No empty seats! 6 tips to prevent no-shows at your event

I invested a lot of time in an inspiring program, ordered extra delicious catering and spent a lot of budget on marketing. But then at the moment suprême half of the seats in the hall are empty. No-show is one of my biggest annoyances as an event organizer. Money, time and food are thrown away before your eyes. A huge shame for all the resources and that is why I have invested a lot of extra time in this past year to reduce this. In this article my 6 most successful solutions.

It happens at every event. I’ve had corporate events where 60% of the registered guests didn’t show up, but even at the “big” TED conference where the cheapest ticket costs $10,000, the average no-show is even 15%. People get sick, bad things happen in the family circle, a big business opportunity suddenly comes up… there are plenty of legitimate reasons for people to not show up to the event after registering. But it’s not that bad to cancel, right?

By no-show I really mean the attendees who say they will be there and then don’t follow through. Maybe they registered for a free ticket or just checked to see if they were present at the online event. It doesn’t matter how they registered. The only thing that matters is that they registered and then didn’t show up.

High no-show rates can have many negative effects on the event. In addition to the loss of income and waste of food, for example, also the taking away of places of visitors who would have liked to be there. It is therefore not only the organizers of events that are free of charge who are racking their brains to minimize this.

From communication to commitment

You don’t want to flood people’s inboxes, but you certainly don’t want them to forget about your event either. I see a lot of people I work with get completely buried under the daily mail. Or they simply don’t receive it, because it ends up in the spam box.

Have a strict reminder strategy. I myself use a standard email 1 month, 1 week and 1 day in advance. Only one overview email sometimes falls between the cracks, multiple is much less common. In addition, you only have certain details just before an event or you simply do not want to share them earlier.
Make sure you have set up an SPF record with the host of your event website to prevent the mail from ending up in the spam box. Here is how to do this with Mailchimp .
When confirming your registration, also send a calendar invitation (iCal) that guests can immediately add to their calendar.
Are you organizing a free event? Then always clearly state in the mailings that you have a waiting list and that someone else can be happy with a cancellation. That provides a psychological incentive to still cancel properly.
Also really try to use other communication channels, romania email list 1.8 million contact leads besides e-mail. I organize and attend more and more events, which for example send important messages via SMS or WhatsApp. You have to ask explicit permission for this during registration according to the law, but I hardly ever see people react negatively to this.

 

romania email list 1.8 million contact leads

Getting ‘no’ easier

Recently I wanted to cancel my reservation for an event. I couldn’t find any contact information on the website and the ticket came from a no-reply. Now receiving a cancellation is not fun, but the more difficult you make it, the more no-shows you will have to deal with in my opinion. Whatever your cancellation policy is, make sure you 7 tactics for effective keyword research communicate this clearly to your guests. Put all the details clearly on the website where the tickets were purchased, in the confirmation email and also in the follow-up emails.

Ticketswap and alternatives are not only useful for festivals, but also for business events, to stimulate the trade in second-hand tickets and to ensure that it runs smoothly. Not every event organizer wants to give money back to the visitor in case of cancellation. In that case, these types of platforms are a great alternative to offer to the visitors.

Wimbledon substitution
There are enough visitors who cannot be present at an alb directory event all day. Only a morning or a few hours, after which the visitor leaves again. While there are also enthusiasts who would like to take the place of this visitor. A standby list can then provide a welcome addition of people.

 

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