by ClearEvent Support | Event Management
You invest thousands of dollars on your conference. Your marketing targets potential delegates across the country. Your goal is a great return on your investment. But, your challenge is to get noticed and make a compelling connection with delegates to attract them to your conference! How do you achieve your goal when there is so much noise drowning out your message? A big part of the answer is by leveraging conference branding!
This article focuses on on using conference branding to grab your delegate’s attention so you can let them know what a great conference you have in store for them. If you can’t get their attention, how will they know to come to your event?
Expect your marketing to grab only a tiny fraction of delegates’ attention. In other words, even if they see your marketing, you have only a second or two to connect. What to do? Compelling conference branding is your best weapon against distraction.
What is Compelling Conference Branding?
Your conference brand needs to instantly catch delegates’ attention, in a memorable way.
Conference branding functions as shorthand for your conference and the value it provides. It is compelling if your delegates instantly think of your conference when they see your conference branding. And do delegates think good things about your conference – fun, educational, productive? This is the effect you are looking for.
There’s not enough time for reading to work well. Instead, compelling conference branding hooks their attention visually. Your marketing copy then has a chance to connect with the delegate and get them to sign up.
3 Tips: Compelling Conference Branding
So, effective conference branding is all based on visual cues. To get the best results for your conference, pay close attention to the following three must-do tips.
1) Communicate Visually
Humans process visual information extremely rapidly, without thinking about it. People also recognize patterns and repetition without thinking about it. (1,2,3!). The associations and connections are there before we even know it.
These unconscious behaviours are always exploited by the most effective visual messaging.
Symbols, colors, and graphics are your building blocks for effective visual messaging. These map perfectly to logo, color themes and imagery for your conference. Use these essential aspects to build compelling conference branding with a powerful visual message.
Logo
Don’t skimp on your conference logo!
Your logo stands for your conference, what it is about, and the value it provides. Your conference logo delivers this essential visual message which is reinforced every time it is seen thanks to the visual parts of our brain.
Graphic designers are skilled at converting your conference focus and value into a stunning, communicative memorable logo.
Collaborate closely, with your graphic designer. Ask them to generate several alternatives. Be prepared to iterate through multiple designs to get to the best one.
When you have good candidate logos available, share them with ten to twenty delegates to learn which logos resonate the way you want them to.
Color Themes
Colors provide strong associations. Look around, marketers are bombarding us with their brand colors and our brains are unconsciously interpreting and connecting certain colors and factors with certain brands.
Red and yellow associate with (fast) food brands. Blue and green makes us think calm and cool. (More Info: Color Association Infographic.)
What colors stimulate the right associations for your conference? Make sure to choose theme colors that unconsciously connect with the right associations for your conference. For example, avoid red for a spa or pastels for a race event.
Give close consideration to how your conference color themes can be incorporated into your logo. Your graphic designer will be your best asset in coming up with the right blend.
Imagery
Imagery for your conference is very important. Compared to logo and colors, imagery is a supporting actor but plays a vital role in visually conveying what your conference stands for.
Images can be a single image used throughout your branding. It can also be a series of images with each one contributing a reinforcing visual message. You can use pictures or graphic designs. The key objective is to strengthen the message visually. A simple test is to take the image away and ask if the message is clearer with or without it?
Consider for each image whether it visually conveys something essential, not already provided by your logo, colors or other images.
2) Keep it Simple
People like simple.
In producing your logo and selecting your colors and deciding on your images, make sure the overall combination is simple and easy to digest visually.
It is easy to overdo it. Adding more to your visual messaging usually weakens its impact. So, if you’re having trouble dialing in your conference branding, the answer is usually to take something away and simplify it.
3) Be Consistent
Now you have your conference branding selected, use it consistently.
Consistent use of your conference branding takes advantage of our tendency to make connections and recognize patterns. You’ve worked hard to produce compelling conference branding. Don’t dilute your message by offering unbranded or poorly branded items to your delegates.
All of your delegate facing materials should be branded with your logo, colors and imagery. Minimally this should include:
- Conference website
- All marketing materials, ads, blog articles, social media and printed pieces
- Registration and event management software
- Communications, messages and email
- Signage at your conference
- Conference collateral such as badges, lanyards, programs, schedules, tickets, bags and swag
Get great ROI from your Conference Branding
Grab your delegates attention with compelling conference branding. Communicate the value and focus of your conference visually, because you only have a few seconds to grab delegates’ attention.
- Create eye-catching branding with your logo, color themes and imagery.
- Keep it simple
- Be consistent, use your branding on all items you expect your delegates to see.
These are three easy wins that will boost recognition and connections with your delegates.
Good Luck!
Interested In Other Topics?
As a conference planner, knowledge is key. Let us know the topics you’d like to hear about to help increase your event planning success, at support@clearevent.com.
