, you'd need to make sure that you promote your services among them with the right message.
3. Find partners and sponsors
Every event needs partners and sponsors to lend a helping hand.
For example, if you're organizing a music event in summers, your guests would need drinks to quench their thirst. And needless to say, you'd want a vendor for the same.
So make sure you start looking for vendors and other partners in advance.
To find sponsors, you can use your contacts or leverage various digital platforms too. For example, digital tools such as Sponsor Park, Sponeasy, or SponsorMyEvent. In addition, you need to keep a hard eye on the following factors too:
- Event goals: Your event goals should adhere to the budget and sponsor. It is very crucial. For example, if you need help promoting a venue during a festive season, you need to secure a space that is going to be most crowded such as malls. Here, you can leverage it and produce the best results
- Reach out to targeted sponsors: You can reach out to sponsors who already work with events related to your industry. They'll be more likely to sponsor your event than the ones who aren't related to your niche
- Narrow down your options: Since sponsor pitches and meetings are time-consuming, it's important to limit the number of sponsors you reach out to. Just create a list of sponsors who align with your event goals and image
- Select the audience choice: It's common to do audience research before any upcoming event. It would reveal all the interests, social media accounts, and brands your audience loves. You can then try reaching out to these brands for sponsorship as they will give your audience a familiar feeling
Various companies sponsor events at certain times of the year. This depends on their event budget and factors such as the economy, the industry, and the company's ROI performance. So make sure you reach them out at the right time with the right pitch.
And once you've decided on some sponsors, start reaching out to them and seal the deal.
4. Invoke interest among your attendees
The best way to push your event sales is via your attendees. How? They can recommend your event to their friends and family. And it is a fact that people prefer word-of-mouth recommendations over anything else.
This means existing attendees can be your biggest marketers and revenue-drivers. And to do it, you can offer them the right incentive.
Here are some ways you can use to encourage attendees to spread the word:
- Group discounts: This is one of the most common tactics out there. When an attendee comes along with friends or family, you can consider giving them a special discount. That means while you see an increase in the tickets sold, the guests also get to save some money. A win-win situation for both parties
- Gamification: You can leverage gamification by setting up a reward system. Here, attendees can collect points for sharing the event and getting friends to sign up. These points can be then redeemed for event merchandises and other services of your choice
5. Leverage social media
Since the rise of digital marketing, social media has become a hub for promotions. Here, you can target your audience with a proper plan of action.
While you will do organic promotions, you can look at paid options too. For example, an ad campaign with Facebook and Instagram. Just create a campaign with the audience filtered as per your needs. Then add your required budget and promotional message. That's it. You're good to go!
Moreover, you can even try out influencer marketing. Influencer marketing campaigns can also significantly help increase event ticket sales.
It allows you to partner with a person who has a strong social media presence. Just find the right set of influencers in your niche and collaborate with them to market your event.
Now you know how to push your event sales to new heights. In case you are looking for a tool to create, manage, distribute event tickets, here's a quick guide:
B. How to create QR Code-based tickets
As mentioned above, you'd need a professional service provider. And Ticket Generator has got you covered.
Using Ticket Generator, here's how you can generate QR Code-based tickets for increasing ticket sales and enhancing entertainment ticket sales:
1. Go to Ticket Generator and Sign up to create an account
Here, you won't have to enter card details while signing up. And after signing up, you'll receive ten credits for free. Each credit allows you to create one ticket.
2. Now, go to Create Event section followed by clicking on the Bulk button. Here, create an event by adding event details such as description, time zone, and venue
Once done, proceed ahead.
Design the tickets
3. Now, comes the part where you need to design the tickets. Here, you can either go with the Upload Own Design option or select the Default Design option
Upload Own Design: This option allows you to design your ticket using your own ready-made design template.
With this option, you can superimpose the QR Code and unique ID on the ticket.
Moreover, it also allows you to add variable information (which would be different for each ticket) by clicking on the + button. It could be the guest's name, row number, seat number, etc.
Default Design: Here, you can use the Ticket Generator's standard design to create tickets from the scratch. It gives you the option to add a logo, change the background color, or add a background image to your ticket.
Once you've designed your tickets, click on Preview to see how your ticket design looks.
Choose the delivery method
4. After finalizing the design, click on Done. Now, specify the Delivery method. This means you need to choose how to distribute your tickets to the guests. You'll see the following four options to choose from:
i. Generate Form Link: This option allows you to design and share a mobile landing page to get event registrations. This includes adding images, event description, form fields, and customizing the button text
ii. Generate and Download: Here, you can generate and download the tickets in a printable format (PDF)
iii. Generate and Send: In this option, you will further see three options to choose from:
a. Send tickets by email only: This option allows you to email the tickets (up to 1,000) to the guests. To do it, you just need to upload a file containing the emails in CSV, XLS, or XLSX format. Or you can even manually type the emails in the given fields
b. Send tickets by SMS only: Here, you can send tickets to your guests via SMS (up to 1,000 phone numbers)
c. Send tickets by both email and SMS: In this option, you can send tickets both by SMS and email to your guests
iv. Generate via API: Ticket Generator API can be integrated with your own registration system. Once done, you can generate digital tickets programmatically in real-time
5. Once you specify all the details, click on Generate. All the digital tickets will be generated and you'll be notified via email
That's it. That's all you need to know on how to push event ticket sales. With Ticket Generator, you're now equipped to push event ticket sales and offer a contactless, secure, and convenient experience for everyone involved.
