The DHS defines risk through an equation: Risk = Consequences x Likelihood Further, the DHS defines Likelihood as being a threat multiplied by how vulnerable you would be to it. Although not all of these points are controllable, you can do your best to minimize risk by decreasing the likelihood of any particular scenario. Site Inspection One of the most defining parts of the best generals in history was that they would survey the battlefield before engaging. This helped them realize points where they would be vulnerable, where they would be strong, and how to best utilize the area to their advantage. You should do the same with your event. Here is a quick checklist of what to look for during the site inspection: -Description of venue’s security plans. The more you can get from the venue, the better. They might even have a preferred security service that is employed. Getting recommendations is ideal because the security is already likely to know where crowds gather, access to fire escapes, and how vulnerable certain points of the building are. Again, the risk is consequences times likelihood. -A complete, in-depth tour of the facility. Just like you should bring on a security service that is already familiar with your venue, you should aim to become as intimately involved with the venue as possible. There are other benefits that you can come up with: you’ll be able to accurately place check-in spots, tables, chairs, and any other event paraphernalia. -Access to any Emergency Procedures Manuals. When an emergency comes up, the last thing you want to be doing is learning while it happens. Learn exactly how the venue proceeds with any emergencies. Another benefit of this step is that the venue may already have contacts with emergency services that are nearby. -History of how the venue has handled death, injury, and conflicts. If the venue has been around for a long time, they should have news articles or cases wherein they had to handle issues. Even if the venue is newer, they should still have some sort of list of incidents and how they were handled. Additional Research Other items to look for when designing your event’s security plan include: -Are there any planned protests near your event? -Are there any other festivals/events planned near your event? -Do you have the necessary permits? -Do your vendors (if any) have necessary permits? Information for Security Once you have done your site inspection, you should have everything ready for your event security team. This goes from access points to emergency procedures, to parking, to who can do what. Remember – the more you can give them, the better they will be able to plan. Emergency Safe Points If something happens at your event, are your prepared to effectively divert attendees to a safe area? Handling Access One of the most important parts of any security plan is handling and controlling access (and exit) points. This entails: -Knowing where attendees can enter and exit the event -Knowing how parking is handled. If you are expecting a lot of cars, consider looking into event venues where there is adequate and secure parking. Also look into speaking with local law enforcement about directing traffic. -How will attendees enter? What items will they be allowed to carry with them? On-Hand Personnel 1. Security One factor to consider for event security is to make it as invisible to the attendee as possible to reduce anxiety. Events should be enjoyable, and not cause undue concern. Speak with security teams about how they generally handle events. Depending on the size of your event, you may want to employ a mixture of private security and police officers. Although the local police department might not be able to assist if there are staffing restraints, they can probably refer you to an ideal person. Overall, going with a security team is ideal, but if you have a larger event or one where you expect attendees to get rowdy, employing the authority of the police is a good idea. 2. Health/EMS For smaller events, you may not want to have any sort of Health or EMS personnel on hand, although you should still be aware of nearby hospitals/medical centers and have basic medical supplies on hand. The larger the event, the more having some sort of rapid response emergency becomes mandatory. Events during the summer (and even spring) can have instances of dehydration or loss of consciousness. 3. Volunteers Volunteers must be walked through an orientation program, and given an appropriate level background check for the situation. A casual concert will not require a significant combing of background compared to an event luncheon hosting a former government official or celebrity. Event Safety Clauses After the awful shooting in October 2017 at Las Vegas during a concert, we saw the event organizers receiving lawsuits. 
Create a Terms and Conditions that protects you against lawsuits caused by third parties. When it comes to preventing lawsuits, as mentioned above, look for proving that you had no responsibility in the matter. If you can prove that you’ve done site inspections and taken all necessary precautions, you will protect yourself, your employees, and your reputation. Should responsibilities and liabilities be mutual? It’s up to you. At the very least, look for Mutual Indemnification. You must show that you have done everything possible to prevent injury. Event Insurance These days, event insurance is mandatory. Cancellations happen (read our post about it here), as do other unforeseen problems. In addition, speak with any vendors or sponsors at your event so that you are aware of any potential changes that they might be making. Make sure that they also have insurance. Other Considerations Alcohol. If alcohol is allowed at your event, security must have a physical presence to deter would-be abusers. A low-tolerance system tends to work best in these sorts of scenarios. Another option is having a “beer garden” area for adults wherein this is the only place where attendees can consume alcohol, and they are limited to a certain amount of drinks. Lost Children. Are you running a family oriented event? You need to have an area for families to reconvene with lost children. A plan must be created to help take care of children displaced from their family. You might even want to have special wristbands for children under a certain age. If you’re planning a family-friendly event, you will need to take even more precaution with giving background checks to all employees and volunteers. Cancellation Clauses In the event that something happens before your event begins, you should be prepared to cancel it, or even reschedule it. Any event that you run should have a clause that states that there will either be refunds or credits for a future event. Security is something that can put a lot of event organizers on edge, but having a plan in place is the best possible way to have a safe event. It all comes down to hiring the right team and by doing a lot of research on the venue you have chosen. Event insurance is a must, as is a cancellation clause to protect yourself. And remember – events are about having a good time, and having proper safety procedures in place is the right thing to have to ensure that the attendees create positive memories.]]]]> ]]>

 

Microsessions

Paul Schomer wants you to discover great music. His events, Microsessions showcases amazing musicians in an innovative way.  Microsessions grew out of the idea of a musical houseparty, that Paul thought could be done better. Listen to how Paul came up with the idea for microsessions and the challenges that he encountered developing and growing his event.

Building an Audience From Scratch

Paul shares his best practices and experiences building an audience from scratch. In this episode Paul talks about what tactics work best for building a following for each social media platform. Leveraging the artists following, and effective social media advertising.

When marketing on Facebook, getting targeting down is key. Use more than 2 hashtags, and your reach will begin to plummet. On the other hand, for Instagram, the more hashtags you use (up to 11) will cause your reach to actually increase. Paul likes to spend a small amount of money – even $20 – on Facebook to try and acquire potential attendees.

It’s very important to consider how each of the social media platforms work. Facebook and Twitter are text based, whereas Instagram is all about photos. There is no one size fits all for social media marketing.

Organic also plays a lot into acquiring new customers. Paul works with each of the artists to get them to promote the event on all of their social media. This creates a feedback loop, where the Microsessions social media gathers interest for the artist, and the artist will also get their audience base interested in the concert.

Retargeting Past Attendees and Scaling

Microsessions is more than just a one off event. Paul was building a following. Learn how Paul leveraged that following to help increase ticket sales.

Building Lookalike Audiences On Facebook: When you sell tickets on Ticketbud, you receive an email and a name for each attendee. You can download this information as a CSV and upload it to Facebook as a custom audience. Facebook will then take the information and cross-reference it with current users. It will then create a new database of users that are similar to the ones in the CSV you uploaded. This is a great way to attract new potential attendees.

Keeping Attendees In The Loop: One important part of maintaining your client base is by keeping them involved in what’s going on. In Paul Schomer’s case, his Microsessions run every month, so he is incentivized to be sending out frequent emails to keep previous attendees informed. Your event might be annual, but you could keep attendees updated with speakers, new acts, and other event specific information.

