How to Sell Tickets: Tips for Small Businesses

Producing live entertainment can be exhilarating, whether you’re organizing a concert, play, sporting event, or massive music festival. The first goal is to provide a quality product for all who attend. But it's equally important to boost event attendance so you can draw a respectable audience and pay your team.

Whether you’re in the business of organizing events or putting one together as part of your marketing and promotions strategy, you need to know how to sell tickets. From offering promotions to coordinating with venues, here are some key tips to help you sell event tickets.

Tips for driving online ticket sales

• Create an informative event page
• Promote your event on social media
• Pick a buyer-friendly ticket vendor
• Consider going around the traditional ticket vendors
• Offer promo codes and early bird discounts
• Provide tickets at different price points
• Sell tickets at the door
• Entice the public with special event offerings
• Optimize for mobile
• Let customers resell tickets
• Use targeted email marketing to engage the community
• Leverage analytics

You don’t need to operate a major ticket outlet like Ticketmaster or StubHub to find success selling tickets. Here are some strategies to reach more prospective buyers and sell more tickets to your events:

Create an informative event page

Whether you’re selling tickets on your own website, a ticket sale site, or the venue’s website, create an events page with clear listing details. Double-check that you’ve included:

• Dates
• Start times
• Venue address
• Talent lineup
• Age restrictions
• Parking information
• Disability accommodations
• What you’re allowed or not allowed to bring

In addition to the practical details, hype up the event features you want to highlight and use graphics, posters, or images to entice attendees.

Promote your event on social media

Leverage social media platforms to promote your event. Share engaging and informative content like previews of your events, ticket details, and schedules. Use targeted ads to drive traffic to your ticket sale site.

Take advantage of what each platform can offer. For example, with a Facebook account, you can create and manage an event page to post updates and links to ticket websites.

Pick a buyer-friendly ticket vendor

Some ticketing websites frustrate purchasers with onerous fees that go well beyond the face value of the ticket. Someone might think they’re going to buy tickets for $20, but when it’s time for final payment, the fees bump the total cost to $35. Avoid this by shopping around for more user-friendly vendors like Brown Paper Tickets and Ticket Tailor, which often charge lower fees for online ticket sales than heavy hitters like Ticketmaster.

Consider going around the traditional ticket vendors

If you don’t want to deal with traditional ticket brokers, you can experiment with selling tickets on your own website. Create an event page, and connect your checkout page to a list of event attendees, so their names can be checked at the door. Or, you can offer purchasers a QR code, which staff can scan at the door for entry. You can also use apps such as Event Ticketing to help you create, sell, and scan tickets. These approaches give sellers complete control of their events while limiting the fees charged by the major ticketing platforms.

TOOL: Create your own QR code

Offer promo codes and early bird discounts

Encourage advance ticket purchases by providing limited-time promo codes or an early bird advancesale that creates a sense of exclusivity. Limit the promotion dates and let your audience know that the special pricing will only last for a short time to promote a sense of urgency.

Provide tickets at different price points

Create ticket tiers such as general admission, assigned seats, or VIP tickets to cater to buyer preferences and budgets. In some cases, it may make sense to sell season tickets, like if you’re working for a sports team or promoting a concert series.

Sell tickets at the door

Even if most of your audience is comfortable buying tickets online, you can always expect a few people to show up at the door hoping to grab tickets. Make sure to set aside some tickets for them. It’s common to charge more for day-of sales, so you can add an extra fee for walk-up tickets.

Entice the public with special event offerings

Emphasize special event features like exclusive performances, meet-and-greets, or free merchandise to add value to the ticket and boost interest. Clearly advertise these special features on your ticketing website.

Optimize for mobile

Ensure your website and ticketing site are mobile-friendly, as many people purchase tickets on their smartphones. Consider adding mobile features like QR codes for easy check-in.

Let customers resell tickets

Partner with reputable platforms to allow attendees to resell purchased tickets at face value if they can no longer attend, ensuring a fair resale market. Resale tickets sold at excessively high rates can reflect poorly on you and your event.

Use targeted email marketing to engage the community

Send personalized emails to your existing account holders and past attendees, highlighting the benefits of attending and including a direct link to buy tickets.

Leverage analytics

Review past event performance and site traffic data to understand buyer behavior. If you use an email marketing platform, you can analyze open rates and link clicks. If you’re working directly with a venue, see if they have data about how past promoters have sold tickets. For instance, you might learn that most concert tickets sell about a month out from the event date, or that offering a VIP tier can entice high-value customers at the point of purchase.