A Fundraiser for Spinal Muscular Atrophy

TicketPrinting.com gave us the ability to be professional, and offered us the tools we needed to make our event into a great one! Thank you for making our event a success!

~Charlotte Dunn, Co-Founder and President of Fighting For Damion

Just five months old, Damion Antonio Carbello has already touched countless lives. Born in May 2011, Damion was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), “a genetic disorder that is carried by 1 in 90 people and affects 1 in 2000. SMA is the number one genetic killer of toddlers and infants in the world.”

“Fighting For Damion is completely not for profit, and our sole goal is to help this little family with medical bills, and Damion’s needs, to make things just a little easier,” Charlotte Dunn, Co-founder and President of Fighting for Damion explained to me. She founded the organization with Vice President and Co-Founder Rachel Kessleski when they learned their dear friend’s son had been diagnosed with the disorder.

The organization’s most recent event was a benefit get together sponsored by Scale’s Grill and Deck Bar to raise money for Damion and also raise awareness of SMA. The group “held a Chinese auction, a 50/50 raffle, featured live entertainment and a dinner buffet. One hundred percent of the proceeds went to a secure account strictly for baby Damion.”

For the event, the organization chose the Blue and White General Admission Ticket, a simple but professional ticket with plenty of room for event information. The event ticket featured the details of the event on the front, as well as a logo and slogan on the back. The tickets were individually numbered and featured a detachable stub, which can be used to track attendees and keep account of the raffle.

“Because we are just starting out, we have set our goal very small and I am pleased to say we greatly exceeded it.” Charlotte told me.

To get the word out, Charlotte and her team relied heavily on Internet and radio advertising, “We advertised greatly on all social networks, and local radio stations. We also pre-sold the tickets that your company printed, which [were] a big hit! We also list every event and detail on our website, www.fightingfordamion.com.”

Some event planners choose to focus only on one method of advertising, which means they may reach only one audience. By using more than one channel of communication and reaching out to an online audience, as well as one that might hear about the event from a more traditional route, the team maximized its message and reached more potential attendees.

Another effective method that helped with ticket sales is offering a presale discount.  “We offered our tickets to anyone who would listen for $10 presale or $15 at the door. We advertised them the same way we advertised our event,” Charlotte said. “It worked very well in my opinion. If you can get the word out there on as many sources as you can, your event will sell itself.”

Though the weather didn’t cooperate, the event was still a success. “For me, the best part of the event was seeing everyone who came out having a good time for a great cause. Most of these people have no idea who this family is that they are helping, and yet they still come out to support and donate. It is truly amazing to see people put aside their busy life and help someone in need. ”

When you’re planning a fundraising event, a strong advertising and sales strategy will bring out many people who were unaware of your cause. You may find allies who come to believe just as passionately in your message as you do.

For those planning a similar event, Charlotte has this advice, “Plan ahead! Make sure all loose ends are tied a week prior to your event; it saves a lot of time and money. And remember to have lots of helping hands to help set up and break down!! That is truly the hardest part of any event.”

To donate to Fight For Damion visit FightingforDamion.com.

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Blue Heron Productions: Concerts in Support of Acoustic Music

“The tickets always show up promptly and add a touch of professionalism to the event. For most people maybe just a detail, but for me indicates a little added effort.”

~ David Reynolds, Blue Heron Productions

On September 16, The Crooked Still performed at the Hotel Colorado. The team behind this event was Blue Heron Productions, Inc. “a small company dedicated to the promotion of bluegrass, folk and other forms of acoustic music. Intimate concerts with outstanding artists,” Dave Reynolds explained to me. “This is not main stream music you hear much on TV or radio, and I have always felt it is underserved in the media and especially in the concert format. The Company really is just me. My wife handles the door, and I usually bribe my friends to become roadies and help. It is not a one person job. This is a sideline pursuit, as I am CPA in my real life.”