Taking Feedback

Feedback is an extremely important part of creating a successful, recurring event. Both feedback that is given, as well as observed, can help you find out where your event performs best. For example, Paul’s Microsessions used to include 5 bands until he found that people were leaving after the 5th act before the “finale” of the show. When he shortened the show to 4 acts, he got much better engagement.

Closing

There are a lot of takeaways in this podcast, but we’ll talk about just a few of the big ones:

-Retargeting your audiences with email is key to growth

-Using social media both organically and paid will help you get more attendees

-Listen to your attendees’ feedback

-Take advantage of your speakers and your artists. Include something in your contract that requires them to talk about your event

-Be ambitious, but always focus on the long term

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Planning a successful and safe family-friendly event requires a lot of knowledge to get correctly. There are many more elements to developing this type event than almost any other kind because you have 2 target audiences to contend with: the children, and the parents.

-Online Ticket Sales

You could have the best family-friendly event in the world, and it won’t matter if you don’t actually sell tickets to it! Creating a strong event page that helps parents easily pick dates and tickets will do a lot to bring in traffic. Secondly, by selling most of your tickets online, you’ll have a very strong outlook on total attendees, which will help you plan more effectively.

There are several elements that you want to look at when selling tickets:

-Value. When it comes down to it, the value is what your event offers. A basic marketing principle is the Value Proposition Equation. The Equation is expressed as follows: Value – Price = Value Capture. If your event provides more value than the price of the ticket to someone, then they benefit. Providing opportunities for families to bond, to meet other people, and to have great experiences are all different value propositions you can play with as you market your event and its tickets.

-Inexpensive Pricing. Most families tend to be 3 to 4 people, so having prices that are affordable for your target demographic are key. A $20 ticket might be fine for a concert, but a family of 4 might have issues spending $80. Generally, you should shoot for prices that are the cost of a movie ticket, or less. You have to consider all of the other things that a family could do on the day of your event, and be competitive with those options. If you are providing a significant amount of value and you feel that your target demographic can handle it, you can, of course, make your tickets more expensive.

-Child Pricing. Child Pricing can be controversial, since if you’re making prices inexpensive, then families will want to attend anyway. One common option is to make it so that children under a certain age who are unlikely to benefit from the event do not require payment for entry.

-Package Deals. The key to family-friendly package deals is to make it so that adults will encourage their other friends with families to attend as well. So this might mean having a package deal for 8-10 tickets, or discounts if more than 8-10 tickets are purchased.

Elements of Successful Family-Friendly Events

When crafting your event, you should focus hard on the value proposition your event provides. However, you also need to inspire confidence in parents that the place they are taking their children is safe, fun, and affordable.

-Activities For All Age Groups

Any event focused on drawing in families can call itself a “family friendly” event. And of course, any family friendly event should have a focus on the children. However, the events that are going to be truly successful are going to be events that have different activities and value for both the children and the parents. Furthermore, by having some sort of draw for the parents, you ensure that you will get better return traffic every year. When you engage all sides, you are more likely to create an overall better and more memorable experience for everyone.

My go-to for example for having something for everyone is Disneyland. Disneyland does a great job of providing different attractions for different age groups that turns into an enjoyable experience for the entire family. It’s a holistic place that has parents as excited to go as their kids.

Another example of a great family-friendly event that Ticketbud assists in is the Austin Trail of Lights. As an annual Christmas light show, you’re going to have pretty much anyone, young or old, be interested in going. It’s simple, almost everyone likes to look at Christmas lights. However, the Trail of Lights also has specific activities for each of the demographics. For children, there are areas where they can have photos with Santa, and where they can ride a Ferris Wheel. For parents, there are numerous food and beverage options available. And of course, there is also the nostalgia and tradition element wherein the Trail of Lights has been around for so long, that it’s likely that there are parents who have been going since they themselves were children.

-Area for Lost Children

You need to have an area for families to reconvene with lost children. A plan must be created to help take care of children displaced from their family. You might even want to have special wristbands for children under a certain age. Any staff member in charge of this area should be highly trusted and be given a stringent background check – see more on this below in the Security and Safety section.

-Bathrooms/Health Facilities

Depending on the families you are planning on marketing towards, you should make sure that you have bathrooms or portables that contain changing stations. However, it’s a good idea to have it on hand, no matter what. There should also be provisions for breastfeeding.

Also, it is a good idea to have a visible First Aid station for bumps/cuts/bruises.

-Emphasis on Engaging Experiences

For families, especially younger ones, going out into public can be a stressful occasion even if the event is supposed to be fun. Creating an engaging experience where families can be relaxed and not worry about the small things is beneficial. If it’s hot out, have water and spray sunscreen on hand. If it’s raining, have branded umbrellas. By having a great experience, families can get out of the “rut” of their normal life and create some great memories in the process.

-Security and Safety

Unfortunately, events with a lot of children tend to attract certain people with ill intentions. Although it’s up to you, if you are planning on bringing in a lot of families, you may want to consider an event security team or an off-duty officer to ensure that you have done your due diligence in this matter. You should have all staff be given a background check or an initial screening. A service such as Verified Volunteers is useful for helping create something that is scalable depending on how many volunteers or staff you need on hand.

-Miscellaneous:

Some other questions to ask are this:

-Will smoking or alcohol be allowed? If so, it must be an area far away from the main part of the event and closed off to the general public.

-Are all of the sponsors family friendly?

-Is the area accessible to strollers?

-What kind of food will be available? Remember, peanut allergies are very common these days.

-Will there be shade available?

As I mentioned in the beginning – there is A LOT that goes into making a safe, fun, and (ideally) profitable family-friendly event. While it can be overwhelming, by following this guide, you are well on your way to having an event that will create a lot of great memories.

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Have you ever felt that the amount you’re charging for tickets is lacking structure and foundation? Are you struggling to break even, or even become profitable with your events? Part of having a profitable event is having one that people are willing to pay money to go to. And not just willing to pay, but willing to pay the correct amount for the value your event will provide. In this post, I’m going to show you how to create a solid foundational ticket price, how to create different types of tickets to increase your revenue and drive more attendees, and how to effectively market your prices.

Part 1: Determining Cost Structure

There are a lot of factors that go into cost structure. First of all, calculate all expenses that are involved in your event. This can also be helpful when it comes to calculating tax obligations. Remember that there are two types of costs that you need to consider: fixed and variable. Fixed costs are items like the cost for the venue. Variable costs are costs that can change depending on the number of attendees or other factors. For example, you might need to pay for each attendee’s meal. Get to each total separately.

Now you have 2 totals: total fixed costs, and total variable costs. If you have variable costs for the attendee, you’ll know at the very least to price your ticket well above the variable-per-attendee portion. Once you have your total expenses set, now you need to figure out how to make your event profitable. It’s time to do some research on what similar events are using for pricing. Also, consider the target market for your event and how you can best serve them.