In the meantime, Happy Planning!
by ClearEvent Support | Event Management
Sometimes the very thing we need to pay attention to is right under our nose. We just can’t see it. Every conference planner works hard to secure the best venue, deliver the best program and provide amazing food. In dealing with these important elements, it is easy to overlook the smaller details in your event that contribute a lot to delegate experience. And delegate experience matters!
Make me feel special!
The one thing that every conference delegate wants – heck, we all want! – is to feel special. So, savvy conference planners must make choices for their event that they believe will make every delegate feel special.
Five Quick Easy Wins Many Conferences Miss
For this article we’ll focus on five quick and easy wins many conferences miss.
As they say, the devil is in the details. Big items, like venue, decor, food and entertainment are on most planners’ minds. Here are some easy wins that often get missed and make such a difference.
These simple touch points have the potential to make every delegate at your conference feel special at no additional expense to your conference.
1) Great Personal Interactions
There is no better way to show delegate experience matters than providing excellence in personal interactions with delegates. Every encounter with delegates should be professional, respectful, knowledgeable, helpful, friendly and it at all possible, fun.
This is not a tall order. It is basic table stakes if delegate experience matters to you. When conference staff provide great personal interactions with delegates, every interaction leaves your delegate feeling special.
Get the best staff
Thinking about your conference, there are three types of people your delegates will have contact with:
- Venue staff
- Service providers hired by your conference
- Your own conference staff
The first two om this list are hired by your conference. Since you don’t directly hire or manage the people working for the venue or suppliers, it is essential to verify that their staff meet your standards for delegate interactions. Thorough vetting is key when choosing venues and suppliers.
Once you have a short list, ask to observe their managers and staff at a different event which is similar to your conference. Observing venue and supplier staff in action provides an important opportunity for you to verify their people really deliver the way you need them to.
Ensure your own conference staff provide exceptional service
Merely good, doesn’t cut it. With your own staff and workers, take the time to educate and train them. Don’t take for granted that they know best practices for interacting with delegates.
Ensure every person on your conference team is a fabulous ambassador for your event and that every interaction leaves delegates feeling special. Do your staff know the names and faces of VIPs? Do they all learn how to greet these VIPs or how to direct them and give VIPs that extra level of support?
Once they know how to treat VIP’s, it’s easy to get your staff to treat every delegate as a VIP!
2) Registration
For most delegates, registration is the first contact with your conference.
In addition to processing delegate registration, your registration system is like a business card for your event. It conveys your brand, conference themes and values, and lets delegates know what they can expect from your event.
Your registration system is like a business card for your event.
Every delegate registers with your event, so it is very important that the registration experience is great.
The registration form should be easy to complete by the vast majority of your delegates. It should be well thought-out, taking no more of the delegates time than absolutely necessary. In other words, keep your registration forms as short as possible with a minimum of reading!
The controls and directions on the form should be clear and easy to follow. Review and test your forms before going live to eliminate all typos and any correct any parts that are not clear. Read more “3 Must-Do Tips For Creating A Great Registration Experience”
Lastly, delegates often have questions, despite your best efforts to create a great registration experience. Ensure there are two types of help available to them. The first is a way to ask questions about registration or your event. The second is technical support in the event they encounter technical difficulties with their registration.
Time invested tuning up your registration process will reflect well on your event and send a message that delegate experience matters.
3) Check-in
This one is easy to overlook, but also an easy one to get right. Ask delegates and they’ll all have a bad check-in story to tell.
Don’t squander this opportunity!
Check-in is an easy win for every conference to make every delegate feel welcome and special. The first interaction at the event itself should be a great feel-good interaction. Responsibility for a great check-in experience falls squarely on the shoulders of the conference planner.
Making Check-in Great Again
So, in addition to the guidance from the first easy win in this this article, make sure your check-in staff:
- Know how to use your check-in system
- Are very knowledgeable about your conference
- Understand their primary role is to welcome your delegates!
Check-in staff should be patient, thoughtful and understanding in every interaction. Prepare your Check-in staff with the question “What will you do if something goes wrong, and what is the priority?”. They should know how to get problems fixed and throughout any unexpected issue, the delegate experience matters!
Take extra time ahead of your event to make sure that check-in leaves every delegate feeling special and every aspect of the check-in says delegate experience matters! To get check-in right, you need to do your homework and be prepared. Once check-in is live, it’s too late. Make sure your staff are competent knowledgeable and can handle typical questions and issues that occur during check-in.
Once Check-in is live, it’s too late!
4) Signs
This one is so simple it amazes me that conferences overlook it!
Delegates need to know where to go to get to the various parts of your conference. They’ll also want to know schedule and general event info.
Seems simple, yet I have seen examples of deserted conference reception areas with delegates looking for information unable to get the answers they need. With no one to answer their questions, there were also no signs or fliers with event information, no event app, and hotel staff could not answer questions about the conference.
