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.

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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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The year is 2010 and the face of live theater has changed. Around the globe, money is tight, attention spans are short, and approaching-infinite hours of free entertainment are available 24 hours a day in the privacy of the viewer’s home. The new millennium, it might seem, has not been friendly to a venerable tradition that asks patrons to pay for the privilege of turning off their cell phones, sitting in one place for three hours, and listening quietly without offering any opinions beyond appropriately placed applause, laughter, and perhaps an occasional and well-deserved hiss.

Not a friendly environment in which to create a successful new company.

But live theater isn’t dead: far from it. Your company offers an experience that cannot be replicated in front of a computer monitor. It’s hard, sweaty, uphill work, but hot new companies are making their mark, inspired by the bonds of friendship and their passion for acting.

The Players

Who are these starry-eyed optimists, and how are they faring?

Trial by Fire, based in Eugene, Oregon, is founder Benjamin Newman’s lifeline in a hostile world. Reborn over and over again from the ashes of projects going back as far as 1999, the group achieved what seems to be a sustainable critical success this year.

Aerial Angels and Stand Up 8, the brainchildren of writer-director-actor Allison Williams, are based out of Kalamazoo, Michigan, but have developed as traveling troupes, presenting their unique brand of circus arts all around the world since 2003.

And making their mark in film-saturated Los Angeles, California, title3, founded by reunited classmates Lane Allison, Molly Leland, Jane Montosi, and Jiehae Park, has waded into the water with their first production and found it inviting.

The Backstory

So, how does one create a theater company with no money, no space, and no history? Is love of the stage enough to succeed?

Benjamin Newman would say that, for some, it isn’t even a choice. He recalls the mantra, offered by countless professionals across the country: If you can imagine yourself doing something else, then this is not where you belong. “I have tried,” he says, “but I cannot. Where I have veered from my path, life became confusing and disorienting, a series of challenges which I was unable to face, because I had no support, no grounding, no definition.” If the creative path is an actor’s North Star, dedicated performers, must, like Newman, return again and again, to trod the boards, regardless of the outcome. Or, as Allison Williams says, “truly motivated people don’t fail—they have learning experiences in which money is lost or creative dreams go unrealized, but it’s not failure unless they walk away without being educated by it.”

So the short answer is yes, if your love is strong enough, passion can carry the day. But the long answer, of course, is that love is merely the propeller that moves you forward through each new script, new rehearsal, new production, new season. Love lets you persevere. Today’s artists must also carry with them a new toolbox: the gear if the information age.

The Setting

The old ways are disappearing, according to Williams. Traditional theater is “extremely boring and pointlessly irrelevant and ridiculously overpriced. Its audience is literally…greying out and dying. Subscription theatre is fading away—nobody under 40 ever wants to see another kitchen sink drama ever again—watching Death of a Salesman once in high school was enough.” The future, it seems, is in finding new ways of telling stories. We may be telling the same stories as those who came before, Newman argues, but we tell them through the lens of our own perceptions, so that each new telling provides a new understanding. Though all the stories may have been told, we still must “let each man and woman have their turn” in telling so that we do “not simply honor one voice, but all voices.”

This philosophy was the nucleus of title3’s origin. The group evolved organically out of a weekly writer’s group, where participants began to focus on women’s experience and the place of the female voice in the arts. While simply complaining got them nowhere, they realized, “we could generate the kind of change we hoped for. Thus, our company mission: dedication to the creation of innovative work with an emphasis on providing opportunities for women in the arts.” And so, another company was born, one working within the parameters of the modern world.

With its focus established, title3 reports that, “doors opened and people aligned in ways we never would have thought possible.” LA, perhaps, needed title3’s perspective as much as title3 needed a forum in which to present it.

It’s not surprising, then, that for their first production, they chose a new play by Constance Congdon, called Paradise Street, one that required an all-female cast. Trial by Fire, in earlier incarnations, performed works written by Newman himself. Although less concerned with modernity, they have created a focus on outsider voices, first making a success of Kiss of the Spider Woman and now opening Alfred Jarry’s surrealist work Ubu Roi.

The Properties

In the 21st century, the default setting for multiple voices is, of course, the Internet, and those with stories to tell cannot ignore the power of the web for communicating their message. Successful modern theaters understand the need to harness those channels. Newman exults in the possibilities of a world where “artists who have just begun their career can simply be stumbled upon, and more forms of expression, such as film, music, writing, photography, and painting, are just a click away.”

