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3 Ways to Drive Ticket Sales for Your Show

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Posted: Jan 6, 2015

Category: Advanced Ticketing

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**Guest post written by Joy Ike, creator of Grassrootsy.com and Independent Musician, as featured on Grassrootsy.com.

 

"Oftentimes people don’t understand the importance of pre-sales. In fact, if a fan doesn’t think a particular show will sell out, they usually don’t feel the need to buy advance tickets even if they do intend on coming. But pre-sales are important because they…

 

  • help you the artist gauge how well your promo is going
  • help the venue determine how busy the night is and how many employees they need to staff the room
  • help both you and the venue determine if it will be a well-attended, successful show

 

Here are some tips for encouraging pre-sales and making sure your show is a success even before it even happens:

 

 

1. Stress the ticket price difference

People respond to saving money. Don’t forget to post something along the lines of: ”Hey folks, dont forget tickets are $15 at the door. But if you get them online they are only $10.” Often times, people don’t realize how much they can save if they buy their tickets in advance. $10 + $2 service charge is still less than $15 at the door. It might just be a few bucks but a few bucks matters to the average person. Set out to create a drastic price difference between online and door cover in order to drive those pre-sales.

+It's All of Your Business

 

 

2. Get rid of the service charge

Venues often like to give local artists physical tickets to sell to friends and fans. But this is hard because you just can't meet up with everyone. Why not sell tickets online? Offer a digital way for your fans to buy tickets without the service charge. Setup an item through your online store. Use Paypal, Storenvy, Square, BigCartel or any number of online sites to sell digital tickets without that service charge. It’s best to use the site that you’re already using to sell your band’s CDs and T-shirts. Offer to mail out physical tickets (absorb the cost of the stamp), or even better, keep a record of names and allow your fans to pick up tickets (will-call) on the day of the show. For attendees it’s essentially the same process as purchasing tickets from the venue’s website (minus the service charge). This might sound a bit complicated, but it’s a very easy process and usually just requires you touching base with the venue to make sure they’re ok with you handing over a list of names along with any upfront money from your pre-sales.

+Why Bands Need to Stop Bitching

 

 

3. Offer ticket-buying incentives

1 ticket at $15. 2-4 tickets for $12 each. A group of 5-10 tickets for $10. This is probably easier to do for a weekend show when its easier to pull out larger crowds. Talk with the venue. Venues are often willing to work with you to set up tiered ticketing in order to make the show a win win for themselves – especially since those heads represent drink sales and food sales for them. They make most of their revenue from that stuff anyhow.

 

If you give any of these a try (or have tried them in the past), let us know by dropping a comment below."

 

 

Related Blog Posts:

+How to Get From "Local Artist" to "Touring Musician"

+Here's The Pitch, Pt. 2: The Follow-Up

+How to Promote Your Shows

 

 

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