How to Sell Event Tickets: Tips to Sell Out Your 2024 Event

The excitement of a filled venue begins with a single ticket sale. But what if you could multiply it by a thousand?

Maximizing event attendance means experimenting, innovating, and trying new strategies. That’s why at Eventbrite, we looked at how our top creators approach selling event tickets and used their proven strategies to build this comprehensive playbook. 

Each tactic is a stepping stone toward selling tickets and creating memorable experiences that keep your audience coming back for more. 

Here, we’ll teach you how to sell event tickets via actionable strategies, from streamlining your checkout process to leveraging niche influencers. 

Let’s get straight to it.

1. Streamline your checkout process

2. Focus on mobile ticket sales strategies

3. Give unique VIP benefits

4. Embrace verified resales

5. Sell through social media

6. Up your ticket marketing and ads game

7. Increase the chances of attendee discovery

8. Retarget past attendees

9. Strengthen ties with sponsors

10. Master early ticket sales

11. Create alternatives to refunds

12. Leverage niche influencers

13. Use referral rewards

14. Offer group discounts

1. Streamline your checkout process

A seamless checkout process can prevent potential attendees from abandoning their purchase. 

People using one-click checkouts spend more, buy more frequently, and buy 28.5% more. Streamlining checkout reduces friction, making it straightforward and fast for attendees to complete their ticket purchase.

Fitter & Faster, a swim clinic organizer, leveraged Eventbrite to simplify their ticket purchasing process, significantly increasing sales. Switching to Eventbrite allows them to dedicate their energy to swimming events rather than ticketing.

By focusing on a streamlined checkout process, event creators increase ticket sales and enhance attendee satisfaction from the outset. As demonstrated by Fitter & Faster, Eventbrite’s capabilities provide a practical avenue for achieving a sold-out event and a seamless purchase experience for attendees.

💡 Pro tip: Offer an option for attendees to save information for faster future purchases, as that can encourage repeat business. You should also use a mobile-optimized ticketing platform to ensure a consistent checkout experience across all devices.

2. Focus on mobile ticket sales strategies

85% of all Americans own smartphones, and 97% have a cell phone. As you can imagine, that directly impacts online ticket sales: 60% of all e-commerce sales are made on a cell phone. That’s why a mobile-optimized ticket sales platform caters to a wider set of potential attendees, offering people the convenience of purchasing tickets anytime, anywhere.

LA Auto Show noted an immediate improvement when using Eventbrite as their registration platform. Their previous mobile sales process was clunky and inefficient: “Now customers can see an advertisement for the LA Auto Show and buy a ticket in under 60 seconds. 

The number of steps to purchase went from eight to just three,” says Mike Asner, LA Auto Show’s Senior Director of Marketing and Ticketing. That’s exactly what the LA Auto Show and other Eventbrite creators notice in their bottom lines.

💡 Pro tip: Using mobile ticket sales strategies caters to the mobile-centric behavior of modern consumers and offers an avenue for effective marketing and engagement, significantly contributing to the event’s overall success. You can receive valuable insights to refine your marketing strategies through mobile sales management and tracking in real time.

3. Give unique VIP benefits

Offering unique VIP tickets can significantly boost ticket sales by creating an exclusive, premium experience for attendees. It capitalizes on the allure of exclusivity and added value, encouraging attendees to opt for a higher-priced ticket to enjoy additional perks. 

This increases ticket revenue and enhances the overall event experience among VIP ticket holders.

At Champ Music Production Group’s events, organizers use Eventbrite to offer and manage their VIP ticket sales. They can clearly state the VIP benefits and price differences while making the checkout process easy.

💡 Pro tip: Ensure you offer a wide range of ticket types. That can help define and manage your VIP benefits seamlessly while letting you offer various VIP offers and tiers. You should also look for insights into VIP ticket sales to optimize the VIP offering at a competitive price.

4. Embrace verified resales

Verified ticket resales offer a unique opportunity to maximize sales by ensuring that even returned or unused tickets find a new buyer without the risk of fraud. This strategy mitigates losses from potential cancellations and offers assurance to buyers, increasing their confidence and likelihood to purchase.

Through specialists like Tixel, Eventbrite provides a secure platform for verified ticket resales, ensuring transparency and security for both sellers and buyers. Tixel handles the entire resale process, from managing the listing to transferring the ticket to the new buyer, effectively removing the risk of unauthorized or counterfeit tickets. 

