Event Management and Online Registration Software

Event management can be a real pain. Don’t you hate it when you organize a paid event and then at the last minute a whole bunch of people just don’t show up and flake on you?

Like you’ve taken your own time and effort paid like $500 for something that would be split in ten so $50 dollars each then. You’re expecting your guest to show up and pay you cash before the event starts and next thing you know 3 don’t show up, which leaves the responsibility of the extra cost on you.

I hear your pain my friend, something that I’ve learned overtime is that when someone is excited and hot with scarcity involved, now is the time you’ve got to collect but when you’re speaking over the phone, it’s not that easy. Not everybody can take credit cards over the phone. Actually most people can’t.

Here was my first big event management opportunity that I had to organize and collect monies from. We had just featured our newly finished film EVOL in Hollywood. After winning the “Audience Choice Award”, it only made sense to bring back the movie home and have it projected at our hometown local screens in Ottawa. That’s right, my event management challenge was that I had to rent a movie theater to premier our film EVOL in Ottawa; our own city.

When you’re in your twenties, have a limited budget in your pockets, luck is not the kind of thing that you want to rely on by waiting until the night of the screening and hope for the best. You need to fill out a minimum amount of seats just to break even.

Because of prior experiences, a had a few tricks up my sleeves to make this event management opportunity run smoothly. First thing I did was to approach local companies to get sponsors to fund the event. Check!

People want to support a good cause and I said that we were a young generation, trying to make something out of ourselves and contribute back to society. We said we’d give 10% of our proceeds to our local charity The Ottawa Food Bank, which we did! If you promise something like that make sure you honor your word.

Now that I’ve had sponsors, the cost of the theater rental was fully covered putting a lot less stress on my shoulders.

I remember hearing about a cool event management registration software where people could pay online, upfront to reserve their spot. At the end, you’d get a print out of your guest list. That online registration software to sell event tickets is called Eventbrite.

Everything is in the preparation, so I created a free account at the Eventbrite website, I filled in the blanks, so 325 tickets at $10 each + plus the percentage that Eventbrite takes (which is about 2.9%). Then the promotion began, you advertise on social networks, to your friends and family, etc. and you all point them to your event management page and it does the rest.

The most important is that you tell your audience, first come first serve. When they go on the website to reserve their spot, they’ve got 8 minutes to complete their payment otherwise their spot is back for grabs, now that’s scarcity (which is the fear of missing out on something because there’s not enough for everybody).

The patients of Diabetes, high blood pressure, hormonal disorder and also psychological disturbance create tension purchase cheap levitra in the ED. Historically, people who had cholecystectomies sildenafil sales suffered from chronic diarrhea. Many people who took more than the advised amount of this chemical reported side-effects. buy cialis canada It is often combined with topical steroids to limit the ED risk? A bicycle rider can follow certain things to reduce the risk of sildenafil shop ED. Talk about a smooth show, we’ve had a full house, sadly we had to deny entry to people that didn’t buy upfront and were hoping to by tickets at the front doors. Because it was sold out ahead of time, there was none left. I felt sad for turning them away but on the other hand I was so proud that the theater was so packed.

The whole event management process via Eventbrite made things runs so smoothly.

Event Management and Online Registration Software Continued

That was my first time that I’ve used that event management company. I was so happy and excited that I kept them in my personal rolodex of important contacts. I later used Eventbrite again when I organized a Limobus party. I knew I had to pay the limousine company upfront for their services and I knew I needed 22 tickets sold to cover all the cost.

I’ve set up an event called “Limobus Party” and that only 22 tickets where available again sold on a first come first serve basis. There was no refund, if you said you’d show up, I didn’t care but if you bought a ticket, now that spoke for itself, if they canceled at the last minute, it was their lost or responsibility to find another buyer, not me.

Again, the party was a huge hit, I had peace of mind the whole time and not once was I worried to get enough people to split the cost. I’ve put the buying deadline a week before the actual event started.

So I had to fill the limo bus otherwise I would cancelled the event personally refund everybody (and I would have taken the responsibility to pay for the Eventbrite processing fees because I was the one in charge, after all, they’ve done their part of registering, collecting payment and giving me a guest list, right).

Now these are just a few examples of things that I’ve done but the sky’s the limit. Say you’re organizing a seminar, you can get people to register before hand, you can also sell the spots. Example you could set it up where they pay $20 to reserve their spot and if they show up, you refund it back to them and if they no show on you, call it your cancellation fee.

The venue is actually super irrelevant, it could be a hotel, a restaurant, a picnic outside, etc. it really doesn’t matter. What’s important is that people register and/or pay.

A friend of mine is a professional stage hypnotist and he was looking for a way to handle all the ticket sales from his website for his events and an easy way to manage all that. No more asking friends to sell tickets, collect money, get more tickets, lose money, etc. Set up a campaign, tell all your friends, family or business partners to promote your Eventbrite link and the rest is history.

What about you, how can an event management software tool like Eventbrite help you organize your next event?