Even the most seasoned event creator can find themselves dealing with event tickets not selling as quickly as hoped. You may carefully plan an event and make your big ticketing launch. But then days go by, then weeks, and ticket sales stay sluggish. You’re facing the prospect of hosting a near-empty event or trying to figure out how to cancel it with minimal damage.

In this guide, we share our top tips and tricks to increase ticket sales. Learn how to attract more guests by focusing on your unique selling point (USP) and target audience, how to reach out to guests on any device, and how to optimize sales with the right ticketing strategy, pricing, and checkout experience. Here’s a quick overview of what we’ll cover:

Contents

1. Increase ticket sales by focusing on your event’s benefits
2. Optimize your event site for mobile
3. Sell more event tickets with a simple checkout process
4. Find your USP to combat low ticket sales
5. Rethink your pricing

How do you attract attendees to an event?

6. Improve SEO to increase ticket sales
7. Get the word out about your event
8. Drive ticket sales on social media
9. Adapt your event description to increase ticket sales

FAQ: How to sell more tickets

Put these tricks into practice

1. Increase ticket sales by focusing on your event’s benefits

You can see the benefit of attending your event — but can your target audience see it? Often when an event flops, it’s because organizers have failed to consider what will really motivate people to attend.

If your primary objective for hosting an event is to grow your brand, what’s in it for your customers? Can they learn something, make new connections, meet a VIP, or receive a once-in-a-lifetime experience? Make sure you know what appeals to your attendees and deliver on that experience.

Here’s the fix to increase your event ticket sales

To ensure your target audience understands the value of your event, you need to show every guest how you’ve created the perfect event with them in mind. Make sure you’re listening, then continually evolve your events and ticket offerings to maximize the appeal.

• Survey your audience: With feedback surveys, you can ask attendees what they want from a VIP experience or why they would attend a specific event.
• Experiment with your ticket types: With Eventbrite’s ticketing technology, you’ll be able to see how different ticket types perform. Use this data to assess what offerings attendees find most valuable, and adjust your event promotion strategy to focus on these and drive more sales.
• Offer unique add-ons: Appeal to a broader audience with add-ons that diversify your attendees’ experience. Add-ons are the perfect opportunity to maximize event revenue without raising your standard ticket price. This helps ensure you aren’t pricing out some attendees.

2. Optimize your event site for mobile

In 2022, Americans spent an average of around three hours a day on their smartphones. If your customers are browsing on mobile and get sent to a website that isn’t optimized for their device, they’ll likely leave without completing a transaction. With attention spans shrinking, they won’t make the effort to look at your event again.

Mobile technology offers both guests and event creators plenty of advantages, too. Guests get the convenience of pre-filled personal information and credit card data and a smoother checkout experience. Sites that are mobile-optimized see a 160% lift in conversion rates, giving you more potential attendees.

Here’s the fix to increase your event ticket sales

Don’t underestimate the potential for mobile sales. Try these extra tips for an even better mobile experience.

• Do an assessment: Open your event website or ticketing page on your mobile device and critique how it looks and feels.
• Take the Google Mobile-Friendly test: Enter your URL and the test will tell you whether or not Google will recommend it be opened from a mobile search.
• Choose a ticketing partner that is mobile-optimized: If you use Eventbrite, your ticketing page is already mobile-optimized, so it’s just as easy to buy tickets on a phone as on a computer. For other ticketing partners, test your ticketing page on your phone and tablet — and consider making a change if the process isn’t straightforward.

3. Sell more event tickets with a simple checkout process

When someone is interested in attending your event, you want to make the transaction as simple as possible. Even the smallest friction between a guest and a successful sale, such as a complicated registration form or lack of diverse payment options, can push your sale into the “maybe later” (but likely never) basket. If you want to know how to maximize ticket sales for an event, start by removing obstacles to purchase.

Here’s the fix to increase your event ticket sales

The good news is that usability problems are easy to address with the right technology. The ideal customer journey should be fast, simple, and intuitive so that buyers leave your site having had a positive experience.