💡 Pro tip:  If you use a trusted platform, your attendees will feel more comfortable with resales. Opting for verified resales provides a secure platform for data-driven ticket management. It promotes a trustworthy ticket-buying experience, effectively increasing sales and helping to create a successful event.

5. Sell through social media

Capitalizing on the power of social media can dramatically increase your ticket sales. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are channels for promotion and powerful tools for driving direct ticket sales. Eventbrite found that social media drives 25% of traffic to event pages.

The key selling techniques through social media include social proof, building up hype, and storytelling. Social proof involves showcasing testimonials, reviews, or pictures from past attendees, which can boost credibility and encourage potential attendees to purchase. 

On the other hand, building up hype involves creating a sense of anticipation around your event through social media posts with countdowns, contests, or sneak peeks into the event’s highlights. Storytelling helps engage your target audience on a deeper level, allowing you to communicate the value and uniqueness of your event and enticing potential attendees to buy tickets.

💡 Pro tip: If you’re putting that much effort into marketing your event, you’d better make it easy for people to go from your social media page to buying tickets! Your success will depend on your ability to replicate an equally seamless checkout experience across every platform. You’ll likely miss out on ticket sales if you don’t include direct CTAs or a website link. Using Eventbrite’s Facebook integration, users can purchase tickets straight from the social media platform.

6. Up your ticket marketing and ads game

Ads and marketing can increase ticket sales when done effectively. Ads enable you to engage your target audience, generate excitement, and drive conversions. It’s part of a robust event promotion strategy, but many people don’t know how to improve their ads.

For instance, Sierra Nevada Brewing personalized its Facebook ads and targeted better with less effort using Eventbrite’s social media marketing tools. This boosted their ticket sales significantly and created a seamless buying experience.

💡 Pro tip: Try a few ad strategies and compare the results. Some platforms, such as Facebook Event Ads, make it easier for you to do this, but it’s vital to compare campaigns across platforms. Plus, don’t stop at social media and search engine ads: Putting ads on events marketplaces will help you target audiences specifically interested in going to events like yours.

7. Increase the chances of attendee discovery

But social media isn’t the only platform where people can learn about your event. Eventbrite is the most popular events marketplace, and that’s a key audience you should be targeting: When people search on Eventbrite, they’re already looking for something to do. Why shouldn’t it be your event?

There are two steps to ensuring your ideal audience sees your event on Eventbrite. First, make an event page with all the necessary event details: time, date, location, event speakers, and a breakdown of the event. Make sure the name describes your event accurately and grabs potential attendees’ attention!

💡 Pro tip: Look into the value of Eventbrite Ads. It’s a powerful tool to promote your event to people searching for something similar or in your area. You set up a simple campaign and directly target the people looking for precisely the event you’re offering in your area. Just take a look at the example below:

People looking for events with music in San Francisco see Another Planet Entertainment’s event at the top because they’ve invested in Eventbrite Ads. That makes it simple for searchers to click on their event, increasing the chances of selling tickets. 

8. Retarget past attendees

Retargeting is an underappreciated but powerful tool for selling more tickets. It allows you to broadcast to people who have already shown interest in or attended your previous events, making them more likely to purchase. That ensures your money goes exactly where it needs to.

Retargeting is also helpful for advertising. With Eventbrite’s platform, getting a list of your past attendees and targeting them is easy. Seattle’s Capitol Hill Block Party found that retargeting reduced their cost-per-click — the cost of getting a single person to click on their ads — by 30%. At the same time, they saw a much better return on their investment when compared to past years.

💡 Pro tip: In business, it’s commonly known that finding a new customer can cost up to five times more than retaining a current one. You can see past attendees as similar to existing customers since they’re familiar with what you offer and already have an established connection with you. Build an email list of past attendees and bring them personalized outreach to get a much higher return on that investment than you would on cold outreach.

9. Strengthen ties with sponsors

If you just see your event sponsors as funding sources, you aren’t making the most of them! Your sponsors want to see good results from their investment, and they can help you toward that in more ways than just providing funds.

Event sponsors will likely have their audiences and social media followings. That makes them great partners for social media campaigns and content marketing strategies. By collaborating with them on social media and blog posts, you can tap into their audience and promote your event to a broader group of potential attendees.

💡 Pro tip: Another way to leverage sponsor relationships is through influencer marketing. If a sponsor brand already has a relationship with an influencer, it’s easier to integrate them into your marketing campaign. They can help promote your event through their channels, giving you access to a new and engaged audience.