Blue Heron Productions, Inc. is dedicated to producing intimate concerts with outstanding artists. While it is not affiliated with the Hotel Colorado, many of the concerts take place at this beautiful venue. For the Crooked Still Event, “I used a room at the venue I have never used for the concert. It wonderfully small and intimate, but acoustically challenging. I went for audience sight line and gave up a little in the sound department, but it went very well all things considered. I prefer the high ceilings and ambiance of the Ballroom. The Hotel Colorado is on the National Historical Register.”

For Dave, “The sound quality is job number one, followed by a comfortable venue. I want the band to sound as good as it can, and I am very particular about it. These musicians are very talented and deserve being treated like the aspiring pros they are or will become.” You can visit YouTube for a taste of Crooked Still’s music.

For this event, Dave chose the All Purpose General Admission ticket, a simple but professional ticket that prominently features the band’s name as well as event information. The ticket is individually numbered and features a detachable stub, which allows organizers to keep track of attendees.

“To market the event,” Dave says, “I use posters, newspaper, radio, social media and email contacts, and anything else that I can think, given a limited budget. I am always looking for a more targeted approach. The younger bands see the benefit of Internet marketing and are generally better at it themselves too, which helps.” Bands are featured on the Blue Heron Productions, Inc. Website. They are also touted on the Facebook page for the venue. The bands themselves do their own promotion work as well.

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Country At The Cabin: Vacaville’s First Country Music Festival

“Our ticketprinting.com experience was very good. I was impressed by the quality, speed, and ease of ordering… We got several compliments from the venue, other bands, and guests by the quality and professional look of the printed materials. It definitely made us look legit and like we knew what we were doing even though we didn’t.”

~Austin Jansen

On Saturday, July 16, Vacaville’s First Country Music Festival was held at The Elmira Cabin in Elmira California. Acts included  48 Straight, the Jesse Woodside Band, the Taryn Cross, and the Amber Snider Band. Free mechanical bull rides , dancing lessons, catered barbecue and drink specials were a part of the night’s festivities.

To promote Country at the Cabin, the organizers chose collateral from the Natural Riffs collection on Ticketprinting.com. The design features an acoustic guitar against a sepia background with stage lights, invoking the feeling of a country music venue. Natural Riffs collateral has space for logos and photos of performers and the text is customizable.

I recently caught up with Austin Jansen, promoter for the event and drummer for the Jesse Woodside Band.

I asked Austin about the role his organization played in organizing Country at the Cabin. “My organization is an event promotion company. We organize/plan music, fundraising, and special events based around music. The particular event we ordered products from you was a first (hopefully) annual country music festival held locally to our organization.”

How did Austin and the other organizers promote the event?  They relied on more than one method to get the word  out. ” We distributed our tickets between the bands, the venue, our Facebook page, a radio ad, an online tickets sales site, and several local businesses. We pre-sold most of our tickets through our bands and the majority of our tickets were sold at the door the night of the event.” Austin explained. ” We started selling our tickets 2 weeks before the event and started our radio ad 1 week prior due to budget limitations.”

What might he do differently next time, and what advice would he offer to others hosting similar events? ” If I could do it again I would start the radio ad 1 month prior as well as selling tickets earlier. Next year we hope to have a larger headliner and charge more for the event.”

What was the highlight of Country at the Cabin? ” The highlight of our event was how busy it got. We were concerned with low pre-sale figures that event attendance might be low,  but we packed the house!

“My band had the largest crowd, and they were completely involved and loved us! My band also played the best we have ever played. Everything actually went pretty smooth.”

Country at the Cabin sounds like it turned out to be a great event! We definitely look forward to hearing about it when it comes around again next year!

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Streamline Your Box Office with Online Ticket Sales

We live in a twenty-four hour society. Is it reasonable for your patrons to expect you to maintain a twenty-four hour box office? Well, yes! You may already be selling theater tickets online, or you may be wondering how to add that functionality to your website, or whether the return on such an investment would be worth it.