Look at the competition, and do some research. Events have become more and more popular to go to as a way to escape from the “real world”. If you’re planning an event, chances are that someone in your area has already done an event like yours. And this is not an attempt to discourage you – this is an attempt to get you to get down and dirty, and do some research. Find out how many attendees they brought in, or even an estimate. Find out how much tickets sold for. With information like this at your disposal, you’ll have a much better idea of what you need to price your tickets at. The other benefit of doing research is that you might be able to find out how to make your event even better, and therefore be able to command a better price or bring in more attendees due to the fact that your event has been optimized.

Now, if you’ve run events like this before, then you have a much better handle on how many attendees to expect, and how they respond to pricing. On the other hand, if you have found that there aren’t a lot of events like yours (or even none at all!) then pricing is much more under your control. If you are planning a luxury-focused event, then the price is much more within your control.

The target market or audience for your event should also inform your pricing decisions. You’re not going to be likely to attract families to an event wherein ticket prices are $20 per person. At the same time, you might find that a luxury event might not attract your target audience if you’re selling tickets at $10 per attendee. We’ve seen events selling $10,000 tickets that sold out – of course, you got to meet with Sir Richard Branson on his private island for that price!

Determining Base Price: There are formulas surrounding “how many tickets you think you are going to sell”. This is a flawed methodology because event organizers almost always inflate the number of tickets that they think they are going to sell. It’s much better to work backward. You know your costs, and after doing some research, you should be able to arrive at a strong base price. From there, you will know how many people you need to acquire to break even and then hit profitability. If the number you arrive at seems unrealistic, then it probably is. Again, you should have an idea of how similar events perform.

Pro Tip: Did you know that depending on ticket sales volume in dollars, you are liable to be taxed? That’s one expense that some organizers are not prepared for! Generally, if you plan on accruing more than several thousand dollars in revenue, you are going to need to pay taxes. Consider adding this as a variable cost. As always, speak with an accountant experienced in these matters.

Part 2: Variant Ticket Pricing

Now that you have a base ticket price, it’s time to start looking at the biggest driver of profitability of events: ticket variants. Ticket variants are tickets like Early Bird, VIP, and Group Packages. There are also ticket variants that increase in price as the event date gets nearer, encourage people to buy early. You could also set ticket packages, each with increasingly higher prices.

Variant Pricing Strategy: Like I mentioned earlier, you need to do research. Don’t just set random tickets hoping you are going to get sales. Not every event needs an Early Bird, nor does it need a VIP. However, you should aim to have at least one variant price. This variant ticket should command a higher price than the “base” variant. Secondly, any variant ticket should have a limited quantity available. Part of the demand for higher priced tickets, or discounted tickets, will come from the scarcity of them. Study after study on human psychology shows that scarcity is one of the greatest drivers of human desire. You won’t capture full profitability unless you use this knowledge to your advantage. Types of Variants:

Early Bird Tickets: Great for family events and concerts. Also ideal for newer events that attendees may not be familiar with. Helps to gauge demand.

VIP Tickets: Great for festivals and “luxury” events. Can also be used for meet-and-greets. Just make sure that the perks are worth the increased cost. You can even have multiple “tiers” of VIP – with a basic VIP, and then an even more expensive one that really makes the attendee feel special. Helps to increase your revenue and profit.

Group/Bulk Discount Packages: Great for family events, sightseeing tours, and any other event where you want to get spots filled. Helps to bring in larger amounts of people due to discounts.

Time-Delay Pricing: Great for festivals and concerts. As time goes by, ticket prices increase. Accurately employing this technique will require skill on your part, and I do not recommend that newer event organizers attempt this. Once you have a few years of an event under your belt, you’ll be able to use time-delay pricing to really boost your revenue numbers and handle demand.

Demographic Based Discounts: This includes child/student/senior/teacher pricing, in addition to any other type of discount based on the type of person. These discounts are easy to abuse. The main goal of these discounts is to encourage people of this type who otherwise might not go, or might not be able to afford it. Child discounts make sense if you want to encourage families, but student based discounts for a music festival don’t.

The second part of any variant pricing strategy is to keep it simple. Only have a few variant tickets besides the base ticket. Otherwise, you’ll run into a marketing problem called analysis paralysis. Ever been to a restaurant where there were 400 items on the menu and you weren’t sure what to pick? Your attendees might be driven away by the fact that you have 10 different ticket types. Most events only really need 3: the early bird, the general admission, and the VIP.

Part 3: The Ticket Sales “Bathtub”

Most tickets get sold at the start of the promotion, and then in the next 2 weeks leading up the event. This creates a “bathtub” type curve: lots of sales at the beginning, and at the end. Ticket sales tend to go “flat” in the middle of the event selling process. This can be a scary time for organizers, but don’t worry because that’s normal. At Ticketbud we have seen this time and time again – it doesn’t matter if it is a huge event for 10,000 attendees or if it is an event targeted towards 100 attendees. The sales always act the same.

The trick is to keep ticket sales going strongly for as long as possible so that you get the best idea of your event’s demand. This can help you better determine your variable and per-head costs per attendee. You can do this by having promotions halfway through your event, or by using the time-delay pricing model as mentioned in the last section. You can also avoid the “end” part of the curve by having a bigger emphasis on early bird tickets and limited group packages.

Another strategy that organizers will use is by having a higher “at the door” price compared to online pricing. There’s nothing wrong with selling tickets at the door, but it’s hard to gauge demand and it can be stressful if you think that you are currently in the red. Having higher physical ticket prices will certainly convince people to “save” money by purchasing earlier.

Part 4: Marketing Your Prices Effectively

Once you’ve determined your base price and any variants, it’s time to start creating marketing campaigns to help create buzz and sales surrounding your event. In this particular case, we’ll look at how to best market your event’s pricing. Part of marketing prices dials down to emphasizing your event’s value propositions. The better you can tell potential customers about the benefits of your ticket pricing variants and what your event will do for them, the more revenue you’ll bring in.

Email: If you have an email database, you should be sending emails out before the event letting people know to be ready. One strategy is to send out a first awareness email several days before payday (the 1st and 15th in the US), and then officially open up sales on payday or the day after. This will enhance your chances of helping people set aside and pay for your tickets. If you have previous attendees, you might even offer discount codes to encourage them to return. Remember, it’s always cheaper to maintain a customer than it is to acquire a new one.

Retargeting: No matter what kind of event you’re running, retargeting should always be in your toolset. Retargeting is a way of re-engaging people who have visited your event site. Retargeting is great if you’re doing Early Bird tickets, as well Time Delay pricing. It can also be effective for marketing time-sensitive special deals.

Conclusion

If you want to have a successful, profitable event, you need to really dig deep and consider how you are pricing your event. When it comes to properly pricing your event, you have to consider the cost structure of the event, and look at what similar events are doing. You also need to include several ticket variants to help increase revenue while also helping set a scarcity mindset for those more important tickets. A big part of ticket selling is keeping sales strong during the lull period of your event. Finally, you need to market your prices effectively with email lists and by retargeting potential attendees that visit your site.

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Welcome to the Ticketbud Check-In Guide!

The check-in process is important to master because first impressions are everything. The ideal check-in process is seamless, with as little friction as possible. Remember that people are coming from their world to enter the world of your event, so it is up to you to facilitate the transfer. In order to create a check-in process that flows smoothly, you must develop a strategy. The time-tested strategy that has been developed over much trial and error consists of 5 parts: Entry Points, Line Control, Check-In Methods, Check-In Software, and On-Site sales.

