Launch your event in a new city

Your event is a hit but you think you’ve reached its max­i­mum poten­tial in its cur­rent city? You feel that it’s the right time to extend it to anoth­er city but you don’t know where to start? Indeed, launch­ing your event in a new city is a real chal­lenge because you will have to find a new audi­ence and seduce it. You will also have to forge new part­ner­ships in a city where your event does not have the same rep­u­ta­tion as it does in your own.

The good news is that you have already faced this chal­lenge by launch­ing your event “at home”. So all you need are the right tools and a good strat­e­gy to suc­ceed. Here are 5 tips to help you launch your event in a new city.

Con­tents

1. Search and get in touch with event venues
2. Look for local spon­sors
3. Get infor­ma­tion on local red tape
4. Hire local­ly
5. Adjust your prices

1. Search and get in touch with event venues

The loca­tion of your event has a sig­nif­i­cant impact on the expe­ri­ence you offer to your atten­dees. Choose a loca­tion that will meet your needs — capac­i­ty, avail­abil­i­ty, bright­ness, sound sys­tem — while delight­ing your audi­ence.

If this is the very first time you are organ­is­ing an event in a new city, event venues will tend to offer you high prices. Part­ner with a local who knows the best venues and can there­fore nego­ti­ate the price for you.

Before enter­ing into an agree­ment with a venue, make sure that you agree on can­cel­la­tion terms and con­di­tions, Wi-Fi qual­i­ty, autho­rised providers, and avail­abil­i­ty for set-up. Being spe­cif­ic about the con­tract will help you avoid sur­pris­es lat­er on.

2. Look for local sponsors

When enter­ing a new mar­ket, part­ner with local­ly or nation­al­ly known play­ers to increase your cred­i­bil­i­ty with poten­tial atten­dees. Local spon­sors are par­tic­u­lar­ly suit­able for this, espe­cial­ly if they have been recog­nised for sev­er­al years in your indus­try. They will attract poten­tial par­tic­i­pants who would prob­a­bly not have noticed your event if it was not spon­sored by this or that local play­er.

If you already have spon­sors in your cur­rent city, con­sid­er their pres­ence in the tar­get city and/or their abil­i­ty to expand there.

3. Get information on local red tape

Cities, depend­ing on their geo­graph­i­cal, polit­i­cal, his­tor­i­cal or cul­tur­al con­text, do not all have the same reg­u­la­tions. Find out about the fea­si­bil­i­ty of your event and the autho­ri­sa­tions required before enter­ing into an agree­ment with a venue.

Depend­ing on the speci­fici­ties of the city, you may have to adapt your event: open­ing and clos­ing times, secu­ri­ty of the venue, max­i­mum num­ber of par­tic­i­pants, etc.

4. Hire locally

Chances are you don’t have the bud­get — or the staff — to put togeth­er a team ded­i­cat­ed to your event in a new city. So how do you make sure you have a reli­able and trained team to man­age pro­duc­tion and logis­tics on site? One of the best solu­tions is to turn to inde­pen­dent ser­vice providers.

Whether they have already worked on your own events, or on sim­i­lar events in the tar­get city, they are already trained to pro­vide a ser­vice that meets your expec­ta­tions. You’ll spend less time talk­ing to them and wor­ry­ing about logis­tics. You will be able to con­cen­trate on com­mu­ni­cat­ing about your event.

5. Adjust your prices

Set­ting the price of your event in a new city can be tricky. Over time, you may have been able to find the right price for your event “at home”, but find­ing the bal­ance between an afford­able and prof­itable price for a new city is not so easy. How­ev­er, a few ques­tions can guide you in find­ing the right price for your event, even if there is no quick fix.

Ask your­self the fol­low­ing ques­tions about the tar­get city and start with a good basis for set­ting the price of your event:

• What is the aver­age income in the city?
• How much is the tar­get audi­ence will­ing to pay?
• What prices do your com­peti­tors set?
• What does the tick­et price include?

With these 5 tips, set out to con­quer a new city for your event! In order to set up every­thing that will make your event a suc­cess — online tick­et­ing, access con­trol, and cash­less pay­ments — find out more about our solu­tions and their var­i­ous fea­tures by click­ing on the but­ton below :

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