The good news is this type of situation is very avoidable. Ensure information easily available to your delegates and let them know how to reach a member of your organizing team if they need to, but can’t find one.
A Conference App Helps
Conference planners serve their delegates well by making information available in more than one way to delegates. A conference app is an effective readily-available source of conference information and makes a great addition to every conference.
Effective Conference Signage
Conference signage is commonly supplied by conference organizers in addition to the signs installed and/or provided by the venue.
To be effective, conference signs need to be:
- Findable
- Readable by delegates with vision challenges
- Have clear messaging
- Placed in locations where delegates will likely be looking for conference information.
Conference signs should be placed so they are visible even when the space is crowded. Before ordering your signs, check and double check that the messaging is clear and the copy is easy to read.
5) Seating
This one is so simple, it should never be a problem for any conference. Comfortable seats!
No conference planner deliberately chooses uncomfortable seats for their attendees. And yet, we’ve all been to conferences where the seats were uncomfortable!
We’ve all been to conferences where the seats were uncomfortable!
When scoping out your venue, take time to sit for a while in the proposed seating.
Your delegates will be sitting for hours at a time. Far better for you to reject uncomfortable seats in the planning stages! The venue may not even be aware that their seats are uncomfortable as none of their staff sit in them for hours at at time.
Give your guests comfortable, supportive seats so they can sit comfortably and enjoy the bigger things you have worked so hard to share with them at your conference.
There’s nothing like comfortable seating to let your attendees know delegate experience matters!
Let them know Delegate Experience Matters
Your delegates are the reason your conference exists. Let them know they are special, in every interaction. Every decision you make as a conference planner affects how your delegates feel before, during and after your conference.
Always look in the details for simple ways to make your delegates feel special, such as:
- Knowledgeable accessible hosts and staff. Make sure help is always close by.
- A professional, hassle-free registration process.
- A warm welcoming check-in.
- Easy to use, informative event app and signage that’s easy to read, clear and easy to find.
- Comfortable seats!
The five easy wins in this article are really just the start of what you can do. Each one directly impacts most if not all your delegates. You’re already working hard on the big aspects of your conference, don’t overlook the smaller things because they matter too!
Interested In Other Topics?
As a conference planner, knowledge is key. Let us know the topics you’d like to hear about to help increase your event planning success, at support@clearevent.com.
In the meantime, Happy Planning!
by ClearEvent Support | Event Management
No matter how many times you’ve done this, managing booth assignments are no easy task! From managing expectations to staying organized in the midst of vendor registrations, we know this is a challenge for conferences, expos, street fairs, festivals and many other events that must manage booth spaces and/or plots.
If you’re just getting started or simply want to know how you can make booth assignments easier, here are 6 easy steps to follow:
Step 1: Create A Visual Floor Plan
Having a visual floor plan that exhibitors can review is essential. Don’t know where to start? First, check with your venue or your city’s event planning department to see if they have a starting template you can use.
You can use standard programs like PowerPoint and Paint to create a simple floor plan. You can take it up a notch with Illustrator and Photoshop or, for the more sophisticated planner, you can try floor planning software like Smart Draw, Easy Blue Print or Lucidchart. Regardless of the tool, be sure to number your booths and include a legend.
Step 2: Publish Your Floor Plan
Be sure to export your floor plan to an image (.PNG, .GIF or .JPG) or .PDF that you can upload and host on your website, event portal or event app. Sharing your floor plan will make it easy for registrants to see what space is available and will reduce the number of location request-related conversations you’ll need to have down the road.
Step 3: Ask For Location Preferences
Providing an option for your exhibitors to request a location at the time of registration gives them the chance to tell you their preferred location.
You can do this easily by including a “Preferred booth” field on your vendor registration form. Just make sure you manage expectations around booth allocations and preferences. Unless they’re purchasing a specific plot or location, a preference is purely that – a preference and not a final location.
By asking for booth location, you’ll likely avoid the need to follow up with exhibitors to gather this information. Providing a visual floor plan is an easy way for an exhibitor to see if a location meets their criteria.
Step 4: Keep Track Of Assignments
Most events take the first-come-first-served approach to booth allocation. It’s a great way to encourage early registrations. Keeping this approach in mind, the best way to stay on top of booth assignments is by allocating booths as registrations are received, and adjusting as you go. As you assign a booth number to an exhibitor, update your records for the vendor as well as your master floor plan.
Step 5: Update Your Floor Plan
You can choose to keep your updated floor plan private or publish a diagram to show which spaces are still available. Publishing an up-to-date floor plan will provide insight into how well your exhibitor spaces are selling. It might also help reduce requests for the same space, while also providing urgency to encourage exhibitors to sign up early.
Step 6: Communicate
When you’re happy with your booth assignments, reach out to your exhibitors. Post booth numbers on your website, event portal or event app. You can include a link to your finalized floor plan, or attach it directly to a message or personalized email.
