Grow Your Ticket Sales: Unlock Eventbrite’s Technology and Insights

Events are back. The phrase was the unofficial motto of our latest creator-focused event, such was the level of positivity on show at Grow Your Ticket Sales: Unlock Eventbrite’s Technology and Insights. Joining host Georgia Love at Thai hotspot BangPop, we heard from:

 

• Phil Silverstone, Eventbrite Chief Customer Officer

• Linda Scott, Eventbrite Commercial Director APAC

• Matt Feltham, Eventbrite Associate Strategy Director

• James Harding, Co-Founder and Festival Director of BeerFest

 

Our speakers touched on topics including the upward trend in 2023 ticket sales and event attendances; consumer insights; tips, tricks and new features with the Eventbrite platform; and a BeerFest case study with James Harding that showed us all just how much growth is possible with a little help from Eventbrite.

If you’re looking for the inside word on how to grow your ticket sales with Eventbrite, here’s a recap of the proceedings:

Introduction with Phil Silverstone

For event creators, it was good news from the top. Phil Silverstone made a quick introduction to the night, pointing out the 2023 data that should provide plenty of post-pandemic encouragement: “421,000 event creators put on 1.6 million events, selling over 23 million paid tickets and about 50 million unique consumers used the site.”

 

 

Phil’s introduction foreshadowed one of the night’s overarching themes – Eventbrite really exists to connect event creators with event consumers. “The most valuable thing we can provide is the opportunity to connect those two together, so those people putting on events who are looking to find their audience, and those people who are looking for things to do – that’s very much the role we see that we can play.”

The 2023 Event Trends Report and Finding Your People with Linda Scott

Successful events are so much more than just the nuts and bolts of putting on a show or running a class. With this year’s Event Trends Report, Linda Scott showed that the focus is firmly on event attendees, with the report asking more questions about how they feel and what sorts of events are worth their post-pandemic time.

Here are the key takeaways from the report:

• The cost of living is high, but attendees are willing to spend: Despite inflation driving up ticket prices, over half of the respondents confirmed they were willing to pay more for their favourite performers, events and experiences. “We saw that with the recent hysteria around Taylor Swift’s tour,” Linda said

• Attendees increasingly value positive change: Where events take the environment or accessibility into account, attendees are willing to spend more. “Whether it’s for personal or business reasons, the importance of building a community around the things that attendees really care about is increasingly clear.”

• The performance often comes second to the experience: “For event creators, it would be really wise to double down on events that promote togetherness.”

• Preferences for event format are changing: More than half of attendees prefer more intimate groups that encourage interaction, while Millennials and Gen Z prioritise motivation, learning, self-care and wellness events.

• The rise of ‘bleisure’: Attendees are increasingly inclined to combine business and pleasure, and will travel for experiences. Cater for these attendees with travel-friendly amenities. “For example, transportation to the venue, local food options and somehow tying in discounted accommodation.”
  

 

The second part of Linda’s speech – Find Your People – posed two challenges to creators. 

First, define your audience. Then, engage them. 

Here’s how creators can go about it:

• Attendees use Eventbrite to browse events, not just buy tickets: “Attendees will come to our site to look for things to do. This means that people will find out about your event through Eventbrite, who might not have found out about it otherwise.”

• Take advantage of Eventbrite Ads: This new product is a great way to get in front of your best audience. “Promote your event across Eventbrite in seconds and get up to 14% more event visibility with top placements on our homepage.”
• There’s a whole suite of tools to use, too: Eventbrite users can easily advertise on Instagram and Facebook to increase traffic and ticket sales, or take advantage of Eventbrite’s email subscriber list to communicate with attendees without leaving the platform.

Making the most of Eventbrite product features with Matt Feltham

Associate Strategy Advisor Matt Feltham ran a crash course in making an event listing through Eventbrite, including all the product features that can put your event over the top.