Wherever you are in the process, there’s an easy way to add another portal to your sales arsenal. Ticket River is a new Internet-based service that lets you create a page for your upcoming show and sell tickets right from the website. You don’t need to know anything about creating web pages. It takes literally five minutes to fill out your event information. This site does the rest!

Not only does Ticket River create a page for your event and sell tickets for you while you sleep, it doesn’t cost anything to join or add an event. The only cost is a small, three percent surcharge per ticket sold. You can cover it yourself, split it with your customers, or add it to the cost of their ticket. Most theatergoers don’t mind paying an extra dollar or so for the convenience of purchasing event tickets from the comfort of their own homes. You have the added convenience of being able to accept all major credit cards as well as PayPal.

Whatever your ticketing needs, Ticket River’s got it covered. Create seating charts of your venue and sell reserved seats. Offer different pricing for students, seniors, or advance buyers. You can even use Ticket River to link to TicketPrinting.com, where you can print real paper tickets! In fact, users of this site get a great twenty percent discount on ticket printing.

Ticket River also helps you promote your event with email marketing, embeddable buttons, and easy access to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. This site even provides all the tools you need to track sales with charts, reports, and search functions. And if you need to offer a refund, or cancel a show, the site makes it a snap.

Ready to move your theater forward into a bold new year? Take Ticket River for a test drive!

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Simply the Best Multi-Day Events with Wristbands

When summer is on its way, it’s time for festival season. With the sun shining down and the weather warming up, folks are ready to get out and gather.  Planning your own Woodstock? How about a street food fair? Do you have a renaissance faire in the works? Or, do you plan on inviting a group of artists to take over your community for a few days. Any multiday event can benefit from wristbands.

Tickets and Event Wristbands

Whether you are welcoming a gaggle of modern day lords and ladies or your guests are navigating a thoroughfare of taco trucks full of street food and slow food, event tickets and wristbands will help you manage the crowd.

When an event spans several days, admission tickets can get lost or dog-eared, causing anxiety for both guests and staff. When you sell tickets in advance and exchange them for Tyvek wristbands at the gate, crowd management becomes much easier.

These custom printed wristbands are made of Tyvek, a material that is somewhere between paper and plastic.  DuPont Tyvek wristbands are strong, waterproof, and non-transferable. Once staff members place them around guests’ wrists, they will remain in place until they are cut off at the end of the event.

Because they are durable, event wristbands can be worn for the several days spanning the events relieving worries about lost or damaged tickets. Guests need only present their wrists as the gate to be let inside.

Custom event wristbands allow guests a great freedom of movement, so they can wander through the festival grounds or get out and dance with the crowd once the band gets started.

Who’s Who?

At a multi-day event folks will quickly need to be able to distinguish between attendees, volunteers and staff members. By choosing colored wristbands for individuals who have different roles at your big event, you make your venue friendlier and safer. When guests are lost or in need of help, they can easily identify the folks who can help them.

Tyvek wristbands also allow you to manage special events within your multi-day affair. Do you have guests you want to invite back stage or to a party within the party. Colored wristbands allow you to keep sort out your VIPs from the rest of the crowd.

If you are serving alcohol at your festival, wristbands of different colors can make your barkeep’s jobs much easier.

Reduce the Impact

Big events, especially ones that span several days, can have a big impact on the environment. When you’re planning your affair, you want to find ways to reduce the footprint of your event as much as possible. You will feel great about it. Your guests will appreciate it and so will the planet. You can start by choosing recyclable materials for your event collateral.

Tyvek wristbands are functional, and they are also recyclable. Your guests can wear them throughout the multi-day event and then turn them in for recycling when it is over.

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You are an event organizer with a vision! From the centerpieces to the party favors, you’re holding thousands of ideas in your imagination, and when you need everything to look just so, you’ve got it planned down to the smallest details, like the exact look of your event tickets.