By this point, even most traditional old theaters have at least begun to make a place for themselves in cyberspace, but the vanguard is completely comfortable there: the Internet is their living room, their office, and their playground. They no longer conduct letter-writing campaigns; they send mass emails. They don’t rely on print media to spread the word; they create their own websites from which to launch publicity drives, drum up support, issue press releases, and spread the word.

For title3, there was no question that web presence went hand-in-hand with a new venture. They began not only with a website, but also with a strong presence on social media channels such as Facebook. To date, they have successfully shared photos on their website and Facebook pages, and they are in the process of developing video content that illustrates their process: recordings of rehearsals and “other interactive offerings.”

In fact, title3 considers itself  “a multimedia production company.” They began with theater, because that was what they knew, but ultimately they “also have a goal to use multimedia in our theater work and hopefully expand to other media in future.”

Allison Williams also understands the driving force of Web 2.0 for creating a vibrant community of fans and attracting new patrons. Explaining the power of social networking, she says, “being ‘friends’ rather than an advertiser is powerful and important.” She’s also comfortable posting not only teasers, but also entire acts, on YouTube. The way she sees it, “our enemy is not piracy but obscurity.”

For modern theaters, there can be no conflict between these two modes, and offering up some content in public forums can only lead to positive publicity. Williams explains, “The experience of seeing it live is fundamentally different than a YouTube experience,” and, she even goes so far as to say, “live theatre has an edge over movies.” In the twenty-first century, offering a few tantalizing tastes—or even an entire serving—only whets the viewers’ appetites for the real experience: live theater, performed by real human beings in front of real human beings. On demand content is wonderful, but it is no substitute for an event that cannot be paused, that has a life independent of the viewer’s decision to hit the play button.

While title3 calls the Internet “a primary driver of both publicity and ticket sales,” and, through tracking, learned “that Facebook and email were effective in mobilizing people to attend our performances,” Williams’ traveling show reports that only a small percentage of their ticket sales take place online, with the majority purchased at the door. However, they’ve used other modern tactics to boost sales, such as Street Crew. According to Williams, “it’s personal contact that sells a lot of tickets.” Sending supporters out to stump for the show, offering deals such as free admission if you bring 3 friends or hang 10 posters, helped them boost attendance and create new fans. Newman agrees: in his mind, the Internet is a great boon for communication, up to a point, but, he says, “there is simply no substitute for human contact.”

The lesson here is that you can’t ignore either end: you’ve got to utilize all the technological tools in your arsenal, and you must continue making direct contact with patrons. You may simply need to get creative on both sides.

The Backers

Trial by Fire has recently filed for nonprofit status and begun to apply for grants and search out new sponsors in anticipation of running a full season in 2010/2011. Newman himself has sunk a great deal of his own capital into getting shows produced in the past, and, like many producers, watched the dual evolution of a critical success alongside a fiscal failure. Now, it looks as if Trial by Fire is finally poised to achieve solid financial ground.

While Trial by Fire’s evolution was long and convoluted, inextricably tied to Newman’s emotional state and his own determination to try again, title3’s first production came together in a more surprising way. Just as the group had begun discussing a production, they were offered a space “on very appealing terms.” The only catch was that the slot was only 2 months in the future, “an insanely short period of time to rehearse and put up a show, much less choose the show, do preproduction, and set up a company.”

But, the group was dedicated to following through. How did they get funding in such a short period of time? They made direct appeals, sending letters to everyone they knew: family, friends, former professors. Rather than simply asking for money, they explained their mission statement and helped donors understand how their contributions would further that cause. They also filed for fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas so they could receive tax-deductible donations. The next step for title3 will be to increase their fundraising efforts, and to begin applying for government grants.

Stand Up 8 took a different, and very modern approach, to finding funding. Conceived as a for-profit venture, the group originally hoped to find 80 donors willing to contribute $1000 apiece. Williams says, “I thought we’d start with our parents and move outward from there, but then a friend told me about the Canadian reality TV show Dragons’ Den.” They auditioned, got on, and hit big, attracting investor W. Brett Wilson, now a half-owner of Stand Up 8.

For the Aerial Angels group, Williams keeps the overhead low. The Angels usually perform at street festivals and similar outdoor events. They often book gigs that are paid in advance,

but just as often they conclude their shows with a hat pass. Williams explains, “We get paid by doing an amazing show that connects with people on a personal level, by touching their hearts and their funny bones to get to their wallets.” She can easily see that the more joy she brings to her audience, the more money she makes. “We offer a 30 minute escape with awe and wonder and comedy, and we ask for the price of a cup of fancy coffee, and the people who can afford to pay subsidize the people who can’t.”

