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If you haven’t yet heard of or used Eventful, you are missing out on a world of free promotion for your venue or event. Eventful is (according to their website) “the leading events website which enables its community of users to discover, promote, share and create events.”
Okay, anyone could say that. But the stats back up their story:
- 4 MILLION events posted online
- 600,000 monthly visitors (according to compete.com)
That’s a LOT of eyeballs, so merely posting your events to Eventful.com will increase ticket sales. BUT, Eventful has an even cooler feature that all promoters should know about. It’s called “Demand.” Again, from their site:
“Eventful’s unique Demand service empowers users to influence where their favorite performers, candidates and other celebrities appear by creating viral grass-roots campaigns to “Demand” them in their town. Tens of thousands of musicians, comedians and political candidates use Eventful Demand to engage with millions of their fans and supporters to find out where they are in Demand.”
How do you use it as a promoter?
1. Visit www. eventful.com
2. Use the button under the eventful logo on the top left to select your location
3. Click the “Demands” Button in the navigation bar at the top.
4. Select “Near You” under the “By Location” section on the left hand side.
A quick search of my hometown (Birmingham, AL) shows that Plies, Dane Cook, and Pretty Ricky are the hot acts. You can search by performer type (Business, Comedy, Music, etc) to hone down the results. Find the hot acts, schedule the hot acts. Post your event to Eventful so all of the demanding fans can see it, and sell mucho tickets. Make sure you have Promotozoa hooked up to yourTicketBiscuit account so all of the demanding fans can invite their friends as well.
But even if you don’t use the Demands feature, you should use event aggregators to promote your events. Eventful is just one type of these event aggregator services. It is definitely the largest and most techno-advanced, with myspace and youtube integration and even an iPhone application. Other similar services include upcoming.org (powered by Yahoo) and Going.com.
The bottom line: more eyeballs equals more tickets sold.
The new "About Us" page is linked in the upper right hand corner of TicketBiscuit.com.
Hey, it’s kind of a slow news day around here, we’re busy connecting with new clients and developing features to help them sell more tickets and make more money per ticket. I did want to let all of the readers know that we’ve posted a company info page to our TicketBiscuit website – so if you’ve ever wanted to know John’s background, or wondered what our corporate culture is like, you can find it there.
Check it out! Click the links on the left hand side of the page to see the details around each topic.
I love the Olympics. It’s partially the spectacle, partially the competition, but mostly the stories and legends that arise from Olympic competition. Like the one that unfolded last night.
Last night the 4×100 meter relay took place. If you missed it, here is the recap:
- The French team talked “smack” to the American team.
- Through three laps, it looked like the French team would win.
- On the last lap, Jason Lesak pulled off one of the most impressive comeback wins of all time, effectively quieting the Frenchies. Check out the video:
That guy cheering and screaming at the end? That’s Michael Phelps, who, thanks to Lesak’s miracle, is still on track to make Olympic history. Well done, team.
Competition is invigorating, believe me. As TicketBiscuit competes daily with other ticketing providers, I feel like Lesak sometimes. Though it looks like we’re at a disadvantage due to scale or market penentration or some announcement of venture capital infusions, I know that we have the right stuff to win. Our ticketing system is intuitive. Our technology is bulletproof. Our service is unparalleled. And, we have a laser focus on helping our clients sell more tickets and helping them realize more per-ticket profit. Winning won’t happen overnight, but we are catching up daily.
Broadway Brett
John brought a great article to my attention today:
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/why-ebay-loves-the-brett-favre-trade-ebay-
Since Favre’s earthshaking trade to the Jets, Jet tickets have become THE must have item. The article cites StubHub data that shows over 7000 Jets tickets have moved within the last 24 hours (compared to 36 per week prior to the trade) and the average price has increased from $138 to $252. Probably almost as earthshaking as the Favre trade, though, is realizing that StubHub collects a 25% commission on all tickets sold.
Let me say that again. StubHub collects a 25% commission on all tickets sold – 10% from the buyer, 15% from the seller. Wow.
For yesterday’s action, Peter K (author of the linked article) estimated StubHub’s take to be about $400,000. Now, your venue or organization may not be giving up that kind of coin to the secondary market, but if you are hosting high demand or limited supply events, then you are giving up some.
This is why Dynamic Pricing will be important to the future of the ticketing industry. While no computer algorithm could have foreseen this kind of development (with Favre), we can tell with pretty close accuracy what the optimum price of an event should be. We use historical data from ticket sales, type of artist, geographical area, and venue, then we combine that with real time ticket sales. The result is a price that moves fluidly, approaching market willingness to pay. In short, you get to keep more of that profit being lost to ticket scalpers.
The Favre situation also illustrates a scenario in which the secondary market will still be necessary – if demand for an event suddenly shifts due to new or additional information surfacing after the sale. An analogous scenario is the escalating price of pre-sold tickets (season tickets) to college or pro football games, which increase in value the better that team does through the season. While computers will be able to predict to some extent this uncertainty, they will never do a perfect job due to the human factor involved.
As dynamic pricing becomes the status quo in the future, it will be interesting to see if the secondary market influences after-sale information release for events other than sports in order to preserve its profits.
What You Don’t Know About Hurricanes
August 27, 2008 in Commentary, Musings, Uncategorized | Tags: Commentary, hurricane gustav | by ehoush | Leave a comment
BUT- there are many things you DON’T know about hurricanes. For example, did you know that this Gustav is actually the fifth tropical cyclone to share that name? Look it up.
Find out what else you don’t know about hurricanes – check out the quiz hosted by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. You just might learn something.
Speaking of learning something- we occasionally post ticket selling tips on this blog, like last week’s post on event aggregator sites. We’re interested in your thoughts on these tips. Are they helpful? Do you have tips to share? Let us know.