Check-In Strategy

1. Entry Points

The largest priority for entry points is having clear signage as to where people will enter. When possible, utilize different lines for VIP and General Admission. This not only encourages a clear separation but encourages attendees to perceive the VIP line as “superior”. Another option is to let VIP enter the event before General Admission.

Each Entry Point must have a sign above it clearly denoting what type of line it is. We have found that it is optimal to utilize teams of 2-3 people per entrance point.

How many entrance points are ideal?

Unfortunately, there is no exact formula to determine the number of entrance points your event needs. You have to consider all of the following factors:

-Are VIP entering before General Admission? Or, is there any incentive to show up early? -Is there more than one route that people can arrive at the event by? -What is the structure of the event? Are there certain speakers, musicians, or guests that appear at certain times that may cause the event to be “front-loaded” or “back-loaded”?

A good quick rule of thumb would be to have at least 2 check-in booths and then add another one for every 1,000 attendees you are expecting.

2. Line Control

Did you know that people will stand in lines, without any idea as to why they’re standing in them? You must be prepared to have well-defined lines. A great way to handle this is by employing volunteers to control the flow of the line. For quick entry processing, employ straight lines. For customer service and slower lines, it is optimal have a “zig-zag” pattern to your lines.

Make sure your different lines are clearly marked and your check-in team directs attendees to the right line quickly and smoothly. It is helpful to have team members with scanners move through the line scanning tickets so when they reach the entry point they can simply hand their ticket and enter. Security must also be prepared to engage in crowd control if they start to get rowdy.

Quick thought: Rope is a great way to separate the lines and control them. Otherwise, lines can merge and cause confusion.

Quick thought 2: Entry points require lights if your event is at night.

Security

Security can create a major friction point at your event, but for events, it is a necessity. We would recommend going with an event security company on this, as they are likely to know all best practices. In terms of creating strong first impressions, the second most important psychological lesson is that people are more likely to underplay stressors if something good happens after. Ergo, you can have security handle everything before people enter the space, and then have them get checked in. If you are preparing to receive a large crowd, security can be invaluable in calming people down.

Volunteers

Volunteers must be given background checks and receive basic training to help them spot and report unusual or inappropriate behavior. Through training, they can gain full knowledge on how to check in guests, resolve minor issues, and sell tickets at the door if the need arises. Finally, volunteers have to be polite with guests. Remember – first impressions. You should have water and snacks (and lunch/dinner/breakfast, whatever is appropriate), since it can often be a long day standing.

Also, if your event is all day, you need to figure out shift times (8 hours is best) and when relief volunteers are handed the baton.

The Event Operations Manager

Near check-in, have an on-scene event operations manager to help resolve issues as they arise. As already mentioned, the most important task is to keep lines flowing. The entry manager needs to be decisive, with the ability to quickly fix any problems. They should also be on scene to take a full scope of how lines are moving so that they can help move volunteers where they need to be most. A basic idea of line control is to have three separate groups of volunteers: One to direct, one to facilitate flow, and one to handle the actual check-in portion. The entry manager will be present at the check-in portion.

Check-In Methods

We recommend that you use the Ticketbud Organizer App to check-in attendees. It is the fastest way to process guests, bar none. We do also offer an online check-in and paper check-in options, but these are secondary.

Using Ticketbud’s Check-In App

The Ticketbud App is available for both iPhone, and Android. The app utilizes the camera functionality of your device to scan the QR codes on the tickets that we send to your attendees. The app also contains a list of your attendees who have bought a ticket and you can search for their name and check them in manually. It also possesses the ability to sell tickets at the door

Adding Staff and Volunteers

A week before your event opens, add any staff and volunteers that will be present to assist with the entry process. To do so, first login to your Ticketbud account. Head to your manage dashboard, and then click “Add Collaborators”. Anyone invited will receive a prompt to log in.

To get the best use out of Ticketbud’s Check-In App, we recommend you check off each of these items before the event begins.

-Private Wifi. Do not attempt to use 3G or a public wifi when you are dealing with a crowd of hundreds, or even thousands. The Ticketbud check-in app was designed to be extremely sensitive with scans, but data transfer will be slowed if you do not have a private wifi connection. When you’re dealing with 1000 attendees, an extra 3 seconds per person adds up. The best way to handle this for most events is to get a Hotspot.

-Battery Packs. Although we’ve designed the Ticketbud app to take as little bandwidth as possible, having your phone’s camera open for long periods of time will quickly drain it. You can either rent battery packs from us, or purchase some to have on hand.

-All Phones Are Already Logged In To The App.

-Each Staff Member has been trained in scanning QR codes, and at the point of sale use. On the day of your event, it is possible that some volunteers may not be present. Or, you might be getting more people paying at the door than you anticipated. Plan ahead by making sure every single person present can switch roles at a moment’s notice.

Trouble-Shooting Scanning Issues

-When you first open the app, you may receive a notification pop-up that says “Refreshing Tickets”. Do not cancel this process, it is the app updating.

-If it’s very bright out, the scanner will not be able to pick up on QR codes very well. Make sure that you have a tent, or another cover to make sure that the sun doesn’t interfere with the camera.

-If your event is at night, make sure that you have some sort of light source to allow the camera to properly pick up the QR code. iPhone: At night, tap the “lightning” option in the camera to help increase brightness.

Handling On-Site Sales

Although selling tickets at the door isn’t right for every event, you should seriously consider it for yours if you haven’t already. You should especially consider handling on-site sales if you haven’t hit your hard cap for tickets. You never know if people will show up at the door!

Steps:

1. Create an area specifically for On-Site Sales. A volunteer near the entrance might be asking visitors if they already have tickets or if they are buying, and then direct them to the appropriate location. This location is to be clearly marked and differentiated from the check-in line. Ideally, once people pay, they will be let in right after without having to go and stand in any other lines.

2. Break down On-Site Sales into two categories: Cash, and Card. The Ticketbud App has the ability to record cash transactions and we recommend it be used to help facilitate this process. The Ticketbud Point of Sale can handle any card transaction. You can choose which tickets are being sold, and these will be uploaded to your Ticketbud event dashboard. Note: Your event must be using WePay for you to be able to use the Ticketbud Point of Sale device.

Reconciling On-Site Sales

When your volunteers log Cash and Card transactions, it will all be reported (along with ticket types sold) to your Ticketbud dashboard.

Trouble-Shooting Point of Sale Issues

-When you first use the Point of Sale, you will receive a notification pop-up asking for permission for microphone and camera. Please grant access, as the Point of Sale requires sound to verify the transaction.

-Check that the card is entered in the right way if it is a chip card.

-The first transaction may take up to 15 seconds to process. Subsequent transactions will not take that long.

Do you want a free consultation on how to scan, or sell tickets at the door? Give us a call at 844-376-6061 and we’ll be more than happy to assist you.

