9 tips for successful events in 2022

If 2021 was the year of the recov­ery, 2022 is sure to be the year where sup­ply exceeds demand. With many of the events planned for 2020 and 2021 post­poned until 2022, you’ll need to stand out from the crowd more than ever to attract atten­dees.
This arti­cle high­lights 9 best prac­tices to make 2022 a suc­cess for your events.

Content

1. Spice up your onsale
2. Relaunch your events ‘like before’
3. Make good use of dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works
4. Set up pre­mi­um seg­men­ta­tion
5. Set up cross-sell­ing
6. Fight the sec­ondary mar­ket
7. Use data to your advan­tage
8. Offer a tick­et­ing ser­vice that suits you
9. Choose your providers care­ful­ly

1. Spice up your onsale

Fes­ti­val goers are con­stant­ly exposed to tick­et launch­es for events tak­ing place in 2022. Orches­trat­ing your tick­et­ing open­ing is there­fore cru­cial to sell­ing as many tick­ets as pos­si­ble.

We advise you to stag­ger your onsale to dif­fer­ent audi­ence groups. To do this, use a CRM to iden­ti­fy your most loy­al atten­dees and allow them to access pri­or­i­ty tick­ets sev­er­al hours or days before open­ing up to the gen­er­al pub­lic.

To reward your cap­tive audi­ence (those who know you, your organ­i­sa­tion and your event), you can also offer them a pri­vate sale. As a com­pre­hen­sive alter­na­tive to pri­or­i­ty sales, for instance, we rec­om­mend set­ting up tick­et sales com­plete with spe­cial ‘add-ons’ around the event. In lim­it­ed quan­ti­ties these unique expe­ri­ences will delight your loy­al atten­dees

You can also ‘gam­i­fy’ your tick­et open­ing by mak­ing it fun and attrac­tive. For instance, you can use a spon­sor­ship deal to turn your atten­dees into ambas­sadors for your event. You could also set up a track­ing link: loy­al atten­dees share their unique link and every time a pur­chase is made via this link the attendee earns points that will con­vert to a rank­ing. The high­est ranked attendee(s) will be able to enjoy exclu­sive rewards.

2. Relaunch your events ‘like before’

Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic we noticed that for­mats which were more sim­i­lar to what the audi­ence was used to gen­er­al­ly had a high­er rate of sale.
Respect­ing the fol­low­ing 3 aspects there­fore plays a major role:

• Time: peri­od of the year, time span, etc.
• Loca­tion: geo­graph­i­cal posi­tion, type of venue, standing/sitting for­mat, etc.
• Con­tent: pro­gramme, ‘extras’, etc.

Mov­ing away from these 3 aspects has often frus­trat­ed and dis­ap­point­ed reg­u­lar audi­ences who expect­ed to expe­ri­ence the event as they knew it.

For 2022, we there­fore rec­om­mend that you offer events in a for­mat as close as pos­si­ble to the one you had before the cri­sis.

3. Make good use of distribution networks

We’ve devot­ed an entire arti­cle to this sub­ject, but we feel it’s impor­tant to go over some prin­ci­ples of using dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works for your tick­et­ing sys­tem.

It’s impor­tant to analyse — or antic­i­pate — your sales pat­terns in order to know the right moment to launch the sale of tick­ets for your event to dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works. This will allow you to rely on them dur­ing slow­er sales peri­ods and not to cre­ate com­pe­ti­tion around sales for your own event.

In 2022, make sure you don’t give every­thing to your dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work:
For instance, try to remain the only one to use your event name in online adver­tis­ing cam­paigns (e.g. Google Ads). If some­one search­es the name of your event or brand on the inter­net it is because they know you and don’t need to go through your dis­trib­u­tors to get their tick­ets. This would result in a loss of direct sales and rev­enue.

4.Set up premium segmentation

Set­ting up pre­mi­um seg­men­ta­tion in your offer­ing will allow you to attract a new audi­ence with high­er pur­chas­ing pow­er.
Indeed, there is high demand for add ons such as glamp­ing or expe­ri­ences that go beyond stan­dard tick­ets.
This audi­ence wants to be able to enjoy your event with extra com­fort which isn’t avail­able to all and impor­tant­ly they’re pre­pared to pay for it. This com­fort can take the form of access to inter­me­di­ate spaces (between the gen­er­al pub­lic and VIPs), addi­tion­al ser­vices, etc.

Offer­ing this type of seg­men­ta­tion for your event will allow you to increase the aver­age bas­ket (this audi­ence con­sumes three times more Food & Bev­er­ages, for exam­ple), and there­fore low­er the price of admis­sion for the Gen­er­al Pub­lic, to attract more atten­dees.

5. Set up cross-selling

Cross-sell­ing allows you to use your online tick­et­ing sys­tem to sell prod­ucts and ser­vices oth­er than tick­ets for your event.

