You're probably thinking to yourself, "he's joking around or something, right?" Nope! Allow me to pay off the seemingly ridiculously revised title line ...
For a multitude of reasons, most event organizers are always in a rush to sell tickets. "We have to get tickets on sale as quickly as possible! Hurry, hurry!" That's not a smart approach. Because ticket revenue rarely correlates with how long tickets are sold. Instead, focus your efforts on building demand.
One of the simplest ways to build demand for any event is by making people wait to buy tickets. Remember, people want what they can't have. Tell them no, and they want it more! The same applies to your event tickets.
Consider what Disney did with their last Avengers movie. They built demand for almost a year and then started ticket sales less than a month before the movie's release. Previously, that would have been considered financial suicide. Currently, Disney is within $50M USD of Avatar's $2.78B all-time box office revenue record (not adjusted for inflation).
Some of my client's greatest ticket sale successes have been when they made people wait to buy tickets. Imagine a $100,000+ USD of ticket sales in 60 minutes with only a few hundred dollars of advertising spend. Or how about a million dollars of gross ticket revenue, before a single person walks in the front gate of your event. What impact would that have on your event?
Just last week, a European client made their fans wait for months to buy tickets. It was the complete opposite of what they've always done. As a result, they've generated more revenue in seven days than they did over seven months for their last event.
Clients don't make buyers wait - just because. They made buyers wait with a very specific purpose. That purpose was to build massive demand to purchase tickets. If you're going to make them wait, what are you doing to build demand for your event? Answer the previous question, apply your answer, and be amazed by the results!
Here are some additional resources regarding selling event tickets online:
- Leveraging Huge Ticket Discounts to Drive Advance Tickets Sales
- How to Sell Even More Tickets to Your Event
- Event Promotion: The Psychology of Ticket Prices
- Event Marketing: Multiple Ways to Engage Your List
- Constantly Go Back to Your Ticketing Well
- Event Marketing Idea: Blocking Your Tickets
- Smart Advance Ticket Strategies
- Why Buy Tickets For Your Own Event?