If you are selling tickets to an event, whether it is a concert, course, sporting event, festival or theatre performance, you must first and foremost know your target audience. Furthermore, early bird offers and exclusive packages can help increase ticket sales. Here are five good strategies you should consider to increase sales and improve the purchasing experience.
1. Know Your Target Audience
Understanding who you're selling to is essential for tailoring your marketing and sales strategies. If you have access to previous sales data, you can use this information to map out which demographic factors influence purchasing decisions.
Let’s say you’re organising a rock concert, and previous sales data shows that the majority of ticket buyers are between 25–35 years old and live in urban areas. In that case, you should target your marketing efforts towards this specific audience through the channels they’re most active on. Remember to also use language and expressions that the target audience can relate to and understand.
With Hoopla, as an organiser you get real-time insight into your sales and can extract various reports providing further information about your ticket buyers. Get to know more about the features available in the Hoopla ticketing system.
If you don’t have sales data, you can carry out market research or simple surveys to gain a deeper understanding of the audience you wish to reach. By involving your audience, you can gain insight into their expectations and preferences in a meaningful way.
2. Use Early Bird and Exclusive Packages
Encourage early purchases by offering discounted "early bird" tickets and exclusive packages. An early bird ticket allows customers to buy a discounted ticket within a limited time period. This helps you kickstart sales early. At the same time, it can create early buzz around the event and secure revenue in advance.
Exclusive packages, such as VIP access, meet-and-greet with the performer(s), or pre-show dining, can also increase the value of a ticket and boost interest in purchasing.
3. Dynamic and Strategic Pricing
By using dynamic pricing, you can maximise both revenue and attendance at your events. This involves adjusting prices in real time based on variables such as demand, time remaining before the event, and the number of available tickets.
Dynamic pricing gives you the flexibility to increase prices when demand is high and potentially lower them when necessary to stimulate sales. It’s important not to set prices so high that no one is willing to pay, but also not so low that you lose potential income.
This approach requires ongoing attention and a good understanding of the market to balance between maximising revenue and filling the event. So start with simple adjustments.
Dynamic pricing ensures you can adapt quickly and can be especially useful in situations with unpredictable factors such as weather conditions or competition from other events.
4. Take Advantage of Ticket Groups
Hoopla’s new feature, ticket groups, is a powerful tool that allows you to structure and organise ticket sales in a clear and efficient way. This tool is ideal for events that span several days, offer different ticket types, or include multiple sub-events. For example, you can organise tickets into groups based on day, type, or price level.
By setting a maximum limit on the number of tickets in an overarching group, you can easily control the total capacity of the event – whether by day, zone, or stage.
While you gain more control with ticket groups, the customer experience also improves, as it becomes easier for buyers to find and select tickets.
Real-time reporting in Hoopla provides insight into which ticket groups are selling best, allowing you to quickly adjust marketing efforts and availability based on demand.
5. Analyse and Adapt
Data is power, and effective use of data analysis is key to maximising ticket sales. Use the data you have to better understand customer behaviour and sales trends, so you can continuously fine-tune your offerings and marketing strategies.
Some typical areas worth exploring include:
Which days and times have the highest ticket sales?
What pricing strategies work best?
How many tickets are purchased on average per order?
How often do ticket buyers attend your events?
Which marketing campaign(s) and sales channels are most effective?
Is it possible to profile your ticket buyers and define selected customer groups?
Profiling is essentially about identifying common characteristics among your ticket buyers. Finding patterns and connections in larger datasets that aren't immediately obvious can be extensive and complex, so start simple. Begin with age, geographical location, gender, and repeat buyers.
If needed, you can expand this to include more in-depth analyses covering additional datasets. For instance, you could map ticket buyers’ lifestyles, interests, cultural preferences, and attitudes.
Bonus Tip: Learn from Fellow Organisers and Use Your Network
Collaboration and networking with other organisers can provide valuable insight and inspiration. Most industries have their own interest groups offering seminars, workshops, training material, and networking opportunities. While you may have to pay for membership, the actual value can far exceed the membership fee.
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Although these five strategies are presented separately, they are closely connected. Not every measure will be relevant or feasible for everyone.
As an organiser, it's important to identify which strategies are best suited to your events, depending on the resources and capacity you have available.
We hope this inspired you to work strategically with your ticket sales moving forward.
By using Hoopla as your ticketing system, you can easily get started with these strategies and take advantage of features like ticket groups and data analysis to maximise ticket sales and improve the customer experience.
Hoopla is intuitive and easy to use – within just a few minutes, you’re ready to start selling tickets!