For Williams, nonprofit status wasn’t worth the effort. She found “the level of hassle and paperwork is so tedious it wasn’t worth the piddling grants,” and feels that receiving adequate grants requires employing full-time grant writers. “Frankly,” she says, “I’d rather just go out and make the money without the strings.” Williams, who has written, directed, and starred in dozens of stage productions, makes good use of her experience and consummate can-do attitude to really make live theater pay off. Her belief is that, if you are selling a desirable product, people will buy it, and you can feel good about encouraging them to do so. If it’s not good enough to sell, she says, “start over with a better product.”

She attributes some of her ease at selling performance as a product to “being a non-fourth-wall performer,” who constantly connects with the audience. Selling herself onstage is the same as selling herself before the show. At the same time, she acknowledges, “I’ve done my fair share of Shakespeare, and marketing that is the same process, so maybe more serious theatre people should be thinking like circus artists.”

 

Curtain Calls

Live theater, Williams believes, is ready for a revival. Audiences “do still want to see stories and connect with humans and be a part of an experience they can’t have with their TV, they just don’t always know they want it and they’re unwilling to pay more than their phone bill to find out.” The women of title3 agree that one of the greatest challenges to modern theater is that younger generations have less exposure to theatre and arts in general. For one thing, “school arts programs are disappearing,” so “children won’t have theater as a frame of reference.” As technology captures a greater share of entertainment, young adults “may choose to spend their entertainment dollars on other mediums simply due to the fact that they don’t really know what theater is or means.”

But companies like Stand Up 8, title3, and Trial by Fire are committed to combating those attitudes. The world needs live theater, and the modern world needs a modern theater. Modern theaters must make their own way and recreate the ancient art. Newman reminds us that our dearest dreams are not presented to us “in a nice little package all wrapped up with a bow on top. You have to fight for them, you have to travel long distances to find them, and most importantly, you have to make them for yourself.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Wristband Reminders

Consider the Event Wristband, a thin Tyvek thread that connects your organization and your supporters. When your annual fundraising event is over, how do you stay connected with your attendees? You want to keep your cause on their radar throughout the year, and you want them to return with enthusiasm when the time comes to host your event again. You may stay in contact with your guests through personal interactions, direct mailers, newsletters and email updates, but these are only effective if you've done the work to build goodwill with your patrons from the beginning.

How do your patrons stay connected with your cause? Do they remember the reason for the event once the last band has left the stage and the kettle corn has gone cold? Does your event or cause come up in casual conversation? Are your patrons left with positive reminders of the big day that they can turn to once it's done? Will they keep their Event Wristbands to remind themselves of the wonderful time they had at your past event?

While planning the actual event is important, it's just as important to consider what happens afterward. Helping your guests create positive memories is necessary to growing your event over time, and your Event Wristbands can be part of those memories.

Start with your Event

What keeps your guests buying event tickets year after year? First and foremost, you know how to put on a great occasion! It's well-planned and well-executed, for a worthy cause, and provides your guests with the opportunity to create memories will last forever. 

Guests who return have strong associations with your event.  It's already special to them. Perhaps a married couple wearing your carnival wristbands at this year's celebration met on your midway at a past one, and they return to reclaim the happy feeling of that day, and to collect a new wristband to add to their memory book. Maybe your neighborhood picnic has become someone's family tradition or your annual art fair has become a festive occasion the whole community looks forward to and plans around. Last year's wristband may remind them to buy this year's tickets.

New attendees are experiencing your annual fundraising event for the first time. They may already feel strongly about your cause, but it's just as likely they were drawn to your event not by the cause but by the activities you have to offer.  Maybe they don't know much about the women's shelter you're fundraiser is benefiting, but you've booked a band they really want to see. Your goal is to show them a great time that they will connect with your charity in the years that follow. From the moment they don their admission wristbands and walk through the gates, you have their attention. Make good use of it!

Provide Opportunities for Memories

Don't miss any opportunity to help your guests create strong, lasting memories.  From the moment you plan your promotion through the day of your event, you can lay the groundwork to keep your cause in your guest's hearts and minds through the months and years to come. Every time and in every way you interact with your patrons you sculpt how they perceive your cause.

Start by choosing collateral appropriate to your audience. The right images and language can draw the attention of your patrons and sustain it for a long time. Before your fundraiser, you can advertise using well-designed posters and flyers or direct mailers such as invitations and postcards.  During your event maintain the same branding on your tickets, admission wristbands, and other collateral.