Timing is a fine balance for this. As much as you want to wait until all your registrations are in, keep in mind that your exhibitors will want to know as soon as possible to start marketing to their clients.
Booth Assignments – Wrapping Up
There are so many ways to manage booth assignments, and every event will have its own set of challenges. You ultimately want to know you have the right suite of tools at your fingertips to help manage all the moving pieces. Go with your gut and do what you know is right for your exhibitors and attendees!
Happy Planning!
by ClearEvent Support | Event Management
Need tickets fast? Read on. In the time it takes to drink your coffee (or tea!), you’ll have all the info you need!
The Secret to Successful Tickets
A bit of up front preparation is key to expediting your overall process. The following steps highlight important considerations, and show you what a good ticket system can do for you. The first few steps will make all the difference to setting up your online tickets fast!
Online Tickets: What to Expect?
Selling online tickets for your event should be a satisfying experience for you and your customer. Setting up tickets should be fast, easy and intuitive. Going “live” to accept payments should take minutes not hours. Your ticket buyers should have a great online purchase experience. Collecting payments from your account should only take a couple of days, which helps your cash flow.
Sadly, not all ticket systems leave you feeling this way.
Step 1: Get a Good Ticket System
A good ticket system is flexible, reliable and comes with good support for when you have questions. For the purposes of this blog post, we’ll illustrate using ClearEvent’s Event Management platform, but there are others out there.
ClearEvent enables you to set up tickets fast and be receiving online payments in under an hour.
We live in a mobile world and ticket buyers have a range of computer skills. Make sure that your system can accept online orders for your tickets on phone, tablet and computer devices.
Your ticket system says a lot to your ticket buyers about your event. Make sure your ticket system is properly branded and themed for your event, not your ticket company’s brand!
Step 2: Which Tickets? What Prices?
The objective in this step is to write your list of tickets and prices and expected sales for each ticket.
What age groups will come to your event? What special groups? Make sure to offer tickets that cover people that will be attending. Determine the different ticket types you will offer on paper before setting up your tickets online. Examples of common ticket types include:
- Ticket buyers for family events expect Adult, Child, Senior and Family tickets.
Ticket Types: Who is coming to your event?
- Consider special tickets for Veterans, First Responders, Association Members etc.
- For multi-day events will you offer tickets (passes) that cover more than one day?
Ticket Prices: How much will you charge for each ticket?
When you sell anything, it’s important to be clear what you are selling. In this case, it’s not just tickets, it’s the value those tickets represent – your event!
Setting Ticket Prices
Pricing is a challenging topic for some event planners. Make sure the various types of tickets you offer, and your ticket prices, make sense to your customers. Also make sure your ticket revenues will be high enough to at least cover your anticipated event costs. Additional considerations are involved if you’re planning a fundraiser such as your target for raised funds.
Benchmark Your Prices
How much will buyers pay to attend your event? Do some comparisons to see how much similar events are charging. If your prices are significantly different from other events, make sure your buyers can easily understand why your prices are different and that your tickets represent good value.
If this is your first event, you may not become confident in your pricing until your event has been run a few times and you have experimented with pricing.
For now use experience from past events or make your best estimates of what you can charge.
Step 3: How Many Tickets Will You Sell?
How much money will come from ticket sales? This is also an easier question to answer if your event has been run a few times. It also has a lot to do with your competition, and promotion.
A little time here can save you a whole lot of stress later!
Use the following steps to determine how much money (Revenue) is needed to cover your costs for the event (Expenses)? If you’re planning to raise money in a fundraiser or planning to make a profit from the event, then you’ll need to build that into the price of the ticket too.
a) Revenue from Ticket Sales
- For each ticket type, multiply ticket price by the number of tickets you expect to sell. This is the Gross Revenue you expect for each ticket type.
- Add up all the Gross Revenues from ticket sales.
- Add any other sources of revenue outside of tickets
- For example selling t-shirts or other paraphernalia at the event
- This is your Projected Gross Revenue for your event.
b) Event Costs
- Add up your event costs
- Add your desired profit margin, or fundraising amounts
- The total is the Projected Expenses you’ll need to cover with your Actual Gross Revenue.
c) Profit or Loss?
We’ll assume the bulk of your revenue is coming from ticket sales. Will your Ticket Revenue be enough? This is not a question to gloss over! If you don’t cover your costs, your event could end up being a big problem for you, personally!
- Compare your Projected Gross Revenue to your Projected Expenses. You want your Projected Gross Revenue to be larger than your Projected Expenses!
- If you’re confident in your prices and projected ticket sales volumes, and your ticket sales are projected bring in more than you need for your costs, your event is likely in good shape.
Beware the unexpected!
Before moving to the next step, consider What if my costs are higher than expected? What will happen if ticket sales are lower than expected?
