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Pricing is a deal-maker or breaker for attendees when deciding whether or not to attend an event. If it’s too high, you risk making low sales. If it’s too low, you miss revenue opportunities.
With so much uncertainty, event organizers often wonder how to price tickets for an event to boost attendance and revenue potential. If you’re in the same boat, don’t worry! This blog will crack the code and help you overcome event ticketing and pricing challenges.
So, without further ado, let’s get to the details.
Before we get into the details, here’s a rundown of various ticket types that can help you tailor your approach to meet different audience needs and objectives.
Early bird sales significantly increase revenue potential, and it’s easy to see why. This ticketing option helps create event awareness and pushes sales in the early promotional stage. The discounts offered encourage potential attendees to purchase tickets before the price hike.
You can also combine the early bird strategy with a multi-tiered pricing model to push for even more event sales.
Here’s an example:
When the regular ticket price is $175, sell the first 100 tickets for $100 and 100 – 150 tickets for $125.
VIP tickets are priced higher than regular tickets but offer value for money. The higher cost is justified by access to exclusive and additional experiences, such as a chance to meet the artist or speaker or entry to VIP lounges. These experiences are worth the price for those who want to meet their networking goals.
With tiered tickets, audiences can curate a customized event experience. This ticket type allows potential attendees to choose what they get from the event. For example, participants who invest in an all-access ticket can enter the event and receive exclusive perks. Other ticket tiers offer limited access.
Add-on tickets offer access to additional services. Attendees can make informed choices by experiencing the perks before upgrading to a VIP-like experience.
Free tickets are a great marketing tool if your goal is to promote your brand and increase event engagement. They often work well for virtual events. Offering free tickets doesn’t mean you have to compromise revenue opportunities. You can still make money by charging your audience for premium event features like keynote speaker sessions.
If you want to reach attendees from all walks of life, the Pay-What-You-Can ticketing option is your best bet. It’s the ideal example of the gift economy. It works like a donation: attending the event has no fixed cost. The attendees dictate the price by paying what they can afford.
Event organizers often modify this option into a sliding-scale ticket purchase system. They set a minimum accepted payment to make a profit, and the audience decides whether to pay just that amount or go above the threshold. Mentioning the anchor price gives guests a better idea of what they should spend without added pressure.
It may not seem like it, but your chances of making more money with a PWYC system are higher than you think. When people set their own prices, almost everyone pays something— sometimes even well over the suggested price.
You can charge your attendees a fee in exchange for swag or a goodie bag. Swag adds a little piece of branding to your audience’s life. It subconsciously makes them think of your company when they need your services. Therefore, you must pick items that entertain, impress, and convert.
A huge aspect of creating a memorable swag bag is knowing your audience and what they’ll most likely find valuable. However, this can be challenging, especially compared to the average event budget, where swag bags often only get the leftovers.
But you can still build a swag bag that accurately represents your company by picking personalized, relevant, and—above all—valuable items that last long term.
The first step in perfecting your event pricing strategy is to consider critical factors influencing the event management cost. These include:
What are the benefits, knowledge, and experiences attendees expect to gain from participating in your event? All of these aspects contribute to your event’s value. Of course, it is highly contingent on the event’s content and the industry experts speaking at the event. However, it also depends on the event planning, creativity, and strategy skills you infuse into the event.
Maximizing your event value is the key to driving ticket sales. To do so, you must review your event design and understand your stakeholders’ expectations and the value they believe the event will bring them. Once you determine your event’s value, you can price it confidently.
How do you boost your event value?
Think beyond just sharing information. The audience won’t pay for the information they can easily access with a quick Google search. They want an engaging experience that resonates with their goals.
Run polls and surveys to determine how your target audience perceives your event’s value. Once you have that figured out, you can offer it through connections, experiences, and information, respecting their perception of value.
The demographic profile of your target audience plays an instrumental role in shaping your pricing strategy. Understanding your audience’s purchasing power and preferences is the first step to creating an inclusive event pricing strategy. This knowledge allows you to customize your event ticket prices to their needs, increasing the likelihood of ticket sales.
For example, a modest pricing structure would complement philanthropic events that aim to foster inclusivity. On the other hand, higher ticket prices suit an upscale gala event that seeks to meet the expectations of affluent attendees.