10. Master early ticket sales

Early ticket sales can be a powerful tool for increasing overall event ticket revenue, building hype, and creating momentum for your event. By offering early-bird tickets at a discounted ticket price, you not only incentivize attendees to buy early but also create a sense of urgency that drives them to purchase before the deadline.

One great way to take advantage of early sales is by setting up different ticket tiers. 

For example, Good Mood Comedy sold early bird tickets at a low price, and when the early bird discount ended, its pre-purchase tickets were still cheaper than tickets available at the door. That structure incentivizes prospective attendees who missed the early bird period to buy tickets ahead of time.

💡 Pro tip: Eventbrite’s platform makes creating and managing early-bird ticket sales easy, setting up a specific release date and deadline, along with different pricing tiers. You can also use Eventbrite’s marketing tools, which include built-in analytics to track the success of your early-bird ticket strategy and make data-driven decisions for future events.

11. Create alternatives to refunds

We discussed why embracing resales can be advantageous, but that’s not the only way to let people know they don’t have to cancel or refund their tickets if they can’t attend. Another way to handle cancellations is by offering ticket transfer options.

Offering ticket transfers can also attract potential attendees hesitant to commit due to possible unexpected schedule conflicts or emergencies. It reassures them they won’t lose their money, making it easier for them to purchase and increasing ticket sales.

That’s why Colorado-based events creator Elevate Immersive doesn’t allow any refunds. Instead, their attendees can transfer their tickets to an upcoming event freely. This minimizes the risk of lost revenue and creates a positive and accommodating brand image, encouraging repeat attendees and increasing overall ticket sales.

💡 Pro tip: If you choose a nonrefundable policy, clearly state this on your website so ticket holders don’t feel misled should they request a refund. Keep your refund policies up to date and easily accessible on your website.

12. Leverage niche influencers

As we mentioned before, partnering with influencers can effectively promote your event and sell more tickets. But connecting through a sponsor isn’t the only way to take advantage of the power of niche influencer marketing.

Unlike mainstream influencers, niche influencers have a more direct and genuine relationship with their followers, which can generate higher engagement rates and more authentic interactions. Their endorsements can significantly impact their followers’ decisions, making them invaluable partners for promoting events.

Make sure to use affiliate programs to track ticket sales generated by influencers, ensuring a transparent and rewarding collaboration. That way, you can have a clear view of the ROI from your influencer partnerships, providing insights you can use to optimize promotional strategies.

💡 Pro tip: Create custom discount codes and tracking links that influencers can share with followers. This not only incentivizes the influencer’s community to buy tickets but also provides a seamless experience from promotion to purchase, enhancing the effectiveness of the influencer marketing campaign.

13. Use referral rewards

Influencers aren’t the only people who can refer people to your event. You can turn every attendee into a micro-influencer with the power of referral incentives. 

A referral reward is exactly what it sounds like: a bonus for getting someone else to buy a ticket to your event. You can use discounted tickets, merch, a ticket upgrade, or any other creative incentive to encourage people to bring their friends.

Referral incentives accomplish two things: They incentivize your attendees to promote the event and make it easier for people on the fence. After all, if someone knows they’ll be going with a friend or acquaintance, they’re more likely to attend. 

💡 Pro tip: Keep in touch with people who’ve already bought tickets to your event by highlighting your referral rewards. That increases the likelihood they’ll attend, keeps your event brand at the top of their minds, and works toward building a group of loyal attendees that will also come to your other events.

14. Offer group discounts

You can also use group discounts as a great way to increase ticket sales. Group discounts incentivize people to bring friends or colleagues to the event by offering a lower price for bulk purchases.

Offering group discounts is also a great way to attract a wider range of attendees, such as corporate or company groups looking for teambuilding or networking opportunities. You can tap into this market by providing discounted ticket options for groups and increase ticket sales significantly.

The size of the group you want to reward with a discount is totally up to your situation. For example, Jenn Moselen gives a 10% discount to groups of three or more who attend her craft parties. But you might also want to experiment with giving steeper discounts to larger groups!

💡 Pro tip: If you’re giving a group discount, set it up so each group member has a ticket with a separate bar code. That will help avoid confusion if people arrive at different times. 

How to sell event tickets through a single platform 

When trying to attract as many people as possible, you may end up marketing through multiple social media platforms, email, word of mouth, and physical advertising simultaneously. 

Providing an identical, seamless registration and checkout process for all these avenues can be tricky.

That’s why so many event organizers turn to Eventbrite as their favorite ticketing platform. Whether through social media or emails, flyers, or friends, everyone who hears about your event can come to the same page to buy their tickets with their preferred payment method.