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It’s a dark and stormy night, and your event just happens to be outside without any cover. Unfortunately, event cancellations just happen sometimes. Speakers cancel, equipment doesn’t work, or, as I mentioned, sometimes it just gets rained out. While we hope that your event never gets canceled, you should definitely be having an event cancellation plan in place. In this post, I’ll discuss why you should be proactive, why you should have a refund protocol in place, how to message the cancellation to your ticket holders, best practices in dealing with event cancellation policy and why you should consider purchasing event insurance. Be Proactive I’ve harped on why you should be proactive in multiple blog posts, the best one you can read right after this one is: Your Event Needs Customer Service.  Most people react to things in their life, whether it be a bad hair day, a rough day at work, or even a great date. For most people, life is a rollercoaster of ups and downs that they don’t seem to have control over. Don’t let this happen with your event! So many of your problems will be solved when you anticipate issues before they become issues! So, no matter what kind of event you are running, you should have a Plan B, or even C, in case of issues that arise. This means having backup speakers, backup microphones, and preparations for any changes in weather. While a lot of this is common sense, I’m sure that as an event organizer you have run into issues that seem obvious, but maybe they weren’t to someone else. Set Customer Expectations Clearly state your event cancellation policy on your event description and marketing collateral. Once you have determined your risks, build your refund policy and message that policy with clear transparency. For example:         “In the event of cancellation- refunds will be processed within 72 hours of cancellation notice.”         “This outdoor event is rain or shine. However, the Parks department has the authority to close the park due to high winds or flooding conditions due to rain accumulation.” You must set expectations to avoid any negative press. If you are running a large event, coordinate with your customer service lead, marketing lead and operations lead so that all departments are aligned and messaging is correct in advance. Set a Cancellation Protocol Your cancellation messages to attendees should be ready to be deployed weeks before any potential cancellation. Define your protocol for how to send out the cancellation message to attendees. The cancellation notice should be posted to the event page and or event website. Clearly state the date or dates of the cancellation, the reason for the cancellation, and what customers can expect. If your customers understand the reason for the cancellation and have a clear expectation of next steps you can avoid friction. At the same time, send out an email to your attendees to explain and address the cancellation. Meanwhile, have your social team post about the cancellation. If the cancellation is due to circumstances outside of your control, this is a good opportunity to share pictures or descriptions of what caused the cancellation. Bands can’t play on a stage damaged by high winds. Patrons cannot attend a festival if the grounds are flooded with standing water. Refunds vs Credit The biggest issue with canceled events is the refund process. Obviously, people who paid for something but aren’t getting it, are going to want their money back. And you could very well refund anyone who asks for one. Refunds tend to be a lot easier to keep track of. The other option is crediting event goers for an event in the future. The big upside is that people are still “locked in”. The downsides, however, are that you will need to entice them in some way to actually take the credit. For most events, it could be something as simple as a drink ticket for the next event. Refund Pros: -Good for one-off events -Good if events are annual Refund Cons: -It’s up to the attendee to determine if they want to go in future years -Attendee needs to repurchase tickets (if there are other days), could lose them if they aren’t available Credit Pros: -Keeps attendees “locked in” -Good for multi-day festivals where attendees could easily attend another day Credit Cons: -Have to keep track of credits -Need a system in place to transfer tickets to different days/years Depending on your event, it might make sense to utilize a mix. A basic heuristic for marketing and customer retention is that it costs more to acquire a customer than it does to retain a customer. So, it is in your best interest to retain as many customers (in this case, attendees) as possible. A common but effective strategy is to offer a credit first for canceled events, and then offer a refund if people refuse the credit. What is really important is making attendees, even canceled ones, happy. They will be more likely to engage with you in future years. Event Insurance You have car insurance for if something happens to your car, home insurance if something happens to your house – you should have event insurance if something is going to happen to your event. It doesn’t just make sense, it’s also a very proactive and logical decision. The biggest benefit of event insurance is that you can go forward with refunding customers, while also retaining the money from the tickets that you sold. This helps negate the issue that I mentioned with refunds above and means you don’t really need to credit customers. Find an insurance broker who has experience with event insurance. Purchase a policy that provides enough protection.If your event is going to be outside, you should without a doubt acquire event insurance. Conclusion You should always be proactive and plan for worst case scenarios when planning an event. Just by having backups or side plans, you will be prepared for just about any scenario. If your event does get canceled, you should look into utilizing a mix of refunds and credits, were realistic. Finally, you should without a doubt purchase event insurance because it will make your life much easier. Having peace of mind is priceless.]]]]> ]]>

Did you know that most New Year’s Resolutions have failed by this point? Read on and you’ll discover why most events never achieve what organizers want, too.

Everyone has a goal when they want to run an event. It might be to make a certain amount of money. Or, you might want to educate people on a topic that you feel will be useful to them. However, the problem is that rarely do I run into an event organizer that has a well-defined goal, or a definite chief aim for their event. When people call Ticketbud, they tell me that they are expecting a certain size audience. However, when ticket sales start coming in, they get worried – they aren’t selling as much as they want! A lot of times, I will converse with organizers that aren’t happy with their ticket sales. And the number one problem is that they expected that they were going to do so well, but they never worked towards a goal!

I want to end this trend! In this blog post, I’m going to teach you how to create a well-defined goal. Then, I’m going to teach you how to achieve that goal.

How To Create A Well-Defined Goal

Like I said, everyone has goals. But not everyone does a good job of setting them. A well-defined goal has multiple components. They are: concrete, have a set date, have what you’ll do to achieve it, and a budget, if any.

1. Define Concrete Numbers and Outcomes

When you first look to set your goal, you need to think long and hard about what you want the outcome to be. If your event is a paid event, you should set a number for your revenue, or for your profit. The reason why this number needs to be concrete, I will explain in just a bit. The same goes for your outcome – maybe you want to raise awareness for a disease or for a cause you are passionate about. Your goal in this case could be for a certain number of people to attend, or for a number of commitments to service afterward.

The most important thing though, is that it is a realistic number! If you are a first-time event organizer, maybe set your goal for revenue to be a number that allows you to break even, with just a bit extra to grow. Of course, I’ll always tell you to follow your dreams. Still though, you need to always be realistic about what you can hope to achieve given what you know.

2. Choose The Date You Wish To Achieve Your Goal

The second most important part of a well-defined goal, is a date by when you want to achieve it. For event organizers, this is pretty easy: your goal date is the date of your event. It might even be a time before your event so that you can bring in sponsors, or something else.

3. Determine What You Will Do To Achieve It

Write down all the different marketing methods you can think of. If you’re new to event marketing, there are options like:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Search Engine Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Flyer Distribution
• List Calling

Whatever methods that you’ll use to achieve your goals, write them down. And include backup plans just in case some of them don’t work out. Take some time to think about your target market – where would the best place to find them be? Or where are sponsors located? Do you know your desired speaker’s schedule?

4. Work Out Your Budget

The important part of setting a goal is knowing what you have on hand in order to achieve it. Keep in mind, as well, that budget doesn’t just include money. It also includes your time, and your effort. There are 24 hours in a day. If you don’t have a lot of cash on hand, you need to use your time instead. And if you do have a budget, I recommend allocating a balanced amount to all of your marketing options. If you are already experienced, of course, you can put more money into what you know works. One rule of thumb is to spend at least 4 times what you expect an average sale to be. Ergo – if your tickets are $40 each, spend at least $160 in that marketing channel before calling it a failure.