 

 

• AI-assistance makes event listings simpler than ever: “All you have to do is enter an event title, and our AI integration will automatically add your event type, category and tags,” Matt said. “These features were often left incomplete by creators, resulting  in about a 30% decrease in visibility”. AI can also give you a hand in writing event descriptions and, with Eventbrite Boost, can write ad and email copy, too.

• Photos and video content make an event stand out: Making use of the image/video carousel is important for how your event ranks according to Google, with the search engine prioritising mixed media. Matt recommends adding a video to help increase engagement and reach, while Canva integration can add a quick, high-quality image.

• Ticketing, simplified: If you’ve run events with similar ticketing options previously, the platform includes an option to duplicate them to your tickets page. You’ll also be presented with separate URL links for presale offers and discounted pricing.

• Integrate with Facebook: Eventbrite is the only ticketing platform that integrates with Facebook, and it’s a game changer. “Within the space of two clicks, it’s going to take all the information you’ve just added to Eventbrite and create a Facebook event for you,” Matt said.
• Embed checkouts for seamless sales: With Facebook integration, tickets can be sold directly through Facebook event pages. Eventbrite checkouts can also be added to your website – a huge boost for conversions. “It reduces friction, it reduces steps in the process.”

A case-study in Eventbrite success with James Harding

BeerFest co-founder James Harding is a true example of event success, having pivoted from life as a Launceston publican to a string of national beer festivals. “We put on a little beer fest in our hometown – probably 3000 people came,” Harding said of the inaugural event. “It was a bit of a side-hustle, a bit of a hobby. We really loved it, it was a really good community event. As we started to see the emergence of craft beer we thought, jeez, we could be on to something here.”

 

 

Harding’s BeerFest has since grown to include up to eight national festivals each year, bringing in internationally-recognised music acts, live comedy and over 350 different craft beers, ciders and cocktails. Although Harding grew the business initially under a different ticketing platform, ticket sales have increased 35% since the festival’s switch to Eventbrite in 2017. So, how did he use Eventbrite for such success?

During Covid, Harding set himself a challenge: he started using Eventbrite’s marketing platform in parallel to his digital marketing agency, and compared the results. “The results that I was getting were better than the digital agency and I was spending $30,000 a year with a digital agency,” Harding said. 

Harding chalks the success up to knowing his own audience better than the agency, and Eventbrite facilitated him in working with that audience in real-time. “We could see a real spike in ticket sales on Friday night and go, this is booming, I’m going to put my money behind it rather than waiting till Monday morning to send an email,” Harding said. “We got real-time reporting [from Eventbrite], we were able to post and spend money quickly, efficiently – and when we saw ticket sales were moving, we put more money behind it and it helped us achieve a 35% growth.”

For those looking to wield Eventbrite’s marketing capabilities like Harding, he shared a few tips:

• Take the time to learn the platform: “I coached my kids’ basketball yesterday. It was sort of like me with Eventbrite. My son playing basketball, he’s not going to miss a shot or cause a foul or double dribble or travel and go, ‘basketball doesn’t work’. He’s going to work at it and work at it and get better every week. That’s the same with this tool. Put the time in and you’ll get the rewards back. And it is, in my mind, a very easy platform to use.”
• Focus on the numbers: “We get a report each year that says, these are the sales that we generated with Eventbrite, so I’m doing paid social ads but Eventbrite is also producing paid returns. If you do love your data and your numbers, it’s always available.”
  

• Whatever your event style, make the most of digital tech: “You’ve got to think about yourselves as an e-commerce business because all your sales are coming from online business and that’s just such an eye opener for me.”

Final words from Phil Silverstone

We have just barely scratched the surface of the wealth of knowledge that our incredible speakers shared. But, as Phil Silverstone said in closing, all event creators have an opportunity to make a huge impact on the lives of attendees. With the help of Eventbrite’s tools to grow your ticket sales, we’re looking forward to seeing just how much we can all accomplish in 2024 and beyond. “Together, I really believe that we can fuel the live experience industry in Australia,” Phil said. “It’s such a fulfilling part of everyone’s consuming life.”

Feeling inspired? Ready to start growing your event? We are here to help!