How you can sell tickets for an event: Guide to event ticket sales
“How to sell tickets for an event?” is a really typical question. (Don’t trust us? Google it.)
The brief and annoyingly vague answer is: It all depends.
Wait, do not go out of. There is far more to it.
The vagueness is simply because you will find many ways that are different to sell tickets for an occasion. The solution mostly relies on whether you are attempting in order to resell event tickets you purchased earlier or even to sell tickets for the own event of yours.
Let us decay just how to sell tickets for an occasion.
How you can sell tickets for an event in case you are a reseller
Say you purchased tickets for London club nights or maybe a season ticket to look at your favorite cricket team play. Sweet! Then again, you discover you cannot allow it to be. Sucks! What should you do today?
You’ve a selection of choices.
- Event ticket resale sites
Your most apparent choice are specialised ticket resale websites as StubHub, Viagogo, Seatwave, and also others. These regions are generally marketplaces for individuals planning to sell event tickets that they have in the past bought from a main seller.
You will find a number of certain benefits to utilizing another ticket marketplace. Resale websites have a tendency to take plenty of buyers and sellers together, therefore you must be ready to find buyers interested in the particular event ticket you are selling. Resale websites additionally tackle the payments, taking that additional hassle from the situation. And, obviously, there is a little security built in; the majority of ticket resale websites provide an assurance that purchasers gets their sellers and also tickets gets the money of theirs.
Today, you are of course keen on buyers finding the event tickets of yours. Thus, which of these resale websites woud you want to utilize to have found? We suggest selecting one which fits your some other criteria (e.g. fees). Interested ticket purchasers will often look through a selection of websites to search for the ideal offer on an event ticket they are after.
In addition to that, there are plenty of so called aggregators which crawl through several ticket resale websites simultaneously. They serve as a kind of online search engine that can help customers find and also compare event tickets. You should not need to be worried about your tickets staying invisible.
Do always keep in your mind that there might be specific laws set up concerning resale of event tickets. For example, the United Kingdom law causes it to be explicitly illegal to resell football tickets. (Other varieties of event tickets may be resold with no restrictions.) Consult your local laws to ensure you are not breaking any, you rebel.
- Other internet marketplaces
Ticket resale sites are not the single option of yours. There are lots of basic marketplaces in which you are able to list items for sale. eBay is probably a classic case.
The benefit of such websites, particularly people with an auction mechanic as eBay, would be that you are able to have a couple of interested purchasers bidding on the tickets of yours, possibly allowing you to sell at a greater value.
Precisely the same word of warning is applicable here as well: Be conscious of your area ticket resale laws as well as the particular policies of every individual marketplace. For example, eBay has quite a strict definition of what kinds of event tickets are resold on its site. (The majority has to be offered through StubHub, run by eBay).
- Get it done yourself
Do not wish to contend with marketplaces which charge fees for the services of theirs? Not a problem. There is usually the DIY option. You are able to attempt to find interested buyers inside the own circle of yours of internet contacts and on related event forums.
Announce you’ve a few extra tickets on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or maybe whatever social networking sites you use. Try letting the friends of yours and contacts spread the word. You are able to also locate Facebook groups for peer-to-peer ticket sales for particular events types. Search for forums regarding events and attempt to uncover buyers in that way.
The great point about this particular strategy is the fact that you are able to go right in without creating user profiles or even filling out registration forms. If you’ve an active and large network, you are certain to rapidly find a buyer. Plus you can select the own selling terms of yours and price.
But you can also find drawbacks. For starters, you’ve to determine how you can facilitate the transaction, particularly if you do not privately know the buyer. Additionally you run the danger to be cheated out of the payment of yours. Of course, you are able to make the release of the ticket of yours conditional upon getting the cash first, though you and the customer both shed the reassurance you would get with an official resale website.
How you can sell tickets for an event in case you are the organiser
The story is very different in case you are the main organising the event. When you are the main seller of event tickets, you have not only to locate a good site to promote them through but spend a great chunk of the time planning of yours and advertising the event of yours.
You will need to select the cost for the event tickets of yours. Are you going to market exactly the same ticket to everyone or maybe offer discounted “early bird” tickets and VIP tickets with additional perks? Are you going to give out some free tickets? Just how many of each ticket type are you going to promote? And, obviously, you will have to think of ways to process payments, monitor the ticket sales of yours, and also be connected to the customers.
In case you are the event organiser, here is how you can sell tickets for an occasion.
- Social networking and forums
This’s akin to the “do it yourself” route for ticket resellers. It is the straightforward and basic most method to find people who may be keen on purchasing tickets for the event of yours. You can develop a Facebook event and include payment directions for the tickets of yours in the explanation. Then you would paste the event website link on different forums or even ask the community of yours to advertise and discuss the event.
This’s a simple, no-frills approach which might work all right for smaller events. Nevertheless, you would have to look for ways to handle the majority of the administration on ones own. Issues as processing payments, issuing tickets, monitoring the income of yours, coping with refund claims, etc. As a result, this strategy is not all of that sustainable if you are expecting a huge selection of guests.
- Own online presence
Another approach is establishing or make use of your existing internet presence to deal with the ticket sales of yours. Maybe you’ve an artist page. Or perhaps you’ve an individual website or a blog site. You are able to get tools which help transform the personal space of yours into an event ticket shop.
If you’ve a WordPress blog, you will find a selection of plugins which allow you to sell event tickets. Some other sites as e.g. Shopify specialise in assisting you to run a webshop, and may additionally work nicely for offering event tickets.
With this particular approach, you are in control of the own brand of yours and get to select the appearance and feel of the ticket storefront of yours. Obviously, you would still have to market the event of yours and control the rest around it. So it is definitely not the simplest choice.
- Traditional ticketing agents
Think Ticketmaster. Substantial ticketing agents that way generally have partnerships with venues allowing it to perform the majority of heavy lifting for you – assisting you to advertise the event, sell tickets, and also tackle the distribution. In case you are a well established organiser or perhaps, say, a huge brand in the music business, these conventional ticketing agents would possibly be the go to choice of yours.
Remember, although, the services of a significant ticket agent will probably be overkill for medium-sized and small- events or maybe amateur event organisers. You would be spending for a snazzy Ferrari while all that you truly needed was a dependable Volvo.
And that is if you actually get the foot of yours in the door. Substantial ticketing agents generally have a very troublesome application process, requiring you to complete a registration form. You would probably have to make a prediction of your respective expected ticket sales, venue capacity, and much more.
Overall, starting out with the event ticket sales of yours is not swift or even simple when you are working with such ticketing industry giants. Unless you are organising an enormous event or featuring some A list celebrities, Ticketmaster might be out of the league of yours.