Custom tickets work well for crowd management, but custom event wristbands are also quite useful. Patrons wear these from the moment they walk through your gate until after they leave. Different color wristbands can help you quickly discern the ages of guests for drink concessions or tell who has access to which activities. Most importantly they serve as constant reminders for the guest themselves. They need only to catch a glimpse of their wrists to remember the reason for the day. When they leave the event, admission wristbands can also be the cause of conversation and questions helping you drum up interest in your cause by word of mouth.

Something to Hold Onto

After your fundraising event, your guests will be left with many strong memories of the time they spent there. The collateral they take with them can help serve as a reminder of your day. Along with the pictures they might take, your guests will also have your branded tickets and event wristbands to help evoke a sense of nostalgia. When these are branded with the design of your event, they become souvenirs of the wonderful time they had and reminders of the cause you hope to promote.

 

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Are you part of the resurgence in the world’s most awesome sport? It’s time for you and all your roller derby gals to get competitive. You can offer public sporting events—your team versus other local rollers. Start planning, promoting, and selling event tickets for your bouts and let your jammers start lapping for the fans! It’s time to lace up your skates, squeeze into your campiest uniform, and get rolling.

Call it like it is: Your team moniker

Roller Derby teams need clever names. Puns reflecting your punk third-wave feminist roots are a sure draw for crowds and fans: the Sandra Day O’Clobbers, the Shevil Knevils, the Beauty School Knockouts, and the Rushin’ Rollettes. Be as violent as you like! Or, choose two words, say an adjective and a noun, that best encompass your team, like the Zany Fembots. Just make sure your name is intriguing and your fans feel like they’re in on the joke.

High noon: When to meet

When you’re ready to brawl, contact other roller derby teams in your area and decide which one your team will battle. You may be able to join a league and schedule a series of derbies. Can’t decide whom to meet first? Create your own raffle tickets and draw a name from a hat. Once you’ve decided upon whom, you need to figure out when. Pick a date and a time for your event. Consider days and times that would work best for the audience you are trying to attract. Audiences for roller derbies are diverse: from families to hipsters to teens, so your breadth should be vast, but conscious about your target audience. Families prefer daytime, weekend event. Teens may be available in the afternoon, after school, and twenty-somethings like to stay out late.

Meet me in the parking lot: Choose your venue:

If your city doesn’t already have a dedicated roller derby rink, you will to find need a venue that can satisfy the inherent needs of the sport. True roller derby typically requires a sports arena or a gymnasium, but you could also convert a large gallery or performance space. If you know of a space that often exhibits artwork or avant garde performance, you may persuade them to host your derby as a way to further the venue’s original intent. Perhaps a very large gallery that could accommodate a derby may choose to have your team battle another team in their space while highlighting related artwork such as photographs of Derby girls alongside your event. If the venue already has a box office or a way of handling ticket sales, that’s a bonus for you, as it makes it easier to sell event tickets.

Shout it out: Event promotion

Get your artists on the job. Your general promotion should be creative and intriguing. Collage-style designs featuring your team portrait or other relevant images can be distributed as postcards. Include the date and time, the venue, the ticket price, the names of the both teams, and information on where to get the tickets (don’t forget to include any relevant URLs). Take it to the streets and pass out the postcards in your derby garb to attract some attention. Hang posters in book shops, record stores, college campuses, and other local businesses. In addition to this, use your website and other networking tools such as Facebook to promote the event.

At the door: Get your event tickets right here

Have fun with these! Use your original promotional designs to create a unique custom ticket, or choose an online event ticket template. These can be printed on demand and are a good way to create the tickets for your event. Remember to include the same pertinent information you used on your postcard or promotional flyer: who, what, when, where, how much. Don’t forget web addresses or phone numbers where people can get more information. Consider creative ways to make those tickets your own! In designing your event tickets, you may include the logo for both teams or photos of the two teams. Individually numbered event tickets with perforated stubs help you keep track of attendance, control the venue, and increase security. Selling event tickets helps you realize some profit for your event, giving your team even more passion to have a great and memorable roller derby battle!

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Even huge events focusing on large issue such as hunger relief or cancer research can benefit from an active grassroots movement to aid a larger, national cause. It’s time to gather your local grassroots community! If you are starting such a community from scratch, call a town meeting that will give you an opportunity to gauge the importance of your movement within your community, as well as find volunteers who can help you get the ball rolling.