Even with hundreds of ticket templates to choose from, you’ve got your heart set on that special image or unique layout. Printing your own tickets online can help you make your dream a reality. You’re not limited by the whims of a printer or by someone else’s designs: just create the perfect event ticket with a do-it-yourself online ticket maker: a DYO tool.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• All the event details
• Your background image
• Logos or thumbnails
• A vision
• A DYO tool like the one at TicketPrinting.com

Have all the elements in order? You’re ready to go. The website can provide all the information you need to create and print the event tickets you want, with digital help available whenever you find yourself stuck.

DYO Event Ticket Printing allows you to choose the perfect colors and the perfect layout. Further, it lets you add special details that can make your life easier, like multiple perforations or numbering in several places on the ticket. Whatever’s in your mind, that’s what you’ll see printed on your ticket.

When you lay out your ticket, determine which details you’ll need to include. This will help you figure out how many lines of text you’ll need to add. Common bits of information would be:

• The event name
• The hosting organization’s name
• The sponsor’s name
• The location of the event
• The time of the event
• The cost of the event ticket

Additional details that may be of use:

• Activities, speakers, or music
• The name of the group that will benefit from any fundraising
• Seat number (if there is to be reserved seating)
• Dress code
• Dinner menu
• Open or cash bar
• URL of a website where more details are available
• Contact person’s phone number

Basically, if it’s information that might be useful or of interest to your guests, and you can fit it on the event ticket while maintaining your vision for the ticket’s overall look, consider adding it. Be sure to duplicate important information, such as reserved seating and ticket number, on the stub as well as the body of the ticket.

Now, put it all together. Upload your visual background, use the DYO tool to add the boxes where you will upload your logo, and the lines where you will enter your text. Position the perforation and the ticket numbers. When you’ve got it all together, preview your proof.

The proof preview is a really important part of printing event tickets. If you don’t proofread, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself! Plus, the proof will alert you if your text isn’t fitting correctly into the available space.

On the plus side, digital proofs really speed the process along. Once you approve your proof and submit billing and shipping details, your event tickets will start printing almost immediately! Within twenty-four hours, they should be created in all their full-color glory and shipped off via UPS straight to your home or office.

Simple enough, right?

Well, if this all seems overwhelming, fear not! There’s another option. You can still get the exact tickets your heart desires without mucking about with all these layout options. For just a little more money, you can order custom tickets. Yes, this is still an online service, and the rates are still quite reasonable. The only difference is that you can tell a design professional what you want and let them worry about how to make it happen.

Either way, your perfect event deserves a perfect event ticket. Whether you do it yourself or hire a dedicated artist to do it for you, online event ticket printing has never been easier!

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Whether I’m printing event tickets or shopping for shoes, I usually know exactly what I want, which means that I’m searching for a merchant who’s prepared to sell me my vision, rather than push their own ideas at me. In the past, I believed that, when it came to print products, and event tickets in particular, the only way to get exactly what I’d pictured in my mind was to find a local printer and work with them one on one to bring my dreams to life, in full color and full bleed.

In the present, I’ve learned that the best ticket printing is done online. Online ticket printing is:

• Convenient: set it up any time, day or night, from the comfort of your own desk
• Fast: easy-to-use ticket templates, online checkout, and multiple delivery options speed the process along
• Affordable: a streamlined process means a pared down pricetag

Besides that, I can still get exactly what I want, whether I’m just searching for general admission event tickets, or need an entire event kit, complete with all my event collateral, like posters, raffle tickets, and VIP passes. Most people don’t realize all the options available when they print their own tickets online:

• Free ticket templates—hundreds to choose from mean you’re more likely to find the perfect design for your event
• Personalization—customize each template with all your event details; some templates even let you upload one or more custom images
• Custom Tickets—using a DYO tool or spending a little extra for a professional designer, you can create unique tickets to suit your needs

Of course, I still get all the necessary features like individual, security numbering and perforated, detachable ticket stubs. I can even choose extras like booklet stapling, reserved seating, or thermal security paper, for just a small additional fee.

