Implementing Early Bird Pricing: When and How to Do It Right
If you’re looking for a surefire way to boost attendance at your next event, look no further than early bird ticket pricing. Early bird tickets are one of the secret ingredients to creating an exciting buzz around your event while driving up those attendance numbers. When attendees purchase tickets in advance, it also makes your planning process easier.
Let’s dive into the magic of early bird ticketing and how you can leverage it to make your event an undeniable success.
What are Early Bird Tickets?
Early bird tickets are a savvy marketing tactic used by event organizers to incentivize attendees to purchase tickets early. Essentially, they offer discounted ticket prices for those who buy their tickets well in advance of the event date. This not only rewards early birds for their proactive nature but also creates a sense of urgency among potential attendees, encouraging them to secure their spot sooner rather than later.
Benefits of Early Bird Tickets
Early bird tickets can benefit your event in several ways. First, they create a sense of exclusivity, making early purchasers feel like VIPs for snagging a deal. This exclusivity can drive up interest and spur anticipation in other attendees.
When attendees (motivated by the early bird price incentives) commit to purchasing early, it provides you with valuable revenue upfront and a clearer picture of attendance numbers sooner in your planning process. Finally, offering early bird tickets helps you gauge attendee interest and adjust your event plans if needed.
The first few weeks build the momentum for the rest of your sales cycle, and thankfully, you don’t even have to wake up at 5 am to reap these benefits and fly to victory with the early birds.
Types of Early Bird Tickets
As an event organizer, you have flexibility in the types of early bird offers you provide. Depending on the nature of your event, each of the ticket types below can be effective.
Tiered pricing involves offering a discount that decreases according to the date or demand. For example, if you use a demand pricing model, you might set it up so the first 100 purchasers get the biggest discount. Or, if you’re using a date-based model, you can set it up so anyone who purchases in the first month or week gets the discount.
Fixed window pricing means the early bird tickets are available only for a specific date range.
VIP early bird tickets come with additional perks or access for attendees who secure their spot early.
How to Create an Early Bird Offer
Crafting an irresistible early bird offer is key to driving ticket sales and maximizing attendance at your event. Use the tips below to craft an irresistible offer and sell tickets while you sleep.
1. Build Pre-Sale Hype
Whether it’s for Christmas, your birthday, or that Summer blockbuster movie, we’ve all experienced how a good, old-fashioned countdown can fill us with positive anticipation. Use our countdown clock to create a sense of urgency and excitement for your event.
Then, a couple of weeks before your sales go live, start building hype on social media. We recommend that you create a batch of five to six posts ahead of time and spread out the content in the two weeks leading up to the sales launch. Emphasize the incentive to purchase tickets early, and countdown to the date of the sale in each post.
2. Capture Pre-Sale Attendee Emails
No matter how hyped your customer feels, don’t rely on their memory to close the sale for you. Use your pre-sale graphics to direct leads and interested customers to a landing page where they can enter their email addresses. That way, the moment the ticket sales opens, everyone on the email list will receive an alert encouraging them to jump on the opportunity.
3. When Sales Begin, Blast The News!!
Five, four, three, two, one, LIVE! The moment the clock strikes zero, and you go live, shout it from the rooftops.
Blast your social media platforms; email past customer bases, and alert your pre-sale, interested attendees. Going live is a big deal—make sure the world knows!
4. Offer an Early Bird Incentive
To turn the average, procrastinating attendee into an early bird, you need to offer something far more enticing than a worm, such as a sweet deal. You can discount the price, the VIP experience, the swag, or all of the above. Whatever the incentive, make sure to treat these early-bird buyers like royalty.
5. Automatically Apply The Incentive
While scavenger hunts are fun for Easter eggs, they’re a guaranteed way to annoy your customers. Don’t make the early bird customers open three browsers to search for coupon codes.
Apply the incentive automatically, so they receive an instant reward for being on your page and supporting your event.
6. Use Scarcity as Motivation
When attendees believe there is unlimited inventory and unlimited time to buy tickets for your event, they will procrastinate. If there are less than 15 discounted tickets—or 15 discounted days—remaining, let people know!
Use the countdown on the event purchasing page to show the dwindling seconds and the seats. Even just a hint of scarcity can serve as a catalyst for people to grab their tickets before the early bird perks run out.
7. Don’t Bum Out the Latecomers
Just for a moment, imagine taking a kid past a candy store window—the sticky, caramel apples and gummy sour patch kids on display in all their glory—and then telling the kid that the store is closed until next Monday. Obviously, they would feel disappointed.
Likewise, if you keep your early bird prices plastered all over your website, your customers will feel the same way. Lingering evidence of expired deals can come back to haunt you.
When latecomers are painfully aware of what they missed, they’ll often delay purchasing in hopes that another promotion will come along. They might reach out to you, pleading for an exception. Make it easier on everyone involved. Once the purchasing period has passed, bury the evidence of early bird prices and point the attendees to their existing opportunities.
8. Offer Several Sales Windows
The one-chance early bird experience is a myth. The most successful promoters offer limited-time sales windows several times throughout the months leading up to the event. If your attendees hit snooze for the first promotion, give them a chance to jump at the alarm for the next one.
9. Offer Last Chance Extension on Early Bird
When offering an early bird discount, consider offering a 12-hour extension to promote the deal and catch those who might have missed it. This is especially helpful if you’re accommodating attendees in multiple time zones
Final Takeaways
Early bird ticket pricing is a game-changer for event organizers looking to boost attendance and create excitement around their events. By offering discounted tickets to early purchasers, you can generate buzz, drive revenue, and set the stage for a truly memorable experience. So why wait? Get started today and watch your event attendance soar to new heights!
If you have any questions or need help with the setup, contact our support team. We’re on standby in the chat, ready to help.
Here to help you host your most successful event ever!
— The TicketSpice Team