Can you increase promotion, which may also increase costs? Can you charge more for your tickets? What if you have to lower your ticket prices?
Now is a good time to re-run the numbers for these different scenarios and look at how this affects your bottom line.
This is not a step to gloss over! If you don’t cover your costs, your event could end up being a big problem for you.
Step 4: Set Terms and Conditions for your tickets
Things can change, and things sometimes go wrong. As an event organizer, you need to be prepared for unexpected changes to schedule, cancellations or breakdowns and equipment failures.
When something does go wrong, what will your ticket holders expect? Is it the same as what you expect?
It is important to clearly inform your ticket buyers about how your event will handle these types of situation.
Typically, this information is conveyed in event policies such as Refund Policy and Cancellation Policy. It is a best practice to make your event policies available on your event website. Your ticket system should also provide ways for these policies to be clearly available to the ticket buyer at the time of purchase.
Listed below are key considerations for your Terms and Conditions.
- How much do your tickets cost?
- Will you provide a discount for online purchases vs. sales of tickets at the door?
- If you have different types of tickets, let buyers know what their ticket type was directly on the ticket itself. E.g. Adult/Student/Senior/Family
- Will you provide refunds? Under what conditions or circumstances?
- What is your cancellation policy?
- Who should your customer contact if they have a question about the ticket?
This is a good start but by no means an exhaustive list. Make sure to get legal advice to make sure you have all your bases covered.
It is good practice to also to include your terms and conditions directly on your ticket.
Step 5: Set up Your Tickets Fast
We’re at step 5 and only now can we start setting up our tickets! No one tells you that!
Without properly understanding your pricing and terms and conditions, it’s no wonder event planners struggle setting up their tickets, especially when it’s your first time. With this information in mind the following steps will be quick and easy.
Now you’ve done your homework, it’s pretty easy to set your tickets fast!
Using your Tickets List from Steps 2 and 3, and your Terms and Conditions from Step 4, set up each of your ticket types. You’ll be amazed how easy it is to set up your tickets when you’ve worked through those key details first.
Depending on your ticket system, it’s easy to spend a lot of time trying out various settings. Ideally, your system allows you to make changes after your tickets are live. Where possible, it’s best to keep those changes to a minimum like correcting typos or updating information that has changed since the ticket was published.
Step 6: Set up your Ticket Order Page
Your ticket system will have a Ticket Order Page where your ticket buyers will purchase their tickets.
Make it really easy for your buyers to buy your tickets. Set up links to your Ticket Order Page on your main website or on your event website if you have one. It’s good practice to prominently include a ‘Tickets’ button in the banner of your website with a link to your Tickets Order Page.
If you don’t already have a website, you don’t necessarily need to build one since the event web app included in ClearEvent does that for you anyway! Take advantage of the included event web app which includes information about your event, as well as pages for ticket sales and registration forms.
Additionally, add links to your Facebook page and on your other social media channels to your Ticket Order Page.
Step 7: Test! Test! Test!
So, our tickets are set up, let’s just go live, right?!!
Whoa! Not yet, it’s always better if you discover any problems rather than your ticket buyers.
Set your system to “Test mode” and pretend to be a ticket buyer. Make some test purchases so you can see what your customers will see. If there are any problems, from simple typos to unclear text, find and fix them now before going live.
Try out test purchase scenarios that match what your typical buyers will do. i.e. the same numbers and types of ticket orders you expect to see. Make single and multiple purchases of all your ticket types and make sure that all the explanatory information is correct on all buyer-facing pages in the process.
Are your terms and conditions clearly available and easy to access?
If your ticket buyers have questions, are the answers right there for them on your purchase page, confirmation page, ticket email and ticket itself?
Additionally, find someone you trust, with a good eye for detail. Ask them to check the purchase process for typos or text that needs improving. When you’ve tested as carefully as you can, and other people can’t find any issues with your ticket offering, and everything on the purchase page and ticket is all clear to them, you’re ready to go live!
Step 8: Go-Live!
Go live with confidence having done your homework and testing! Make sure to schedule your go-live with sufficient time to promote your event and sell as many tickets as possible.
When you go live, check the following:
- Your system is configured to take live transactions. e.g. no longer in test mode.
- Your purchase page loads correctly.
- One more look for typos, unclear or missing informaiton.
Let your team know that ticket sales are open. Encourage them to spread the word about your event.
Step 9: Promote! Promote! Promote!
Of all the steps, promotion is one of the most important!
Grabbing Attention
It can be difficult to get people’s attention these days. Spreading the word about your event and getting people excited about attending is essential.
Promoting your event is critical! And not always easy.
Promote Early
Start your promotion as early as possible. Start promoting your event well before it starts. Allow time for word to get around and excitement to build.
