How To Use Early Bird Tickets To Increase Sales

Early bird tickets are a special category for attendees who want to purchase their tickets well before the event date. For a limited time, aspiring attendees can get early bird discounts for their tickets. Having an early bird pricing strategy can be a win-win for both organizers and attendees as it fosters early engagement, financial stability, and heightened anticipation for the event.

For attendees who buy tickets early, the discounted price means significant savings. Promote your early bird offers by clearly displaying the discounted ticket prices so your attendees can easily see the benefits.

Aside from the savings, early bird tickets usually have additional perks included. These early bird incentives include special access to parts of the event, event merchandise, preferred seating, special meet and greet opportunities, parking perks, swag bags, bonus content, and more.

On the side of event planners, having early bird ticket sales can secure their funding early on, which is crucial for covering upfront costs such as venue booking, marketing, and logistics. 

Additionally, early bird sales offer valuable insights into attendee interest and demand, enabling better forecasting and more targeted promotional strategies. By building momentum and creating buzz early, event planners can drive higher overall attendance and ensure a smoother, more successful event execution.

Event organizers use early bird tickets as a strategy to encourage potential attendees to purchase tickets early and gain their commitment. This early commitment not only helps in forecasting attendance numbers but also fosters a dedicated and engaged audience.

Attendees who purchase early bird tickets are often more invested in the event, spreading positive word-of-mouth and generating buzz that can attract even more participants. 

When you incentivize attendees they purchase tickets early, they often share their excitement on social media, talk about it with friends and colleagues, and even encourage others to join them. This word-of-mouth promotion acts as a powerful marketing tool, organically increasing your event’s visibility and reach. Early adopters can become informal ambassadors for your event, creating buzz and enthusiasm that can attract more attendees.

To set up early bird tickets, your ticketing platform must be able to create multiple ticket types with different prices. 

With Event Espresso, you can easily add multiple ticket types, set different prices, and modify ticket-selling durations as you set up your event page on the Event Editor. 

Just like how you promote your event tickets, you need to craft a compelling message to urge your potential customers to purchase your tickets. 

Always think about the context of your customers and what they care about when you communicate the value of purchasing an early bird ticket. 

Once you have a compelling message, it’s time to distribute it across multiple channels to reach a broad audience. Utilize your email list to send personalized invitations to past attendees and loyal followers. Leverage social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to create buzz and excitement. 

Consider video marketing like creating reels to post on Instagram Reels or TikTok. When you have a well-thought-out strategy, there is a potential to reach bigger audiences.

Add countdown timers on your early bird tickets to create a sense of urgency. Pair this by sending email sequences and social media posts reminding you about your early bird offer.

A popular concept in business is stacking your offer with the perceived value and offering it at a discounted price. You can practice this technique to increase your early bird ticket’s perceived value. 

For example, you can include exclusive access to a workshop (valued at $200), special merchandise (valued at $50), a one-on-one mentorship call (valued at $100), and access to the event (valued at $300) all for an early bird ticket price of $250. 

Event planners can look at their margins and decide on the discount they are willing to give but usually, early birds have a 10% to 30% discount on the regular ticket price. 

While different reports have varying opinions on the duration, early bird tickets should ideally be available for 2 to 4 weeks or until a set number of tickets are sold, creating a sense of urgency and encouraging prompt purchases.

The number of early bird tickets to release should be a percentage of your total ticket inventory, typically around 10% to 25%, ensuring there are enough to generate interest but not so many that they diminish the perceived value of regular tickets.

As mentioned above, other incentives for early bird ticket buyers can include exclusive access to special sessions or workshops, discounted merchandise, VIP seating, meet-and-greet opportunities with speakers or performers, and early access to event materials or resources.

Set up your early bird tickets with ease using Event Espresso – a WordPress event registration plug-in for different types of events. 

Creating multiple ticket types is just one of the many features you can enjoy with Event Espresso. Aside from this, event planners can enjoy customizing their event registration forms, secure payment collection, and customize their event website. 

If you don’t use WordPress for your website, you can choose Event Smart. It is a similar platform but does not require you to have a WordPress site. 

Check out our live free demo or our 14-day free trial now.