A friend of mine runs a circus troupe, and has had excellent luck offering a free Event Ticket to patrons who bring a certain number of paying guests. Clowns and other performers walk through the town on the day before the show, providing free advertisement for the circus, and offering interested parties a coupon for free admission if they convince 3 friends to attend the evening’s performance. This increases attendance exponentially! Some venues will also offer 2-for-1 deals. If you are having trouble filling seats, this is an excellent way to expand your base and encourage those who otherwise could not afford a ticket to become a fan.

If your event is to be large, or part of a bigger constellation of events, consider some form of corporate sponsorship, in which the purchase of a particular item nets the consumer a free ticket. Again, this helps to generate interest in your show and can be mutually beneficial for you and the company with which you enter into this agreement. Local businesses may be willing to work out such a deal, as it will increase their traffic.

Completely free tickets are ideal for events where there will be vendors, including food and T-shirt sales, along with corporate sponsors. Waive the cost of admission and your guests will have more money to spend on concessions, souvenirs, games, rides, and other features of the event. Or, offer free tickets to a particular group whose attendance would help your organisation: doctors for a health event, for instance. Free tickets for veterans, students, or children can also help.

Selling Event Tickets can be hard work, but giving them away is easy!

• Call a town meeting: Advertise in local media and shops, as well as online forums where your supporters may be waiting. Share your goals, gauge local interest, and recruit volunteers.
• Get feedback: Let your grassroots army offer their input. The most you can depend on others to do the heavy lifting, the more you can accomplish.
• Start planning: Guide your group through the creation of a fundraising event. Find out what type of event would generate the most local interest, helping you sell the greatest number of event tickets. Ask volunteers what they want
• Keep it close to home: Capitalise on the grassroots nature of your movement by employing local venues and vendors. Choose local entertainment, speakers, and catering, and advertise in local media outlets. Let everyone know this is a homegrown event!
• This party doesn’t stop: Once you’ve sold all your event tickets and held a successful fundraiser, keep the movement going. Ask your local supporters to continue offering their fresh and creative ideas, and let them take the lead in organising projects.

You’ll be surprised where you find enthusiastic supporters, bubbling over with new ideas, just waiting for someone to harness the power of their collective desire to help. They’re waiting for you! Now go seek them out and get them organised!

You shan’t be alone. The vast majority of your neighbors plan to watch the game: 71% of everyone in the UK, according to some surveys, will be glued to the proceedings. And of those fans, 87% plan to watch straight through the end, regardless of whether England make the final or not. So start gathering your mates and celebrate in style!

What do your guests want? Of course, you can guess the easy ones:

• A BIG TV
• A comfortable seat
• Barbecue or buffet
• Plenty of cold drinks

Another consideration is a bit of outdoors: a place where they can step away if they need a smoke or a private moment to grieve a particularly bad play.

The BBC also suggest having a few additional activities to ease the tension: computer football games, target practice in a garden goal, table football, or Subbuteo. You can set the mood by decorating your home with the flags of many nations, or perhaps by dressing your dog in a red and white shirt. Your guests will most likely bring their own enthusiasm with them, no event ticket required.

Now, you’ve done all you can. The rest is up to England!

The most important thing you can do is eliminate plastic products. Every year, we produce about 250 billion pounds of plastic pellets, a great deal of which ends up in landfills, or, even worse, floating in a garbage gyre in the ocean, killing fish and birds. The more sophisticated your event, the less likely you are to depend on plastic, but if you do, just swap it out. Real glasses, plates, and cutlery, or least recyclable ones (all these products, even forks and knives, can be made from paper) are you tickets to reducing waste.

Find responsible venues. Reduce your usage of fossil fuels. Some places will advertise as depending upon renewable, sustainable resources like solar power, wind power, hydroelectric power, or even geothermal power. Find ways to cut your energy usage: use fewer lights, or choose LEDs, or even candles (fire code allowing).

Choose foods grown locally: it’s an excellent way to reduce your dependence on fossil fuels. Shipping food about the planet is a huge waste of resources, especially if you’ve a farm down the road a bit.

Remember that buffets increase waste: people are likely to take more than they want. Use servers for portion control. Consider donating leftovers to a local shelter. They’ll thank you for it and may provide free publicity for the event.

Take a careful accounting of your costs. Most promoters find that they can reduce costs and waste at the same time. What do you really need? What can you do without?

Be sure to document your environmental practices. Write about your quest for efficiency on the Internet, where people can find it. You can start attracting a new, environmentally conscious base, increase your ticket sales, and host a spectacular event!

They very idea is enough to strike fear into the hearts of some idealists. But you need not compromise yourself, your organisation, or your principles, simply because a larger company has offered you money in return for slapping their logo on some of your publicity materials. Schools do it; sports teams do it; and you can do it without hassle, if your cause is a worthy one.

Many corporations are already looking for charitable organisations to support. It looks good for them: they appear to be giving back to the community, acting with a social consciousness, and redistributing their wealth. So, if your group has long hosted a fundraising event, or if you are only testing the waters, consider finding a successful, for-profit company to help you along. They may be willing to make a sizable donation to your cause, and they ask very little in return.

If you have accepted corporate sponsorship, you will have to make some small concessions, but it amounts to little more than passing along a word from your sponsor. When you print your publicity materials, you will want to add your sponsor’s logo. Many Event Tickets allow you to add sponsor logos right on the ticket template; the same goes for certain pre-designed publicity Posters. You can write your thanks in any programme or other printed materials to be distributed to your guests. You can thank them out loud when you make announcements at the event itself.