Undoubtedly, my favorite feature is the custom image upload. I can take any image file from my computer and add to a ticket template. If my organization wants to brand the event with their own logo, it’s a cinch. Or, if we’d rather provide our sponsors with some extra publicity, we can ask them for a high-quality, high-resolution copy of that image. Or, I might choose to add another photograph, such as a head shot of a popular speaker whose presence will help boost ticket sales. Whatever image I choose to add, image upload is a great way to turn a free ticket template into a unique event ticket.

After image upload, my next favorite feature is the matching event kits I can purchase along with my event tickets, in particular, the matching raffle tickets. An allied prize draw is simply the best way to turn an event into a successful fundraiser. Printing raffle tickets and having them shipped well in advance let me start making money even before I start selling event tickets.

Finally, I know some people worry about the loss of human contact. They don’t trust computers and they worry that they won’t be able to talk to a human being if there’s a problem. Not with my ticket printing company! In addition to extensive FAQs, answering practically any question I’ve ever had, they also offer toll-free customer support, so I know that I can talk to a qualified service representative if I need to.

That’s why I’ve decided that, whenever I need to print up some event tickets for my organization, I’ll save time, money, and frustration by choosing an online event ticket printer!

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How do you sell event tickets? Most theaters have their own box office, with set hours when patrons can come and purchase seats to upcoming performances. But what if you’re not a theater? What if you only hold one or two events a year? Sometimes, companies will let your organization sell its own tickets out of their box office, even if you’re not affiliated with the theater or selling tickets for a show. Or, you might have a team of dedicated sales professionals, or dedicated sales volunteers, or an office manager who can deal with the numbers. But there are other options.

Increasingly, we live in a twenty-four hour society, and increasingly, our patrons find that they’d rather deal with a computer on their own terms than have to go out and wait in line, or even on the telephone, to speak to a real human being. If I can spend two minutes on the Internet and save twenty minutes of my life, I’ll chose ecommerce every time.

There are a few options for those who want to help their guests and supporters purchase tickets on their own schedules, at their own convenience, online.

• Hire a web designer to build the perfect checkout for your website, allowing customers to purchase tickets to your event right from your homepage. You’ll get exactly what you want, and make it easy for your guests to check out, but this is an expensive option, and may take some time to develop.
• Build a virtual store using a site such as Shopify.com, Flyingcart.com, or Highwire.com. These sites allow you to add events, collect payment, and track sales. However, you will have to spend some time setting them up, and maintaining them can be costly. There may be monthly fees, or a cost for adding new items for purchase.
• Use an online ticket sales site, such as Ticket River, where you can create a page for your event in a minute or two and start selling event tickets immediately. You’ll be able to accept all major credit cards, plus PayPal payments, and it won’t cost you anything!

The online ticket sales site is really your best value. You don’t have to host anything, or pay for anything. You’ll never lose money if sales are down. At Ticket River, the only cost is a 3% service charge added to each transaction, pretty much the lowest surcharge in the industry. Compare that to a markup that could exceed 58% from a company like TicketMaster! Most customers don’t mind paying a tiny fee for the convenience of doing business on their own terms (e.g. at 3 a.m. in pajamas and bunny slippers).

Creating a page for your event helps you sell more tickets, since it’s easy to paste the URL wherever you think people might be interested to know about your event. Customize your event page with a photograph and all the details about your event and your organization and put that page to work for you.

Once you start selling event tickets, a good online ticket sales site, such as Ticket River, will collect names and addresses for your mailing list and even help you track sales by generating charts and graphs! You’ll be able to sell e-tickets, which can be printed out at home, or you can send paper tickets out through the mail, or hold tickets at will call. Whatever makes sense to you: selling tickets through an online ticket sales website is a flexible way to create the sales you want.

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Event Tickets can do more that just admit one.

Sure, it’s easy to rip the stub off a perforated general admission ticket and drop one half into a bin, while your guests jam the other half into the pocket of their jeans, where it is destined to take an all-expenses paid trip through the washing machine. Or, you could start to look at the tickets to your upcoming event in an entirely different way.