How To Achieve Your Goal

So, to backtrack just a little bit, we have already discussed having a concrete number and outcome, you have set a date for your goal to be achieved, what you will do to achieve it, and your budget. This is all extremely important.

Now, how to achieve that goal? Simply put, just do it! Now, you might find that anticlimactic after all of the talking up that I’ve just done, but the truth is, you’ve already gotten a good portion of your work done. When you start working towards your goal, everything will fall into place. Having a definite aim for your event will ensure that you only focus on what really matters.

On Preventing Procrastination

Even if you’ve heard of this strategy, it’s still a good one. Do the most difficult task of the day first. Don’t leave it until later, when you’re more tired. Generally speaking, this means that you should work towards your goal the first thing in the morning. As an event organizer, you have a lot of things on your mind, but your goal is what is most important. The goal is what is going to enable you to achieve profitability, or help people.

Just remember: what gets measured, is what gets done. That’s why you had to set a concrete number of outcome in step one.

Conclusion

Today I talked about how to set a definite goal for your event. The steps of setting this aim for your event are as follows: set a concrete number or outcome, establish a date for it to be achieved by, what you will do to achieve it, and your budget. These steps are all extremely important – don’t overlook any of them. Also, by working towards your goal first thing in the morning, you will make sure that you have your full, undivided attention on the matter. I hope this helps you – it helps me in my everyday work, too. Have a great rest of your week, and see you again soon!

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No less than 30 minutes ago, I received an email in my inbox: “Google Adwords Policy Update – Upcoming Event Ticket Resellers Certification Program”. It’s likely that I received this email because I work for a company called Ticketbud, although we do not handle ticket resale.

This is a big deal – for a long time, the whole concept of ticket resale and scalping was a complete Wild West. And regardless of your feelings of regulation and intervention, most people would agree that ticket scalpers were abusing the system with bots and with scripts. The fact that we have companies like Google stepping in is a very big deal.

I’ve been in the internet marketing space for a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of times where Google has stepped in, usually for the better. The most poignant example in my mind is in the payday loans industry. If you’re not familiar with a payday loan, how these loans worked is that they were short-term, but had an extremely high-interest rate. These were -supposed- to be covered by your paycheck, but the amount you’d owe on the loan was so immense that you would still be in the hole. Payday loans were predatory, to say the least, as they often targeted low-income households without a lot of economic education. So, as I mentioned earlier, Google stepped in and disallowed all advertising related to them.

Now, Google isn’t disallowing advertising for Ticket Resellers, but they are stepping in and saying that there needs to be more information on what the tickets actually go for. One predatory practice that some ticket resellers used was creating fake sites that made it look like they were the official ticket sellers, and so purchasers would be conned out of their money.

The basics of the new requirement form come down to this:

You can read the whole Requirement form here: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/7577050?hl=en I’ve summarized it below:

Be honest about your business You can’t imply in your ads that you’re the primary provider of the tickets, with words like “Official” or by including the artist or venue name in the website’s URL. For example, you can’t use “ArtistNameTickets.com” or “VenueNameTickets.com” as your URL.

Provide accurate price information Resellers must also provide a price breakdown during the checkout process and before the customer provides payment information. The breakdown should show the specific costs added, such as taxes and any fees that have been added to the face value of the tickets.

Ticket resellers need to start verifying their business in early January 2018. Although Ticketbud is not a reseller, we plan on becoming certified once the forms become available.

My final thoughts: This is a good move, but it needs to be echoed across all search engines and discovery platforms if this is to truly work. Although this is my initial assumption, I believe that Google will block all ticket resale advertising on their platform until this happens. The next step will be that Google will update its algorithm to start damaging the rankings of resellers that do not comply. Also, if my experience in internet marketing has taught me anything, ticket resellers will be doing just fine. All they will need to do is change how they do business. Cliche: the cream will always rise to the top – those who embrace these changes won’t have a thing to worry about.

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Happy Wednesday, readers! I had the privilege of being part of a check-in process for a local event this past weekend. It was successful, but I also realized that there was room for improvement. In fact, a lot of organizers have an inefficient check-in process. The problems associated with a poor check-in experience can escalate into unhappy attendees. Unhappy attendees might not enjoy the event, or they will go into it with a bad attitude and cause additional issues. It all stems from the first impression. If you give a bad first impression, you can also see a decrease in sales year over year from people who were fed up with the poor organization on your part. Don’t be that organizer! Anyway, I assembled the top 5 things I have noticed from events that have a poor organization on their check-in.

No Signage (Or Poor Signage)

Attendees can’t read your mind, they’re not sure what line to get in – if there even is one! I have found that when events don’t tell attendees exactly where to go, they sometimes get their own ideas. They might even skip right past check-in to go into the event, without having gotten their wristband or ticket. Then, security sends them back, and they are frustrated because they didn’t know. And yes, I know you’re thinking, “it should be obvious with everyone else in line checking in, not my fault!”. You’re right, they made the mistake, not you. But ultimately the attendee’s experience is derived from what you have designed, and so it ends up being your problem.

If your event is 21 and over, you can save a ton of time on check-in by having signs above each check-in station saying to have IDs out and ready. You can save anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds a person if they have all necessary items ready. It might not sound like a lot, but if you have 100 people waiting in line, that’s about 8 minutes (500 seconds) saved.

Paper Check In

Let’s say that you have 500 attendees coming to your event. Generally speaking, you can expect about 50% of those people will show up within +/- 15 minutes of the event beginning. With all of the noise and action going on, you will not be able to adequately get everyone moving through the queue in a timely fashion. This leads to angry guests going into the event. That is not a good first impression at all, and you might find that you do not get as many return attendees next year. The scanning technology from most ticket vendors these days is super fast – it takes a second or 2, at most. Instead of having to manually go through pages and pages to check off attendees, save time (and sanity) by going paperless.

Not Enough Lines Or Staff Present

Going back to my example above, you have 500 attendees who have bought tickets to your event. Personally, I believe that you should have 2 check-in booths to start if you have more than 100 people coming to your event. Then, for every 400 after, consider adding an additional booth. You should aim to have people going from the back of the line to the front in about 10 minutes. This is especially important if you are running an outside event and there is going to be very hot or cold weather.

One thing I learned is that there should be one senior staff member at check-in who stays behind the lines to take care of any important needs, performers, or other volunteer personnel. They should be mobile and be able to handle problems as they happen.

Poorly Trained Volunteers

Even if you have enough volunteers, it might not be enough. Volunteers are not a fire-and-forget solution. You need to properly train them in how to resolve attendee disputes. If you have scanners and point of sale solutions, you need to train them on how to use them. They must also be told how to fix any problems with the technology that you are using.

Just as importantly, they must be a good fit for your event and with your organization’s culture. You cannot afford to have a volunteer at check-in talking back to a customer. They must be able to turn problems into solutions. This might sound like a lot of work for just a volunteer who will never be back, but you cannot just be thinking about the short term. These volunteers could go on to work with you long term if they prove to be a strong fit for your event team. Always think long term, and it will always benefit you. That much, I can guarantee.