The goal is for ticket prices to align with affordability thresholds.
Just like you can survey your audience for an event’s value, you can also gather information about preferences, purchasing power, interests, and behavior to get their feedback on pricing. Email and social media surveys can gauge audience input on ticket prices.
You can also run polls on popular platforms to get your target audience’s opinion, research similar events, and read attendees’ reviews. Give them different price points options and gauge their expectations for each tier. Translate this information into the perfect pricing strategy for your event tickets.
Calculating direct and indirect event organization costs is fundamental to devising a pricing strategy that aligns with your bottom line.
The direct costs associated with event planning include venue, technology, and staffing, whereas the indirect cost covers marketing, promotions, and contingencies. Once you have the cost overview, determine the number of attendees required to cover the cost and break even.
Download the free event budget template by vFairs, which can be used to calculate projected expenses and revenue. This can help you make informed pricing choices and ensure ticket costs cover event expenses.
You must estimate the number of event tickets you expect to sell. To do so, consider the following:
Evaluate the performance of your past events to create a realistic sales forecast. Find the number of people who attended the event or the number of people the venue can accommodate for an in-person event. Divide this number by the break-even point to calculate the minimum price you should sell tickets online for events for and cover all expenses.
Here’s an example,
Let’s say your event has total fixed costs of $8,000 and a variable cost per ticket of $5. If you price your tickets at $20 each, you’ll need to sell approximately 533 tickets to break even.
To calculate:
Number of tickets required to break even = Fixed costs ÷ (Sales per unit – Variable cost per unit)
= $8,000 ÷ ($20 – $5) = 533 tickets
Next, calculate the total ticket sales needed to break even:
Amount of ticket sales required to break even = Ticket price per unit x Number of tickets required
= $20 x 533 = $10,660
Monitor audience response and determine demand. You can forecast event sales by closely analyzing the audience’s response to event promotion. As interest and demand fluctuate, you can adjust your initial ticket prices to match attendees’ expectations and preferences. Consider increasing the ticket price if your event is consistently selling out. If registrations are low, you may need to lower the ticket price or create special offers to attract more participants.
Your ticketing strategy should be based on the subject of the event you are hosting. For example, a donation-based ticketing strategy works best for a free event or a non-profit activity. On the other hand, premium pricing or exclusive ticket packages are ideal for a high-end event experience.
Event technology has revolutionized the event landscape, offering three distinct formats: in-person, virtual, and hybrid. Understanding each format’s benefits, limitations, and potential value is crucial in devising the perfect pricing strategy for your event tickets.
Virtual Events
The audience for virtual events is typically larger than its counterparts. However, they lack the depth and engagement in-person events offer. The audience’s commitment to the experience is also lower. Therefore, they are less willing to pay for the event.
In-person Events
Although in-person events are intensely engaging, they are limited to those who can attend the venue. However, the audience is more willing to pay for the event experience, exclusive to those who can make the trip.
Hybrid Events
Hybrid events not only offer the depth of engagement but also reach a broad audience virtually. They offer event attendees and organizers the best of both worlds. Attendees can choose a more convenient event format, whereas event planners can offer multiple ticketing options. This means individual experiences influence the ticketing options. So, some in-person attendees of hybrid events may pay a higher price to access on-demand content to boost the on-site event experience.
Conduct a competitive pricing analysis and determine the rates for similar events in your industry before adding a price tag to your event tickets. Once you have analyzed the competitive landscape, you can align your ticket prices with those of your competitors.
You can also go below the average cost to attract potential attendees. But make sure you do not sacrifice your revenue potential in the process.
It’s also important to set ticket prices in local currency with the option to accept other currencies. This makes registering for an event easy and inclusive for local and international attendees. vFairs allows event organizers to provide multiple regional and global ticket payment options.
Let’s explore some well-established ticket pricing strategies to help you make the right choice:
You can change ticket prices based on demand, time frame, customer, weather conditions, time of the year, or the ticket’s market value. Often automated, this intentional price variation boosts overall profit by maximizing ticket sales.
Price your event tickets based on your target customers’ willingness to pay. This requires you to align your ticket prices with the interests and preferences of your intended audience. You rely entirely on the target audience’s data to set optimal event ticket prices.
