If you’re selling tickets to a live show, you want people to buy as soon as possible.  If people leave ticket purchase to the last minute you wont have accurate attendance figures which could force you to overspend on your marketing.  In addition, if people don’t buy a ticket early they could forget about the show or even be tempted by another event on the same night.

Here are four ways you can encourage people to buy their tickets early for your next show.

Offer Early Bird Discounts

If you have control over ticket sales (through a site like Eventbrite) you can encourage early sales by offering an Early Bird discount when the tickets first go on sale.

Offer A Freebie

If you don’t control the tickets but they can still be bought online, you can still offer an incentive. Announce that early ticket purchasers can forward their booking email to you (as proof of purchase and in return they will receive an exclusive digital gift (exclusive song, unseen video etc). Using the same method they can arrange to collect a special free gift from you at the merch stall (free badge/button).

Tell People How Many Are Left

Scarcity is a factor which encourages people to buy.  By stating how many tickets are left (i.e. “50% of the tickets have now gone for this show, don’t leave it too late to get yours”) you can reinforce that it is time to buy.  I have known people exaggerate the number of tickets sold to an event in order to artificially manufacture scarcity…use this technique at your peril! If you tell people that tickets are running low and they turn up on the night and it is a mostly empty room, you could lose their trust!

Countdown The Remaining Time

All shows are time sensitive, and as each day passes there is less time time in which to purchase.  Use this countdown to your advance to force people to make their move. “There’s only two weeks to go before our big London show, you haven’t got long to get your tickets!”.

Got any questions about this post or how you can better market yourself?

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