Lack of Communication With Guests

Are VIPs supposed to show up early? Are there certain areas that attendees with general admission tickets cannot enter? Fail to properly educate your attendees, and it will come back to haunt you, guaranteed. As the event organizer, you have to realize that any bad experience an attendee has will reflect on you and your event. It does not matter if the bad experience was not your fault in any way, it will still be marked on that attendee’s brain that “X bad thing happened at that event!”. You must work hard to make it a seamless experience for all of your guests.

In conclusion, there is a lot that can go wrong at check-in. As you might have discovered, a lot of it comes down to organization and communication. You need to communicate with guests about checking in, about what time they should check in, the way they should check in, and you need to make sure you have enough well-trained staff.

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Cindy Lo, DMCP embodies the entrepreneurial spirit of Austin, Texas. Formerly working in tech, but wanting to do something new, she founded Red Velvet Events all by herself. The company is now 25 strong due to her successful leadership. She’s also (as you might expect) an expert event planner, and well studied in everything event tech has to offer. On today’s Ticketbud Tidbits, we talk about event tech, what makes a successful event company, how to find the right employees, and new trends on the horizon. You can listen to the Podcast here, and read the transcript below. Enjoy!

Sean Burke: Hi and welcome to Ticketbud Tidbits. I’m Sean Burke, Director of Marketing here at TicketBud. Today on the podcast we have Cindy Lo, owner and top event strategist at Red Velvet Events. Cindy, thanks for joining me.

Cindy Lo: Thank you, Sean, for having me.

Sean Burke: Yeah definitely. So, anyways Cindy, I thought we’d just get right into the questions. First thing I wanted to ask was, you started out coding in the tech industry, what led you to want to run an events company?

Cindy Lo: So, it was sort of an accident. I had been in tech for about 5 years and when I was choosing to pivot and leave, several people had suggested to me to consider possibly doing something more in the meetings and events side. And when the opportunity came and I started to interview, the problem that I encountered was that actually people didn’t necessarily see that I was qualified because I didn’t have the formal experience.

So what then led to happen was that since I got rejected I was like, “Well that seems kinda odd. I need to do something about it.” I started Red Velvet Events 15 years ago thinking that I was only going to be running it for a year. And I was gonna reapply for these jobs that rejected me and as you can see since we’re talking now, I never closed it down.

Sean Burke: Well, hey. I mean I would definitely say that that’s probably what you’d call a happy accident in a way.

Cindy Lo: Very much so. In fact, I’m writing a book and that is the term I actually coined. I said, “Yeah. It’s a very happy accident.”

Sean Burke: Oh, nice. That’s cool. Well, I’m glad that we’re on the same wavelength there.

Cindy Lo: Yeah.

Sean Burke: So … And when you started running it, did you find that you had to acquire a whole new skill set? I mean was there anything that transferred over?

Cindy Lo: So, what’s funny is that I thought one of your questions was “What did you feel that was a benefit?” And I actually think coming from the tech side and coming with my business background, it was a huge benefit to starting RVE because I really approached the industry from a logistics and a technology application point-of-view. So from the get-go, processes, software tools, all of those were very important. And choosing them and deciding which ones we would keep and how to run the company actually is what I think sets us apart.

Sean Burke: Nice. That’s cool. Yeah, so technology and logistics are definitely the competitive advantages and why your clients come to you instead of, say, another competitor.

Cindy Lo: Absolutely. And we’re really trying to fill that still in our culture 15 years now. And constantly reinventing and making sure we’re using the latest technology so that it makes us more efficient.

Sean Burke: Awesome. So going a little bit more into culture, you have multiple event planners on the RVE team, how do you best coordinate with everyone and is there a typical day in an event planner’s life?

Cindy Lo: Yeah. So, we do, we now have grown into 25 full-time employees, so we have about … Half the team is actually working on the actual events themselves and then the other half, it’s divided between our operations, which is referring to our back-of-house; such as bookkeeping, office manager, even hiring, to the sales and creative teams.

As far as a typical day, I would say depending on what your role is there probably is a clinical “typical day.” But for me myself as the owner, it’s a little bit full. Definitely, I start my mornings early. I tend to be a morning person. I usually will start meeting, like for example, this morning my first meeting started at 7:30 in the morning and then I usually typically go until about 5. Usually, it’s back-to-back meetings and some of those meetings can be internal meetings, sales meetings, or even vendor meetings. The ultimate goal is, of course, is to be able to design and produce creative events that clients come back to us as a resource.

Sean Burke: That’s really cool. So, when you first started running Red Velvet Events, going back a little bit, what were the biggest challenges? I mean again, you didn’t have a lot of experience in that industry …

Cindy Lo: Yeah.

Sean Burke: … How did you first start that out? And then from there, how did you scale it to now you have 25 full-time employees? That’s impressive.

Cindy Lo: Yeah. Thank you. So, definitely along the way we had challenges throughout. I would say for sure the first set of challenges is when you are starting out. Like for example, myself it was just me, I didn’t know the industry so I literally went to every networking event. I went to every possible city just to learn from people. I wanted to really get into it and just almost live and breathe it. Now the challenge back then is that there wasn’t really any social media. There was Google. I’m sorry, there was no Google. There was the internet, but there was nothing like Pinterest or web blogs or any of that kind of stuff.

So going out there and seeking it through face-to-face meetings and reaching out to people that have been in the industry, I really just needed to kind of absorb it to get to know it. So then the next the big challenge was when I realized I needed help I couldn’t just do this on my own. So being able to figure out how to actually hire people, that was huge challenge. In fact, I still, to this day, even though we have 25 amazing, full-time employees, learning how to hire the right individuals is so key and that is what makes the team different.

And then of course as you’re growing, the other challenge that any business owner has is cash-flow. Figuring out how big you wanna be. How big do you wanna be? Do you wanna be a billion dollar business? Do you wanna be a ten-million dollar business? Where is it? What is your ultimate passionate goal?

So along the way we definitely had our fair share of challenges, but you know at the end of the day I am so grateful for being in this industry that I welcome the challenges.

Sean Burke: Oh definitely. Yeah, well I think as an event planner if you’re not familiar with challenges, I don’t know if you’re doing anything right.

Cindy Lo: Yeah. For sure.

Sean Burke: One question I did want to ask is, so you’re talking about hiring the right employees and every company has its culture. Like Zappos has this customer-oriented culture. How do you choose the right employees for RVE? What’s your goal for the right employee?

Cindy Lo: So I always tell people, “Culture over even skills.” Because, if you don’t fit into our culture you’re going to be miserable coming into work. And we don’t want that. I mean, think about it we’re doing events. This is a fun, fun environment. Yes, very stressful, but it’s a fun, fun industry. So, when we’re looking for the right ideal employee, it’s one that works hard, understands that we are there to please the client, very much of-service attitude, creative of course, detail oriented, loves technology. Because after all, I’m very tech-oriented and I’m always looking for ways to better improve our delivery. And some of them have a little bit of willing to take a risk, because the thing that a lot of people chose us over our competitors is that we really do enjoy thinking outside the box. I hate to sound so cliché, but even turning something that is usually pretty familiar on its side and saying, “Can we do it a little bit better and do it a little bit different?” So that the user experience is so memorable that that’s why they keep coming back to us.