• Implement a simple checkout solution: Find a solution that is three or four steps to check out, maximum. While some ticketing platforms require as many as eight steps to complete a transaction, with Eventbrite, your customers are only two clicks away from a ticket purchase.
• Secure your checkout: A top reason for abandoning a purchase is doubts about payment security. Choose a ticketing partner such as Eventbrite that is trusted, so that attendees feel confident about the purchases they’re making.
• Use pre-fill technology: Minimise the opportunities for buyers to reconsider their purchases by using a technology platform that pre-fills as much of a guest’s registration data as possible. The Eventbrite platform allows guests to pre-fill their data from their Eventbrite account, or if they prefer to buy without setting up a user account, their data can be pre-filled from their mobile device with ease.

4. Find your USP to combat low ticket sales

Try searching for events like yours — are you getting lost in the noise? Your guests have finite time and budget for events. Make sure that your event is distinctive and your offer is compelling so that they’ll choose to spend those resources on you.

To improve your USP and increase ticket sales you may need to adjust your marketing to cut to the chase about why your event isn’t like the others.

Here’s the fix to increase your event ticket sales

Creating a compelling USP starts from the moment you conceive your event idea. Scan your market and competitors to understand how they’re positioning their events, and create a narrative for your event that showcases its unique benefits.

• Try something different: If your event lacks a standout point of difference, consider partnering up with another brand to create something new. This could be something that enhances the event experience, such as a foodie experience at a music event, or it could be out of the box to attract a varied audience, like beer tasting at a yoga class!
• Leverage all of your event partners: Partnering with other organizations is not only a great way to vary your event, but you also get the added benefit of expanding your reach by tapping into more databases. If you have a guest speaker or artist, enlist their help with promoting the event too — directly targeting people who have an interest in your guests will encourage ticket sales.
• Identify the line items that drive value for your attendees: What makes your event different? Are you really selling it? Determine your event’s unique value to find out what your guests are getting and where you may be falling short.

5. Rethink your pricing

Arguably the most critical part of your event ticketing strategy is pricing, but finding the sweet spot for ticket pricing can be a challenge. If you price your event too low, your profit margins will plummet and the guest experience can be impacted. Conversely, ticket prices that are too high will limit your audience and risk derailing your event entirely. You need to understand:

• What your guests will pay for your kind of event
• What your guests have paid in the past
• What competitors are asking for
• How much profit you expect to make from your event after expenses are accounted for

While pricing is the most critical part of your event ticketing strategy, it’s not the only consideration. The types of tickets you offer can increase ticket sales, from VIP packages to group discounts. Offering diverse ticket types also lets you cater to a broader range of guests on different budgets, without compromising your event experience.

Here’s the fix to increase your event ticket sales

The right ticket pricing strategy requires solid data and analysis, but with the right tools, it doesn’t need to be daunting. Keep an eye on key event metrics and market trends and you should be able to easily spot room for improvement and opportunities for innovation.

• Create a bullet-proof event budget in advance: It’s not enough to track your expenses as they arise. Prepare a thorough event budget — with all costs accounted for and contingency added — so that you know in advance how much your event will cost and how much profit you can generate.
• Understand your audience: Analyze your previous event ticket sales data to understand how to sell more tickets to an event you’re running now. Did you offer a popular early-bird or VIP ticket for a previous event? If sales of a particular kind of ticket went well, can you offer more of this kind at your next event?
• Offer pre-purchase to control costs: If you’re offering food, drinks, or merchandise for your guests to purchase at your event, offering these for pre-purchase can help you meet demand and maximize your event budget.

How can you attract attendees to an event?

Time to turn your attention to promoting your event to your target audience. The right promotional strategy will communicate the benefits of your event in a succinct and enticing way, in a place they’re likely to see it, and at a time when they’re ready to engage and commit.

Successful event organizers are often storytellers who can build a story around their event. If your marketing efforts are falling flat, it could be that your promotional timelines are off and your messaging needs to be mapped out differently.

