You may notice when you visit our what’s on page that we have a variety of ticket prices for many of our set price events.

Unlike other places, there is no student or other concessions, but rather an earlybird ticket – for instance our upcoming Above (the) Bar Comedy night:

Our early birdy tickets for this event are, in fact, by donation.

Earlybird tickets can make your event more accessible to people on a low income, whilst ensuring that you still get the best audience!

An ideal audience member is somebody who:

– Really appreciates the artist who is performing.
– Loves your venue, too.- Is happy (and able) to pay a decent price so that venue AND artist can at the very least cover expenses.
– Is so keen to come they will commit weeks in advance (saving you a lot of bother promoting the event).
– Is going to tell their friends about the event!

A combination of happy-and-able-to-pay-what-it’s-worth AND early commitment is an ideal, of course, but in reality most people will wait until nearer the time, especially if your tickets are not refundable.

Early bird tickets attract people who are really keen to come, so are willing to take the risk that another good event may come up on the same night.  By pricing these tickets lower, you also enable people who would struggle to afford your event to come, too.

Earlybirders are also more likely to get excited about the event (isn’t it always better when you have a few weeks of anticipation?) and tell their friends about it.

Having a late birdy price, which is much higher, attracts those who for some reason couldn’t commit earlier, but are perfectly happy to pay a premium ticket price to have the flexibility to book late.

These audience members are likely to be keen on the artist and your venue, too!

On the flip side, late offers can backfire by:

– Looking a bit desperate:  suddenly dropping your price just before an event announces to everyone that you are struggling to sell tickets, and people may think the event isn’t worth it.- Attracting price shoppers and bargain hunters rather than genuine fans and supporters.
– By putting on late offers, you are actually incentivising the very thing you don’t want – people waiting until the last minute to book, increasing your publicity time and costs.

We hope you found this useful, please do look at our other tips for event organisers and feel free to share this post!