 

*  You Got Your Goodwill Army, So Now What? Now that you have the support and muscle of people in your community, your grassroots effort may begin. With these people, begin to plan and create a fundraiser. Let them tell you what the community wants. Sell tickets to the event to raise money. Sell raffle tickets to generate even more money for your cause.

*  Get Local Exposure: Utilize local media such as newspapers and radio stations to raise awareness of your cause and your event. Be sure to tell people in the community how they can attain a ticket to your fundraising event. Take notes to ensure that you say all that needs to be said via the media to get the word out about your cause and your fundraiser. Use statistics, even local statistics if you can get them, to further the cause. For example, if you are raising awareness about Diabetes and aim to have a fundraiser about it, be sure to cite stats such as how many people in the country have the disease, as well as a stat of how many people in your community are afflicted. The reality of statistics will give your grassroots movement a solid foundation and awake the cause within your community. 

*  You Got the Exposure, Begin Planning the Event: Much of the preliminary details such as where and when must be decided before you speak to the media. But there’s more to planning and implementing the details: food, entertainment, or speakers. Continuing to use the example of a grassroots movement for Diabetes, an appropriate speaker could be a local doctor or an artist or musician in the community. Often local authorities and celebrities will donate their time for a fundraiser. Put out calls in the community for appropriate speakers to perform or speak at your event.

*  Event Tickets for Your Fundraiser: Research event ticket designs: choose the perfect ticket template and create your own tickets online for speed and convenience. After your tickets have been designed and printed, begin selling within your community. In addition to selling your event tickets to your friends, neighbors, and coworkers, pound the pavement and do some selling door to door. Continue to promote the event, reminding potential guests about to get tickets. Use poster, flyers, Internet forums, microblogging, social networks, and your website. It is easy to create a simple website that can be exclusive to your cause with news and a schedule of events at this fundraiser and others to come. The website can also function as a way to educate the community about your cause as well as keep a running tally on the money that has been raised.

*  Don’t Stop When the Party’s Over: Your successful grassroots campaign has created a mobile army for your cause. Keep them mobilized. Encourage them to bring new and creative ideas to the table and run with them.

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Say your event has become a tradition in your community. You can count on your base to buy event tickets and show up, but your basic audience has not changed in years. How do you increase your roster from the traditional and convince new people to buy tickets to your event? By altering even small aspects of a tried and true event, you can attract new audiences: From revising publicity materials and punching up promotional event tickets to adding a trendy spin or a popular attraction, open yourself to possibilities and watch your ticket sales soar.

 

*  Get Out of the Box: Sometimes the best way to move beyond routine is to observe your standard operating procedure with a fresh set of eyes. Take inventory of what you have done over the years. Which elements have contributed to the success of the event? Is it the design used on event tickets and promotional materials? The entertainment? The venue? Then, consider how to use your old ideas in new ways, or update those options. Having trouble seeing with fresh eyes? Ask creative friends and guests for their opinion.

*  Answers Into Action: After taking this inventory of what has worked and deciding how you’ll revise the event to attract a new audience, get started. Don’t wait! Spring into action as long before the event as you can. Allowing yourself plenty of planning time help ticket sales go smoothly and guards against mistakes that would detract, not attract, guests in the future.

*  What Kind of Audience: Decide what type of audience you want and cater to their needs. If you want more children and young adults at your event, consider something like a Make a Sundae stand for your fundraiser. Teen volunteers can man the stand to help the young children. Many teens are looking for community service hours for their own extracurriculars, like the National Honors Society, and local teens are always a good resource to pull in a new audience. Often teens will buy Event Tickets if they know their friends will be there.

*  Ho Hum to Electrifying: Small changes can add a great new dimension to your traditional event. Customizing an event ticket can be the first step in customizing an event. Other elements such as entertainment or food and drink being served at your event can further your success in attracting new audiences. If you have always had a spaghetti dinner fundraiser, try something just a little different, such as a Lasagna Dinner, adding a catchy title that ties the fundraiser to the organization being funded. Research trends and find out what foods people want to try and what music they want to hear.

*  Spread the Word in Fresh Places: If you desire more elderly patrons to come to your event, print custom event tickets that can be raffled off at a local senior center. For more youthful participants advertise online, and at local high schools and colleges. A diverse audience will always give you a new audience, so cater your promotional materials and tickets to all facets of your community. Spreading a wide net in a variety of places will assist your event in attracting many different people to your event and make it a true and new success.

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