When you say tickets, most people tend to visualize a small slip of paper that allows you into the event venue or gives you a chance to join certain activities, like raffles and draws. Tickets have come a long way in the last few years, taking the form of many other objects that suit the theme and needs of specific events: custom wristbands for concerts and live acts, QR codes for special tech events, and many more. Below, we discuss the different categories of tickets used in events that are available to the public.
- General Admission Tickets
These tickets are usually available to a massive amount of people, as they are usually cheaper and have little to no extra benefit attached to them. General admission tickets are often used in large events, but they can also be used in smaller, more intimate events where every participant gets pretty much the same treatment. Streamline the buying process for these tickets by setting up an efficient pre-registration website or registration booth at the venue itself. The number of people may overwhelm your onsite staff, so organizing general admission attendees before they even get to the venue is ideal.
- Custom Tickets
Custom tickets have been growing in popularity, as they offer creative alternatives to standard paper tickets. As the name suggests, these tickets can be customized to suit the needs of the event, to reflect its theme, and to serve as the first line of access to certain social groups, thereby becoming a platform for increased awareness. Most of us have read about the infamous golden ticket of Willy Wonka fame and how incredibly effective that was at boosting product sales and creating increased awareness for the brand. These days, we have VIP tickets, backstage passes, festival wristbands, and even collectible silicone wristbands and custom-made lanyards as examples of special tickets.
It helps to get really creative when coming up with custom tickets for a certain event: think of how it can be connected to the brand and how it can be marketed in a unique and interesting way. Promote it extensively all over social media and make a promotional breadcrumb trail all over the internet to create some hype.
- Early Bird Tickets
Early bird tickets are sold at the earliest possible date before an event and cater to the urgent needs of early buyers. These early buyers are usually devoted fans of a brand or active participants in the communities that cater to certain industries and hobbies; they will not hesitate to snatch up those tickets before anybody else gets to them. Having a group of buyers who are as dedicated as these can be a strategic win for your event. They can be the first ambassadors for your event, creating the much appreciated hype and word-of-mouth awareness that will lead more people to buy more tickets. Make sure to sell your early bird tickets at a discount to make them even more attractive and to foster a sense of urgency among early buyers.
- Virtual Tickets
Virtual tickets are especially useful for virtual events. Fans and supporters who can’t attend the event in person will be interested in purchasing virtual tickets to livestream the activity or to watch it at a later date. Virtual tickets can also be used for events that don’t need physical tickets and require QR code scans instead.
These tickets should be sold at discounted rates because they won’t need to be printed or processed manually. They are also usually sold as close as possible to the date of the event. The reason behind this is so that regular buyers will still consider the venue ticket as their first option and the virtual ticket as an alternative.
Filling up a venue is a dream for many organizers, and selling different ticket categories is a surefire path to make that happen. You don’t need to take a lot of extra steps to make your event more interesting and to attract participants or attendees. People will come for your tickets as long as you provide enough discounts, change up buying options, and make the tickets themselves a worthwhile buy.