This approach allows you to take advan­tage of the point of pur­chase in which your atten­dees are open to spend­ing. It also allows you to immerse them in the var­i­ous expe­ri­ences they’ll be able to find dur­ing your event.

You can cross-sell prod­ucts or ser­vices that will be avail­able on site, or which are exclu­sive and can’t be pur­chased at any oth­er time.

Some exam­ples of cross sell­ing offers:

• A series of stan­dard items with no lim­it on quan­ti­ty, with or with­out pro­mo­tions, such as mer­chan­dise, drinks, food, etc.
• Pre-sales of items in lim­it­ed quan­ti­ties, often pre­mi­um, such as food, pre­mi­um park­ing, exclu­sive mer­chan­dise, etc.
• Sales of part­ners’ offer­ings

For 2022, keep in mind that imple­ment­ing cross-sell­ing for your events allows you to pro­vide an addi­tion­al ser­vice, seg­ment your offer, increase the aver­age bas­ket and improve your atten­dees’ wel­come at your event.

6. Fight the secondary market

The sec­ondary mar­ket is not always a prob­lem for all events. It is most com­mon around very pop­u­lar events which are sold out long in advance.
Sev­er­al issues come into play: strong prof­i­teer­ing of the tick­et price, scams with fake tick­ets, flood­ing the mar­ket with tick­ets just before the event,etc.

For­tu­nate­ly, var­i­ous solu­tions exist.
Some organ­is­ers choose to take legal action against unau­tho­rised resale plat­forms. How­ev­er, this does not solve all the issues men­tioned above.
Here are some prag­mat­ic and easy to imple­ment solu­tions:

• Use a secure tick­et resale solu­tion, such as Tick­etSwap
• Send tick­ets to your atten­dees as late as pos­si­ble, like with the board­ing pass­es used by air­lines
• Ver­i­fy the iden­ti­ty of atten­dees on site
• Ensure you are the only issuer of valid tick­ets.

7. Use data to your advantage

In the age of read­i­ly and wide­ly avail­able data it would be a shame to miss out on the valu­able lessons you can draw from it. Test­ing, analysing and learn­ing from your data allows you to mea­sure the impact of your choic­es and actions.

For exam­ple, you can under­stand how your audi­ence comes to you by using track­ers and tools such as Google Ana­lyt­ics. This will give you a clear overview of your sales tun­nel, show­ing you if your tick­et sales main­ly come from your email cam­paigns, online adverts, con­tent on your social net­works, your part­ners, etc.

Analysing data dur­ing your sales cycle will allow you to adapt and cor­rect your actions based on real inputs, not on guess work or pre­con­ceived ideas.
It will also allow you to con­tin­u­ous­ly improve your future events.

Our tick­et­ing tool, cou­pled with our CRM, gives you a com­pre­hen­sive overview and expla­na­tion of your data.

8. Offer a ticketing service that suits you

It is impor­tant to con­sid­er the user expe­ri­ence to ensure your atten­dees want to come to your event and also to immerse them in your uni­verse before your event even takes place.
It might be appeal­ing for them to be trans­port­ed between your var­i­ous plat­forms with­in a coher­ent graph­ic unit. This means, for exam­ple, sim­i­lar colours and visu­als on your web­site, social net­works, emails, tick­et­ing mod­ule, and so on.

For the most pleas­ant expe­ri­ence pos­si­ble, we rec­om­mend that you add your tick­et­ing mod­ule direct­ly to your web­site. If you don’t have a web­site, Weezevent allows you to cre­ate a unique mini-site for your event in just a few min­utes. Cre­at­ing one is:

• Free
• Sim­ple
• In your image
• Cus­tomis­able

Read our com­pre­hen­sive arti­cle on the mini-sites we offer.

9. Choose your providers carefully

In 2022, don’t select your providers sole­ly on the basis of your bud­get.
To organ­ise an event that meets your expec­ta­tions and those of your atten­dees it’s essen­tial that you find sup­pli­ers who real­ly meet your needs. By invest­ing now in the work of recog­nised, high-qual­i­ty ser­vice providers you will ensure a bet­ter return on your invest­ment lat­er.

As we’ve seen in pre­vi­ous years, the unex­pect­ed is the essence of the events sec­tor. The worst thing that can hap­pen is if you’re unable to react quick­ly and adapt to the unex­pect­ed. It’s cru­cial that you mit­i­gate the impact of any unfore­seen events.

When it comes to tick­et­ing, choose a ser­vice provider who can quick­ly refund your atten­dees in case of can­cel­la­tion or post­pone­ment, who can set up total or par­tial dona­tions of the tick­et price, who allows you to com­mu­ni­cate rapid­ly with your atten­dees … In short, one who is flex­i­ble and avail­able 24/7.

To learn more about how Weezevent can help you suc­ceed in 2022, con­tact our advi­sors who will be able to guide you accord­ing to your needs.

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