This pricing strategy enhances the event’s profitability and offers you the confidence that your target audience will purchase tickets. The data-driven event pricing strategy promotes customer loyalty and interests them in attending your future events.
Tiered pricing allows you to set multiple ticket prices for a single event. The differentiation helps capture varying attendee engagement levels and their willingness to pay. Each tier is priced based on several factors, including extra services, certifications, add-ons, and access type.
Tier ticketing is a good option for professional development conferences with multiple category participants. You can offer VIP access to participants who need extra options and discounts to students on a budget. In this case, the ticket prices will be tiered into three categories: VIP, Regular, and Students.
Event ticketing software like vFairs makes event ticket management a breeze. It allows you to create multiple packages and ticket tiers with different prices.
Creating bundles with access to exclusive sessions encourages guests to spend more at your event. By thoughtfully packaging multiple experiences together, you can boost your future event value.
Bundles also motivate attendees to spend more time at your event, which can lead to higher revenue potential. The more time attendees spend at your venue, the more likely they are to visit a merchandise location or enjoy other add-ons.
Here are a few ways event organizers implement this strategy
Cost-based pricing is the most conventional ticket pricing strategy. It helps you calculate the minimum amount you can charge for your event tickets. To do so, determine the event’s total cost and the break-even point. Mark the minimum ticket price based on the profit you expect to earn on each ticket sale. That’s the actual price of the ticket.
Competitor-based event pricing depends on the industry’s ticket rates for similar events. It allows you to set your own ticket prices by using competitors’ rates as the yardstick. You can establish a higher or lower ticket price based on the perceived value of your event or offer the same prices as your competition.
If your previous event was a hit, your audience might feel rushed to get their tickets early for your upcoming event. Keep a limited number of tickets and announce that during event promotion. If the demand is high, you can do another round of ticket sales. This is a great way to motivate your audience to secure their tickets on time.
Promo codes help increase your promotion reach and strengthen your partner relationship. To do so, you can create a meaningful code for the sponsors, speakers, and exhibitors to promote directly to their audience. This way, you’ll make them feel valued. You can also create promo codes for the industry’s niche influencers willing to promote your event.
Anchor your price on additional experiences your event will carry. These include:
Charm pricing is a psychological strategy that uses prices ending in .99 or .95. It triggers emotional reactions in people and makes them believe they’re getting a good deal. Here’s an example.
Imagine a bag of chips costs $3.99, but the consumers’ brains think of it as 3 dollars and not 4 dollars, treating $3.99 as a lower price than $4.00.
vFairs conducts a user conference titled DiscoverNext. Our latest event was held in August 2024 at Park Hyatt, Toronto. The in-person conference used the early bird pricing strategy to secure the first wave of registrations.
Huda Nadeem, the Demand Generation Manager at vFairs, attributes the success of the event pricing strategy to the organizers’ ability to balance value with accessibility. She adds,
“At DiscoverNext 2024, our early bird pricing strategy was key in driving initial registrations. Offering a reduced rate of $299 not only rewarded our most eager attendees but also helped us gauge early interest and build momentum leading up to the event. We’ve found that early bird pricing creates a sense of urgency and encourages early commitment, which is essential for event planning and forecasting.”
Huda also illustrates the effectiveness of targeted pricing strategies and shares her experience with using discount codes to drive attendance and foster strong relationships with attendees:
“Another strategy we’ve successfully employed at vFairs, including for DiscoverNext 2024, is the use of discount codes like ‘DN100.’ This allows us to offer tailored pricing for specific audiences, such as loyal customers or partners, without devaluing the event for the broader attendee base. It’s a flexible tool that helps us manage attendance while also building goodwill and strengthening relationships.“
Your role in pricing tickets and offering suitable discounts is vital to the success of these events. But you don’t have to compromise your financial goals to meet your audience’s expectations. Find the right balance between attendee engagement and economic returns to achieve optimal ticket prices. Once you’ve chosen the right strategy, pair it with the right promotion tactics to sell more tickets.
Lastly, you need to choose event ticketing software that is secure, customizable, and doesn’t cause disruption when someone registers at the event. vFairs provides a complete event ticketing and registration solution that you can customize to your needs. The software provides payment gateways, including Paypal, Stripe, credit card, and several others. You can also create ticket tiers discount codes, offer group registrations, and more. Book a demo to find out more.
Shehar Bano
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