So I would say that’s what we are in a company culture. And of course we love to play together, so work hard, play hard is very much our motto.

Sean Burke: That’s good. I mean that’s a good motto to have. So switching gears slightly, so I’m sure … You mentioned that you have sales. How important for RVE, how important is social media marketing and how do you handle the marketing efforts for RVE?

Cindy Lo: Great question. So, believe it or not, we actually do all of our social media in-house. We occasionally from time the time do hire a professional PR firm that will help share a press release. But, overall our marketing efforts are actually led internally between myself and our creative and sales division development team. But, I am a huge proponent of social media. One, it is affordable, so if you are starting out and you have no budget, you should be totally using this to your advantage.

Second, it is a great way for someone to authentically get to know you as a company and hopefully as an owner. So, it’s so important to put yourself out there and share what you’re passionate about and what it is that you’re doing, because a lot of times if you don’t promote what you’re doing, people don’t know what it is. They may have stereotyped you down one path. So we use our social media to kind of share and highlight our work culture. And also our wonderful team and then occasionally we will share our events themselves. The reason that we can’t share all of them is that we do work with a lot of corporate clients and we do sign a confidentiality agreement.

Sean Burke: That makes sense.

Cindy Lo: Yeah.

Sean Burke: Cindy, I’m really glad that you touched on the point of using all your social media marketing in house. That’s something that I’m also a huge proponent of. I think any event planner actually just any business ideally, nowadays, all your online marketing should be in-house because with contractors a lot of times they don’t understand the culture and it can be kind of a cut and paste job, so I’m definitely big on that. That sounds like you definitely have a good head on your shoulders there.

Anyway, one thing I wanted to ask is, you’re big into tech, everyone is currently raving about VR, you know virtual reality. You’re on the cutting edge. I was wondering is there anything else that you see on the horizon that could be really big? Maybe you’re already using it, maybe it’s not fully fledged there, but you could see it being really big.

Cindy Lo: Yeah. So, I think virtual reality is a real thing. I think what it may be hindering you from seeing at a ton of events is the cost right now because it’s still pretty high. However, I think with augmented reality, I think it is going to be the next kind of wave of things. I’m not going to say it’s just a fad, I think it’s an evolution of how we use technology. So for example, let’s just take the simple photo booth, okay? Photo booths have been around since what, the 60s, right? You have the old fashioned photo booths where you go in, take your photo with friends, and it prints out 3 or 4 photos on a piece of paper and you keep it forever and that was very popular.

Then, it was the green screen if I’m thinking of the order correctly. Then from there, we have now the different interactive photo booths, which includes the animated GIF or JIF depending on how you want to pronounce it.

Sean Burke: Yeah.

Cindy Lo: I know the long debate on that. And so what I’m thinking is that augmented reality and virtual reality are just going in that space right now. I think the lower the price point comes, the more accessible it becomes, and so I think that’s why the popularity will be there. As far as what’s the next big trend, I think people are still wanting to again be interactive, meaning I want to be given something to do, try it out and then share it all over social media and show all my friends how cool I am. So, the sky’s the limit. I don’t have one exact example of you know what it might be, but I did recently get introduced to a company, which I’d rather not give them promotion …

Sean Burke: That’s fine.

Cindy Lo: … Because I’m not paid for and I haven’t used them, but what was cool was that you could see the augmented reality in the sky

So basically picture you’re doing a big festival event, you encourage them to take a selfie and then when you take a selfie and then lo and behold behind them the branding shows up. And I was like, “Oh my Gosh, how does that work?” Really it’s all technology it’s basically pushing through the app and encouraging them to do it that way as a filter, so and I was just like that’s genius that they were using geo locations, augmented reality and just basic photo booth concept and the love of that, all rolled into one to make a new interactive, you know?

Sean Burke: Yeah. That’s cool. And I actually do like how you mentioned that it’s basically the evolution of the photo booth cause that totally makes sense to me when you think about it like that.

Cindy Lo: Yeah, so.

Sean Burke: Also, as a side note, I think from what I remember reading, so the creator, he said that its pronounced “JIF”, but for me, it will always be “GIF”.

Cindy Lo: Oh, good. Okay. That’s what I like to pronounce it as.

Sean Burke: I mean, I’ll always say “JIF” I guess it’s too ingrained at that point. So anyway, thank you, Cindy, so much we’ll just end off with one parting question and I was just curious. Do you have a favorite event that you’ve planned or organized? And why was that your favorite event?

Cindy Lo: You know, now that we’ve had so many under our belts, it’s been very hard to pick one, but I can tell you a type of event, then I can give you an example of it.

Sean Burke: That sounds good.

Cindy Lo: So the type of an event that I love is when it is very difficult, meaning there are challenges, whether it be timeline, creative solutions are unheard of, if the client’s like, “I really want this. Make it happen.” And I have two examples that I can think of, but the one that probably stands out the most is, we have ACL, which is Austin City Limits Music Festival here in town and a client of ours … That year, it was the first year to have it two weekends in a row, and Lionel Richie was the headline act. Well, the second weekend, unfortunately, it was raining cats and dogs and so the producers of ACL, which is not us, it’s another firm, a really large festival promoter they had to call and cancel the event because they were like, “For safety reasons, we can’t have the event.”

And my client, of course, caught wind of this and was like “I want Lionel Richie in my living room.”

Sean Burke: Wow.

Cindy Lo: Now, anyone that knows how this works, the festival promoters that have hired Lionel, they have full rights, refusal to keep Lionel. Lionel does not have to do anything, yes he’s in town but he doesn’t have to do anything. He can fly back to LA and call it a day. But my client, of course, had all the faith in me and of course, she was like “Make it happen.” And I’m like, “Whoa. Is this a test?” And keep in mind the concert was only canceled that morning so she wanted it that night at her house.

So all the logistics, even just getting him confirmed, all of that had to go to play in less than 12 hours of pulling it off and the good news is, I’ll fast forward we managed to pull it off. But it was not easy and it definitely took a crew to do it, but those are kind of the things that stand out in my mind that as I look back I’m like, “Wow. Who would have ever known that when I graduated from business school almost 20 years ago that this is what I would be doing?”

But I love it. I love the logistics, I love the challenge, and I love a good problem solving.

Sean Burke: No, that’s a really cool story. I do remember that year. I think Auditorium Shores was like completely underwater. So yeah, there’s no way unless you had a snorkel you could pull that off. Awesome. Well that’s a really cool story and I think that’s a really good touchstone for RV in general.

Cindy Lo: Yeah.

Sean Burke: Thank you so much, Cindy for coming onto the show. We’ll have another show next week, so, thanks again Cindy.

Cindy Lo: Fantastic. Thank you so much and I appreciate it. And be sure to follow me on Red Velvet Events on Twitter and I’ll retweet it. Thanks.

Sean Burke: Yeah, definitely. And we’ll also promote it on Facebook as well. Get all the social media channels in there. Let’s use a little bit of what we learned today.

Cindy Lo: Yeah. Sounds great. Thank you. Have a great day.

Sean Burke: Yeah. Thank you as well Cindy. Alright, bye.

Cindy Lo: Okay. Bye bye.

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