Revisiting some ideas on advance ticket sales.
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Ok, so you want more advance sales for your art and you've taken a critical look at your pricing structure. You REALLY looked to see if you had prices or discounts that undercut your goal of advance sales right?
Right?
Because if not, then stop reading and go do that. The main reason you aren't selling in advance is because people have no price incentive to do so. Give them some incentive.
Here's the second thing you need to do: Tell Them Why It's So Important For Them To Buy in Advance.
You and I know how vital advance ticket sales are to the work you do.
Nobody else does.
Trust me on that.
Nobody else does.
So let's say your a film maker and you need to sell advance copies of your DVD. What's stopping you from doing a short video and saying in clear terms the good things that can happen when 100 people buy your movie in advance?
If you're a theatre needing to sell advance tickets what's stopping you from featuring something on your website like this:
Buying your ticket in advance is one small way to ensure the future of this theatre. It gives us some much need financial stability and helps us plan for the long term. So if you plan on coming, buy your ticket now, we will love you just a bit more for doing so.
That isn't the greatest copy ever, but you get the idea.
Here's my point:
Ask for what you need.
That's probably the biggest lesson I'll take away from working at my day job.
Ask for what you need.
If you've created a price incentive for advance sales and it still isn't happening then you need to directly, clearly, ask for people to do it.
Buying tickets in advance, especially if you're not going through ticketmaster, and giving a discount, is a sane and sound idea that works.
Giving people lots of little reminders via the annual report, e-newsletter, etc and via twitter is a good idea too.
Mazarine
http://wildwomanfundraising.com
Posted by: Mazarine | April 25, 2010 at 02:18 PM