Your event’s tickets can take on a life of their own when you breath new purpose into them. Printing tickets can open doors for your organization. Those tickets are pretty versatile!

Print your event tickets with an eye for creativity, and they will serve you well.

• Advertisement

With an eye-catching design and your organization’s logo printed right on the body of the ticket, your tickets can serve you well from the moment they leave the box office or the sales teams’ hands. Handsome, well-designed general admission tickets have a tendency to hang around on corkboards or refrigerators, where they help generate interest in your event and your mission.

• Souvenir

Event Tickets don’t have to be ticket-sized. Think differently. If you find an image you love, one that really represents you, why not make it a little bigger? A larger format VIP Pass, Invitation, or a Poster or a Flyer, can work as a ticket, and such a ticket can live on after the event as a frameable souvenir. You can even create inexpensive frames to pass out to your guests.

• Raffle Ticket

High quality Event Tickets should be printed with sequential numbering on the body and the stub, and what more do you need to hold a prize draw? A Raffle Ticket that comes with the price of admission is a value-added reward for your guests, and helps to boost ticket sales. Just remind your guests to hold on to their ticket stubs. You can drop the body of the ticket into a hat, from which you’ll draw the winning number.

• Game Piece

Print a few different designs, and let each Event Ticket stand as a game piece for some activity at your event. You might use them to divide guests into groups, or to lead them to other parts of the event. The image might be a clue in a game, or a picture of an item in a scavenger hunt. Uploading your own image to a ticket with a space for that purpose really allows you to customize the event. Make it whatever you want.

• Security

Don’t worry about gatecrashers. Using Event Tickets, or even Event Badges, helps you keep the venue secure. You can restrict access to certain areas, or quickly double check if someone has paid for a ticket. Printing different tickets, or adding VIP Passes, lets you scale your security: certain tickets provide certain levels of mobility. No ticket, no access.

You’ve got to have tickets for most events, just to serve as proof of purchase. And if you’re already printing your own Event Tickets online, why not spend a little extra time putting those tickets to work for you?

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You may have sold out the event, but last year’s Christmas party got out of hand, and not in that good way, which leaves you with a bad headache and perhaps a bill for a few broken windows, along with the reputation as the organization selling the hottest ticket in town. It was merely a matter of poor planning. Selling plenty of tickets to the event was just not enough. Long before printing the event tickets, there are stages of preparation that ensure the perfect party.

• Book the venue
• Hire caterers
• Hire bartenders
• Book the entertainment

Seems simple enough, but each of these steps requires more forethought. Don’t just sign the first contract that comes along. When booking the venue, consider your needs. How many people can you reasonably expect to show up? How many can the venue accommodate? Don’t forget the unmentionable basics: will there be enough restrooms for all the guests? How about easy access to the outdoors for smokers? The fanciest ballroom in town will still flop if partygoers are packed in shoulder to shoulder with no room to move.

As for caterers and bartenders, be certain that you understand the terms of their contract. While you may be impressed by the quality of the food, it will do you little good if you didn’t realize that you were supposed to provide your own plates. The caterer may be happy to bring their own tables and chairs, or these may be provided by the venue, but if nobody brings tables and chairs, that can lead to disaster. Some party planners are chagrined to find that their very expensive caterer provides only plastic flatware. Communication is key. If you think your guests may find the bartender’s tip jar a little tacky, assure him or her that you will be tipping generously at the end of the night. Ask for what you want. Negotiate up front.

Discuss your expectations with the entertainment as well. Will the band be willing to play an extra set if the party runs long? If that’s a possibility, you probably want to set up the terms in advance. If you’re hiring a Santa Claus impersonator, be sure to get some references. It’s important to know that you’re truly hiring a professional who won’t let you, or your young guests, down.

Once you’ve settled on the basics, printing event tickets is a breeze. With the knowledge that your venue, food, drinks, and entertainment are planned, you can easily add the event’s highlights to a ticket template and begin selling with confidence: confidence that the entire night is well in hand.

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