Even if your sponsor wants a bigger hand in branding the event, you still come out ahead. Many companies will be eager to offer you hundreds of pounds of free merchandise to be distributed however you see fit. Items such as T-shirts or water bottles imprinted with the sponsor logo will be coveted by your guests as favours. If your sponsor offers free products, you can pass them on to your guests knowing that everyone wins: your sponsor receives positive publicity, you create a bigger budget, and your guests go home will all kinds of valuable, and free, prizes!

There are those lucky organisations among us with dedicated sales team, active membership rosters, and, in some cases, easily accessible box offices. We may have dedicated volunteer teams, active word-of-mouth campaigns, or popular and navigable websites. Some groups even have extra cash on hand, saved solely for the purpose of publicity campaigns: Posters, Flyers, TV or radio spots, and print advertisements in newspaper or magazine.

The cleverest sales campaigns seem to take on a life of their own: music promotions where Stickers or graffiti-style ads pique the curiosity of those in the know, Internet marketing that goes viral and is passed around the Internet through links and reposts.

In the 21st century, groups seeking to increase their Event Ticket sales ignore virtual marketing at their own peril. It’s the rare event that attracts crowds of younger people without making use of blogs, home pages, social networking, forums, and other online spaces. When you want to sell more Event Tickets, Internet marketing provides you with publicity that costs almost nothing (or, possibly, nothing at all) and can be reproduced and disseminated with the click of a button.

The best part is that, with a properly mounted campaign, your message spreads with no further effort on your part. If it’s smart, compelling, or entertaining, potential customers will pass it on to new potential customers, creating a wonderful chain of publicity for you. So don’t fear the Internet. Put your bravest, most colorful promotions out there and see what transpires.

You can’t do it all.

I knew I couldn’t possibly clean the house and cook dinner at the same time, so I had my boyfriend do the mopping and scrubbing while I was in the kitchen. Don’t be afraid to delegate some tasks so you can focus on your strengths.

Make a list.

Some can do this in their heads, others must write it down. Either way, stay organised by knowing what you must do and what items or conditions you need to do them. Keep checking things off, keep checking your list. Then you won’t forget anything.

Rest later.

You’ve got a schedule, now stick to it! Of course, you ought to schedule in breaks, extra time to clean up disasters and catastrophes, and a quarter of an hour for a shower. However, you need to plow through and take care of all the prep work before you take a break.

The last minute isn’t too late.

Originally I had planned to serve wine and beer, but at the last moment, I realised there wouldn’t be any beer, and I only had enough wineglasses for half my guests. A quick call to a friend who deals in wine glasses solved the problem in the nick of time!

Seriously, you can’t do it all.

I cooked dinner for twelve. I did not do the washing up! My party was just as fabulous with dirty dishes in the sink as it would have been with a spotless kitchen. Consider what is important and don’t worry about the rest.

Make a success of events large and small!

Your advance publicity materials, including your Event Ticket, are visual cues to your guests. A proper image helps define your group, your mission, and the theme of your gathering both to returning supporters as well as potential new members.

Are your guests interested in design? The environment? Beauty? Appeal to them on the appropriate level by choosing imagery that speaks to their desires. Choose from 100s of Event Ticket templates and find the one that is most likely to capture the imagination of those who are considering attending your event, supporting your efforts, and aligning themselves with your cause.

There exists a wide gulf between a simple printed messages and a brilliant design. Even the most staid academics will appreciate the draw of a stunning calligraphic font on a coloured background. Athletes prefer athletic themes.

Don’t settle for something plain and unremarkable. When you’re hosting an event, you want supporters to remark upon your Event Tickets and other advance print publicity. Consider your audience. Make it special. Make it lovely.

So, if you want to sell Event Tickets for any occasion, consider spicing up the evening with some live music.

Music helps provide atmosphere, keeps conversation lively, and helps people relax. If you’re not sure what kind of music your supporters would prefer, ask them! Whether you ring up a few helpful donors or send out and informal internet survey, you can easily learn what’s expected.

If you have a budget, you may choose to hire a popular band, orchestra, or even a string quartet, depending on everyone’s tastes. A live pianist and a vocalist can provide a lovely setting. A rock band creates a completely different event.

Even if you haven’t much money, you should be able to find a group who is willing to support you. Look around on the Internet, and local musician message boards. Perhaps there is a school group that would be happy to attend for the experience. New groups will be happy to get their first gig for a small fee, or even for the exposure and publicity of appearing at your event. A member of your organisation most likely has a teenager in a new band, and they may be quite good.

Of course, you can always hook an MP3 player up to a stereo, but don’t give up on the idea of live music. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Ask around and you’ll be surprised at how much entertainment is available for the asking.

• Research online markets

What kind of presence does your organisation have online? These days, its not enough to have your own web page. Without a weekly blog, or email newsletter, no one will know what you’re up to. Creating a FaceBook or Twitter account is another excellent way to reach out to your audience.

• View the competition

What is everyone else doing? Don’t just research! Get off your bum and attend performances and events. Visit other venues and make lists of changes, improvements, and innovations others have implemented. Consider whether you can top your rivals and do them one better.

• A fresh coat of pain

Even if you’re doing everything right, don’t rest on your laurels. Update your home page or logo. When you print your own Event Tickets, you can showcase your new look by adding personalised details to the ticket. If you’ve never seriously considered branding your organisation, now is the time, and if your branding starts to look old and worn-out, consider updating it for a modern appearance.