You always have competition
People have choices and you want them to choose your event! There may be many other activities or events happening at the same time as your event. Be aware of what else is happening before, during and immediately after your event. Is there a big sporting event happening that will slow your ticket sales? Is there a similar event at the same time as yours?
Promote using Social Media
Of course, social media works great for promoting your event . Be consistent. Provide repeat opportunities for people to get your message. Seek ways to get the best coverage you can for your time and budget.
Use good promotional copy in your tickets promotion. For every promotional piece you share, make sure your copy is:
- Concise
- Compelling
- Clear
- Complete
Ask your friends, colleagues, vendors and sponsors to help you by posting links to your ticket page from their Facebook, twitter and other social media channels too
Include a “Call to Action”
Once people get your message, then give them an easy way to get to your tickets!
Take full advantage of your website, email and social media channels. Set up as many links pointing to your ticket purchase page as possible. Get your message in front of as many people as possible to see and click those links!
Put links to your ticket purchase page on all your digital promotion:
- Web page
- Email campaigns
- Social – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.
Step 10: Relax, you’re done!
Well done! In 10 simple steps you’ve done a great job setting up your tickets fast! It’s time to chill, or more likely, focus on other parts of your event!
If you’ve done all the steps above, you’ve been able to set up your tickets fast, your ticket sales have the best chance to meet your goals and your attendees will be excited to come to your event!
Good luck!
Got a tickets story to share? Send us an email!
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Interested in other topics?
As an event planner, knowing what options are available to you is key. Let us know the topics you’d like to hear about that could help your event planning success, at support@clearevent.com.
by ClearEvent Support | Event Management
Part 1 of this series looked at the difference between tickets and registration. In Part 2, we covered when to use tickets and registration. This third and final part, guides you through choosing the best system for tickets and registration.
Before we look at systems, first let’s consider the experience of attendees using your tickets and registration system.
Attendee Experience Matters
So far, we’ve mostly looked at tickets and registration from the event planner’s perspective. It’s especially important to consider attendee experience when choosing a system. This often tips the scales in one direction or the other, and the capabilities of your current ticket and registration system becomes important here.
From the attendee’s perspective, the key differences between tickets and registration relate to:
- Signing up for other people
- How much and what type of information must be entered and uploaded?
Signing up for others
Signing up for other people is usually easy with tickets. Buyers simply enter the number of each ticket type. If the event collects information for each ticket holder, it is important that this step is easy for the buyer. Make sure buying multiple tickets is easy for your buyers.
Signing up other people using registration should be easy as well. Attendees want to register for themselves and complete registration for the other members of their group. The registration page must be easily shared. Then, each person in their group can also complete their own registration, if needed.
Information Collection
From the registrant or ticket buyer perspective, the less information entered the better! It’s that simple.
If you need to collect information from your attendees, make sure your registration form is really easy to use.
Make it really easy for people to sign up for your event. Keep your questions to a minimum!
Ticket systems are primarily designed to sell groups of tickets in a single transaction. Some ticket systems can collect information about the ticket holders at the time the tickets are purchased. The ticket buyer must enter information for themselves and for each ticket holder.
Entering more than a little information about each ticket holder can quickly become a chore for the ticket buyer. Keep questions to a minimum! If you want to collect more than a few items of information from your attendees, registration may be the better approach.
However, if you really want to use tickets, make sure your system is very easy to fill out and provides help and shortcuts to assist your buyers when making their purchase.
ClearEvent’s simple, well-designed ticket purchase page makes it very easy for ticket buyers to copy previous entries, keeping typing to a minimum.
Choosing a System for Tickets and Registration
You’ll need both
There is a bewildering array of online tickets and registration systems available to event planners. So, what should you look for?
As we noted in Part 1, simple events may get away with using tickets or registration. As events get larger and more complex, you’re going to need both tickets and registration for your events.
Not all systems do both
Buyer beware the system that only does tickets, or only does registration!
Some systems clearly only do tickets or registration. They were designed specifically for one purpose or the other, not both, and they have not been expanded to include both. Many single use systems claim to do both tickets and registration. Beware! Many only do one well!
How can you tell?
Ticketing-only systems lack the sophistication and flexibility needed to handle registrations. Everything is treated like a ticket or a ticket sale. Because tickets are best for situations with low personalization, ticket-only systems lack reporting and communications functions that are so helpful for tracking and managing all the different registrant types.
Registration-only systems are generally weak at offering tickets. Using a registration-only system to sell tickets can be difficult for both event planners and attendees because registration-only systems are not designed to produce tickets and manage reporting for tickets and ticket holders.
Your system should include separate ticket and registration systems in one application, allowing you to do everything you need in a single system.
A registration is not a ticket. A ticket is not a registration. Chose a system that has dedicated registration AND tickets capabilities that will each serve your needs well.
You should be able to register many different participant types and offer as many different ticket types for your entire event or for parts of your event.
What Else Matters in a Tickets and Registration system?