6. Improve SEO to improve ticket sales

SEO (or search engine optimization) is an important digital strategy that helps ensure your website shows up when people do an internet search. Here are some quick tips on how to strengthen your website’s SEO:

• Optimize your online presence: Your event website and social media channels should have a consistent name for your event and should link to each other to drive more traffic to your event website. Google and other search engines give a lot of weight to high-traffic sites when ranking search results.
• Refine your messaging: The words you choose to put on your homepage and in your content should align with the keywords your potential attendees might be searching for. A quick review of your event description and website messages can identify opportunities to carefully place more keywords that improve your search performance.
• Keep the content flowing: Adding authentic, valuable content to your site gives it authority, which contributes to better search rankings. Add a blog, post regular updates, and re-share user-generated content as your event grows. This can both improve your search ranking and keep potential guests coming back and engaged until they commit to purchasing.

7. Get the word out about your event

Having a website for your event is just the start. You also have to find ways to promote it on a variety of digital channels and social media platforms. The right combination of channels can help you reach more potential attendees, make it easy for them to engage with your content, and see them share it with their networks for increased reach.

• Enlist sponsors to help promote the event: If you have speakers, panelists, and partners involved with your event, encourage them to share your event with their networks to expand your reach. Make it simple for them by supplying social media messaging that they can use and adapt for their audiences.
• Consider running fun contests: Encourage fans to tweet out your event hashtag or share something entertaining to be entered into a random draw for free event tickets.
• Make use of referrals: What’s one of the best forms of social proof for your event? Having your guests share your event with their networks. Incentivize sharing with referral bonuses like free or discounted tickets, exclusive content, or free merchandise.

8. How do you drive ticket sales on social media?

The most effective way to sell event tickets online is with a cohesive digital strategy that promotes your event across your website and chosen social media platforms. The right technology can also streamline your efforts and make it easy for buyers to purchase tickets from their social media feed in just a few clicks.

• Leverage social networks: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the big four where you’ll want to concentrate your efforts. Share updates with your followers and consider using targeted ads to reach your prime audience.
• Tap into your loyal fans: Get in touch with past attendees and your best customers, asking them to promote the event on their own social media channels. You can even incentivize them by offering them a discount or swag if they get a certain number of referrals.
• Get involved in groups: Research where your target buyers come together online and join groups on Reddit, Facebook, or LinkedIn where you can contribute to the community and share your events.

9. Adapt your event description to increase ticket sales

Just because someone stumbles upon your event doesn’t mean they will buy tickets. You only have a few seconds to convince them, so here’s how to accurately describe your live experience:

• See what the competition is doing: Check out other popular events and see what their descriptions are like. Most likely, it will include a “what’s in it for you” statement for the attendees (like high-profile artists or unique experiences), event highlights (who the keynote speaker is and the number of panels), information about the venue or city, and other key info (time and cost).
• Know which information to prioritize: You always want to tailor your event description to your audience. What would make them want to attend? Focus on the value your event will provide, whether it’s your menu, entertainment, or keynote speaker.
• Make it easy to read: No one is going to wade through a big block of text. Use headers and bullets to make the information digestible. Highlight special speakers, artists, and contributors prominently so that guests see the value of your event immediately.
• Help your guests visualize the event: Strategically using images and videos of past events can help your guests to understand what their own event experience could look like and encourage purchase. Reviews and testimonials can help do this in the absence of imagery.

FAQ: How to sell more tickets

How can I speed up my ticket sales?

Advertise early-bird offers like merchandise or premium experiences, and make sure to let your audience know that these incentives are scarce to encourage quick purchases.

How do I increase my ticket count?

Ensure you have the right price set, and consider introducing tiered pricing with Eventbrite’s ticketing tools. Offering a broader range of ticket types and price points can attract different-sized groups of guests on different budgets.

How do you handle slow ticket sales?

Perks like free food and drink passes for guests who purchase before a set date can kickstart sales. If you’re getting close to your event date, hold flash sales for discounted tickets, but make sure that guests who paid full price receive extra benefits like priority seating.

How do you attract crowds to an event?

Attract crowds to your next event with the right ticketing and promotion strategy. Use Eventbrite’s ticketing tools to offer a group ticket option. Evolve your event to include activities and paid add-ons that attract groups, like premium seating areas for group ticket buyers or a group discount.

Put these tricks into practice

Now that you know how to sell more tickets for your event, it’s time to aim even higher for your future event calendar. Check out the 3 Best Ways to Sell Out Your Event.