How can you increase your potential for success? By increasing your guests’ potential for enjoyment!

This is not a one-size solution. Your needs will vary based on your region, the age of your supporters, their particular interests, and may even change from year to year.

You will sell far more event tickets to an event that your community wants to attend due to the excitement factor than you will to one that your supporters attend out of a sense of duty. A high interest gala is in your best interest, and it is your responsibility to do your due diligence. If attendance has been falling off in recent years, it’s up to you to discover why.

Pick up the phone and ring those who are unafraid to speak their minds. Ask them if your annual gatherings have become stale. Ask them what activities they’d rather see.

And don’t stop with your tried and true supporters. If you are not attracting new members every year, your event is not reaching its full potential, and you are not selling as many tickets as you might. Brainstorm to identify new groups and reach out. Approach potential new members and learn what attracts them to an organisation. Update your organisation and your events and find your greatest financial success yet.

Consider these three ways that some organisations drive off existing supporters, lost potential donors, and otherwise sabotage their own missions:

1) Make them do all the work

If you’ve spent a fortune updating your website, don’t sit back and wait for folks to find it! Having a splendid website is only the first step. It’s up to you to drive traffic there. There’s no quick fix for this: paid advertisement is simply not the best way to drive clicks. Rather, people respond to other people. Why not find the websites where potential supporters are already participating? Become active in those communities, leaving intelligent posts and comments in forums. Add your URL at the end of each post, and interested parties will follow your link home!

2) Make them do work they don’t want to do

Most people do not care to read dry pages of figures, interminable reports, or constant updates. We’re already inundated with information, and may have difficulty sifting through to find the important parts. If you send out too many emails or newsletter, or overload your communications with excessive facts, numbers, and details, you’ll lose readership and disconnect from your base. Instead, limit your emails to no more than one a week, and keep those short. Choose a few powerful anecdotes, rather than an exhaustive list of accomplishments. You can make the complete information available elsewhere, but not in people’s inboxes!

3) Don’t let them do any work at all

Some groups become so focused on their mission that they forget their supporters entirely. Would you rather lose out on a big donation because the donor’s purpose does not completely fit your own? Would you prefer to alienate potential supporters rather than reconsider how you work? Intractable organisations don’t make or keep friends easily. Instead, try opening your administration up to others’ ideas. Let your supporters feel that they have a say in how their money is spent, and that they are important in your decision making process. Solicit ideas and be open to advice. Make them feel welcome and they will return the favor.

Keep those donors happy, and when your annual fundraiser comes around, they’ll be happy to purchase more Event Tickets than ever.

When your guests have grown accustomed to the yearly charity ball, and particularly if you’re offered scaled Event Ticket pricing, those holding more expensive tickets should receive some unexpected bonus beyond having their name writ in large letters upon the program or newsletter.

For instance, a local botanical garden holds a yearly dinner dance, which happens to roughly coincide with the beginning of two features: their unusual plant sale, and their seasonal butterfly garden. The organisers create an event that is thematically linked with these two other events, using butterflies and unusual plants in their promotional materials, decorations, and naming. But they offer some added incentive: those attending the ball are given early access to the unusual plant sale, and have first choice of the plants, before other members or the general public.

That’s for the price of the basic Event Ticket. Donate a bit more, however, and your ticket entitles you to a behind-the-scenes tour of the plant sale, with botanists on hand to discuss the mechanics of collecting and transporting plants, answer questions, and add value to the affair. Remember, the guests are all members of the botanic gardens, so an evening with a botanist is quite a treat. But for an even greater incentive, at the highest level of donation, a ticket entitles the holder to a behind-the-scenes tour of the butterfly exhibit, with, of course, lepidopterists available to educate visitors.

Does your organisation have any backstage secrets? Have you a warehouse or other offices that are normally closed to the public? Are your administrators normally unavailable to members? Museums often have rooms of uncataloged or undisplayed materials that may pique members’ interests; schools can offer tours of off-limits area of the physical plant. Most groups have their own inner workings, and your supporters are interested in seeing them! Use those hidden details as a behind-the-scenes bonus for your loyal supporters.

• Camping Trips
• Picnics
• Swim Parties
• Summer Fairs

If you simply can’t decide, your smart option is to let your fans, customers, or guests decide for you. Make the process as formal or as informal as you like. For instance, you can open your next meeting up to a vote by the general assembly. You can create an online poll on your website, where interested parties can anonymously vote for their favourite choice. You can ask a select group of members to make the decision, or you can ring up some influential voices and let those popular members lead the crowd.

Once you’ve made the decision, it’s time to book the venue (if necessary) and start printing Event Kits. Determine what type of pre-event publicity you will require. Will you advertise with Posters, or only send Invitations to a select group? When you print your Event Tickets online, you can create matching documents for VIP passes, Drink Tickets (which can also be customised for other food sales, so that those in charge of concessions need not worry about counting money and making change while a queue of hungry guests forms), and, of course, Raffle Tickets, if you’d like to earn a little extra money before the day is over.

Whatever you choose, start planning now! Make this summer the most successful summer yet for your organisation.

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!

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!

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!

Believing in the cause is not enough. You need ideas! Long before you print your own Event Tickets, you need to plan your event.

What do your guests want? Believe it or not, the best way to determine this fact is to act your potential guests. Perhaps you’ve been worrying about hiring the coolest band to play a dance for teenagers. Why not try asking the teens what they want? They may name a local group you can afford, or you may learn that they would vastly prefer a proper DJ, or even that they’d rather you save the money for snacks and simply install one of their own number in the DJ booth with an iPod!

The same goes for for charity benefits. Just because your organisation has always held a posh gala in a museum or hotel ballroom does not mean that is the best solution. Start asking questions! You may learn that supporters wish to scale down to a less expensive venue, or that they’d prefer a family-friendly gathering in the park or at the beach. Especially when times are tight, traditional solutions may not be the best.

Planning events is hard enough without having to guess at your guests preferences. Don’t just print Event Tickets without thinking things through! Send out surveys over email, ring up some vocal supporters, or add the question to your meeting’s agenda. Give your supporters exactly what they want!

Let’s say my mate’s band booked a swank New Year’s gig in Bristol and it’s meant to be a posh, plummy, and exclusive affair. They don’t want just anyone coming through the door. Let’s help them mock up their admission tickets.

First, I’d choose something with a great rock theme, like the Alt.Chaos ticket, with its screaming face and blue guitar. Then it’s as easy as filling in the blanks.

• 1. The Barley Mints (the band)
• 2. December 31 (the date)
• 3. £25 (the price of admission)
• 4. Doors open at 7 (the time)
• 5. First Night Revelry (the event)
• 6. +44 (0)117 944-4497 (the phone number)
• 7. Club UK (the venue)
• 8. 00001 (the first ticket number)

I still have to choose what kind of paper you want, but the web site will help me! I choose how many tickets I want to print, whether to staple the ticket books, and how many tickets in each book.

Finally, I choose whether or not I want extra security features on the back of the ticket, like bar codes or the band logo. From there, I view my proof to make sure it’s spot-on before I buy it. The tickets get shipped out fast, within a couple days, so the band can start selling the event right away.

See? Simple!