Expect more from your online event system!
These days event planners should expect an online tickets and registration system that is flexible, affordable and comes with great support.
Let’s look more closely at those important factors.
Flexibility
Make sure there are robust controls within the registration and tickets parts of the system to give you flexibility you need in your ticket and registration offerings.
Useful ticket controls include:
- Controls to create, copy and share tickets and registration forms quickly and easily
- Dashboards and detailed reporting giving you operational visibility
- Controls to manage when your ticket and registration offerings are available for sale
- Ability to preview upcoming tickets and registrations before they are available
- Ability to share all or part of your ticket or registration offerings – email, Facebook, twitter and other social media
- Able to make corrections after your tickets and registration forms are published
- Tickets and Registration forms branded for your event, not the event software company!
ClearEvent offers registration and tickets capabilities in an all-in-one online system, beautifully branded and themed for your event.
Affordability
You should reasonably expect to get a ticket and registration system along with a host of other powerful features that save you time, effort and reduce risk for your event.
There are many different payment models for event software, and most system will offer multiple plans which include varying features and services. All use some combination of three main payment methods – subscription fees, transactions fees and other service fees. It doesn’t matter whether you pay subscriptions or transaction fees, or other service fees or a combination of all three.
What counts is your total price your event must pay in order to use the software for your event.
Subscriptions
Subscriptions vary widely from $10’s per month to $1000’s per month!
Some use flat fees, others depend on how many ‘seats’ you buy for your planners. Annual subscriptions are usually cheaper than monthly subscriptions for the same plan. Make sure you understand what your plan provides and how many of your team will have access and how much that all costs.
Transaction Fees
Transaction fees occur every time the system processes a transaction. Make sure you understand whether fees are paid by your event or are paid by the your buyers and registrants (which you can ignore).
Transaction fees paid by the event typically cover credit card processing by a third party processor. Credit card processing fees are usually around 3% and you may also be able to negotiate better rates with your processor.
Make sure to set your ticket prices and registration fees to cover all included fees if you elect to include fees in your ticket and registration prices.
Other Service Fees
Other Service fees also vary widely from $100’s to $1,000’s! Some services fees are one-offs, others are recurring charges you must factor in to your cost of use.
Service fees cover services performed by the software supplier such as set up, training, design and customization.
Make sure you understand which services are necessary in order to make your software 1) operate, 2) do what you need it to do, and, 3) provide the end-user experience you want to deliver.
Adding all applicable prices and fees will let you know what your event software system will cost and whether it is value for money or something your budget can afford.
The Bottom Line
No matter what fees and charges, your total cost of event software should not exceed $1000 per year. For many events your software should be significantly less than this amount.
Event software and all charges related to it should be a minor cost on your budget.
Your event software should be inexpensive by comparison to other significant event costs such as venue, catering, and entertainment,
Support
Choose a supplier that has your best interests at heart.
Unfortunately, many large suppliers are not able to give you the attention you need and some just treat you like a number.
The best suppliers provide expertise in various ways throughout their tickets and registration system as well as providing access to live support when you need it.
Take time to choose a supplier who will be a true part of your success formula.
Tickets and Registration: You Need Both!
It is easy to tell when to use tickets or registration. Just look closely at the level of personalization. Consider these key factors to easily determine when to use Tickets or Registration in each sign up situation.
- Individual/Group signup.
- Approvals needed.
- Information Collection.
- Attendee Participation.
Use the handy table to make your choice:
Many events may start out as simple ticketed events. As they grow, tickets and registration both become important to successful planning and delivery of the event.
Make sure to use a system that is well-designed to do both Tickets and Registration, not just one of them!
Your registration and tickets system should provide a great experience for your attendees. It should be easy to use and provide the flexibility you need. As always, make sure your system is very affordable and well supported.
I hope this series of articles is helpful for you. Please contact us if you have any questions or would like to discuss any aspect of Tickets and Registration!
In the meantime, happy planning!
Interested in other topics?
As an event planner, knowing what options are available to you is key. Let us know the topics you’d like to hear about that could help your event planning success, at support@clearevent.com.
by ClearEvent Support | Event Management
We saw in our Seminar Signup example in
Part 1 that tickets and registration could both be used. In this article, we show two more examples. One shows when to use
tickets, while the other shows when to use
registration. Our final example shows tickets and registration used for
different parts of the same event.
Use Personalization To Decide Between Tickets And Registration
Recall from Part 1, if personalization is low, then tickets is the best choice.
If personalization of your attendee experience is low, use tickets. As the level of personalization increases, registration is the better approach.
Example 2: Entry To A Festival
In this example, a festival is collecting entry payments and providing a ticket to each attendee to enter the event. Very little personalization applies in this example. The event offers different ticket types such as single-day Child/Adult/Senior tickets and multi-day passes. Attendees purchase tickets or passes in order to gain entry to the event. Once in the festival, there is no additional personalization for ticket- or pass-holders.
Here’s how the table looks for attendees for this event.
All four factors fall under Tickets making Tickets a much better choice than Registration (only covers three) for this situation. Tickets the clear winner here because group sign up is a major requirement for the festival, .
There is a little personalization for the festival, however it is handled by using different tickets for different types of attendees. A multi-day pass provides a different experience for holders of those passes. However, the personalization is limited to the number of days pass-holders may enter the event.
Example 3. Registration For Vendors, Entertainment And Volunteers
Events often have vendors, entertainment and volunteers. Each has a high degree of personalization in their experience at the event.
All of these types of attendees are expected to signup individually, not as groups. Vendors will be manually approved and payment will occur on approval. Entertainers provide a range of information about their act and experience which organizers use to approve or decline each applicant. Volunteers are automatically approved for this event.
They will have badges which indicate their attendee type. This helps the event organizers keep track of which parts of the event each may enter. Vendors have access to the vendor hall during set up and teardown. Entertainers have access to backstage areas. Volunteers have broader access than delegates or audience members at the event.
When signing up, applicants provide a range of information to the event organizers as well as make selections. Vendors chose booth details and options. Entertainers provide stage details and information about their act. Volunteers provide information on experience, skills, job preferences and availability.
They will each experience the event in very different ways. Each vendor’s booth is a personally selected combination of size, shape and structure. Entertainers each need a particular stage setup. Volunteers have their own job assignments. They all need different information about where they need to be, what they need to do and when they can come and go.
Here’s how the table looks for Vendors and Entertainers:
And here is the table for Volunteers, the main difference being automatic approval:
Clearly registration is the best approach for all three participant types. Tickets does not enable the information exchange needed in order to provide the personalized experience needed by each of these event participants.
Example 4. Registration And Tickets For A Conference
Registration is strongly associated with conferences. However, we’ll show that conferences, and many other events, use registration and tickets for different parts of the same event.
Conference Registration
In this example, Conference Delegates will have personalized entry, they’ll be signed up for various parts of the conference program and the organizers will be collecting information from delegates for various purposes.
Here’s how the table looks in this situation for delegates:
Registration is the obvious choice for this type of attendee sign up. It’s a more personal experience. Organizers collect information from registrants. Registrants choose different event options such as training, seminars, demonstrations and so on. Organizers use the information to provide personalized and specific itineraries, based on delegate selections from the conference program.
The high level of personalization makes it difficult for tickets to work well in this scenario. Registration is the best choice.
Tickets For The Special Dinner
In this event, a special dinner is also available to all delegates, regardless of how they registered for the conference.
Delegates sign up as individuals and as groups. Not all delegates will attend the special dinner. There is a fee to attend. Attendees just need to show they have paid, and there’s no need for badges. The event will collect email, first name and last name to build an attendee list and there are no other special options to sign up for.
Here’s how the table looks for the special dinner sign up:
Tickets is the best choice for the dinner. While personalization is high for conference registration, it is low for tickets for the special dinner. This is the best approach. The same delegates use registration for the main conference and tickets for the dinner sign up.
Other “side events” like the special dinner can also have their own separate online signup. The table indicates whether tickets or registration is the best approach for each one.
Having both tickets and registration options gives planners the best approach every time
Why not just use one big registration form?
Some might suggest “just add the dinner as an option on your registration form“. You could do this, but think about the experience of your delegate!
Delegates often register months before the event, so many wont know if they’ll want to attend, or even be able to attend the dinner at the time they register. Providing a separate dinner sign up lets delegates make an informed decision when ready. They could sign up at the time of registering, or decide any time before to the cutoff date for sign up as specified by the organizer.
By separating conference registration from the dinner sign up, the organizers avoid scenarios where delegates delay registering till they know if they’ll attend the dinner or any other side events.
Tickets are ideal for side events since they provide a clean, flexible approach to handling entry to the side event.
Which Events need Tickets and Registration?
As you’re aware, many events have many different types of attendees and participants. Aside from the main sign up, there are often side events or activities that attendees and participants can sign up for. In each case, use the table to determine if tickets or registration is better.
Most events need tickets and registration to cover all their needs.
Personalization tells us if tickets or registration is better. So, let’s now make sure the ticket and registration system we use for our event is up to the job.
How is Your Tickets and Registration System Performing?
Take a sample run through your own system for tickets and registration as if you were signing up. It is important to find out if the experience of your attendees needs some improvement!
In the final part of this series, Registration and Tickets Part 3: Which System is Better? we’ll cover the key considerations for selecting a system for Tickets and Registration.
Interested in other topics?
As an event planner, knowing what options are available to you is key. Let us know the topics you’d like to hear about that could help your event planning success, at support@clearevent.com.
In the meantime, happy planning!
