How to increase sales for your festival

Here are some top giveaway ideas perfect for keeping your customers coming back

Nothing beats a diverse menu of favourite artists and banging sets; but sometimes it’s the little things, the mementos, that can inspire returning customers.

Not just ticket sales, you also want to maximise merchandise sales. Food and beverage sales will also be greatly appreciated by vendors at your event; the larger their profit, the more likely they are to continue to support your event.

Loyalty Programs

Rewarding your customers and employees will help with retuning custom and promoting sales. Loyalty reward programs are used by all manner of different companies in many sectors, and it very easily translates over to ticketing events and festivals.

Possible rewards could include discounts to future festival, discounts on food inside the venue, discount on your online store for merchandise. You could discuss with your sponsors and partner businesses to offer special discount codes or coupon to your ticket holders. Each of these act as incentives for more sales.

You could contact and coordinate with other festival operators to offer ticket price or merchandise discounts for a range of festivals. This way you more acutely target the market of regular festival goers.

Rewards could be earn with loyalty, interaction, surveys for better feedback on your event, or for your employees. This will definitely help your festival to stand out and could be the deciding factor upon an impulsive ticket purchase.

Minor friendly areas

Family friendly areas available to parents with minors is now very common at large festivals. Although most of the festival remains off limits, due to drink sales and loud music, children will still be aloud into the venue, remaining within a designated area.

Some festivals specifically market themselves as family-friendly, this could be an option for yourselves and a good marketing ploy. Offering a family discount, and suggesting a theme is a great way of making your festival more family friendly. Child appropriate merchandise and food should also be considered.

NFTs

Festivals this year, such as Coachella and Primavera Sound, have promoted their own NFT collection. NFTs (non fungible tokens) are digital tokens that are stored on blockchains. They are offered out to ticket-holders who can bank them, sell them, or use them as a pass for exclusive content on behalf of the developers. The are here, and here in a big way.

Huge businesses such as Nike and Coca-Cola have all issued their own NFTs, however they are criticised by many. There was quite a backlash with people using them for dishonest behavoour and as a platform for scams, therefore this option could be seen as risking your reputation in the public eye.

NFTs can be bought and sold, and with exclusive content such as lifetime tickets being attached to them, they could quickly go up in value. Offering these out with every ticket is a sure-fire way (once traction is gained on social media) to sell more tickets, as more people get the opportunity to win.

Seen as innovative by some and trend-hoping by others; whatever your ethical viewpoint, it’s hard ignore the social waves that festival NFTs have created.

Communication

A strong marketing campaign around your festival is necessary for maximising ticket sales. Communication and getting your message out there is critical. Creating a slogan or catchy line that can then be spread, alongside a hashtag, will help to get your festival recognised.

The People of Tomorrow (Tomorrowland Festival), Music Lives (Primavera Sound), its difficult to get a great line out of your head, or out of the head of potential buyers.

Many festivals also have their own magazine. This helps to keep customers up to date and engaged, helps to promote merchandise, and helps showcase artists. Investing in a publication, or advertising your event in popular festival magazines is an ideal way to say what you need to, loudly, and increase your overall sales.

Merchandise

Giveaways are a huge invitation to customers. They are making a big return, post-pandemic, and can feature all kinds of ornaments or clothing.

Negotiating with big sponsorships and local partnerships to offer giveaways is and ideal way to link them with your ticket holders. This could involve food, free beverages, wristbands, t-shirts, and coupons. Getting your brand and logo out there, for customers to perhaps have at home away from the festival, is the key to long-term marketing.

Merchandise is an unending well of ideas and inspiration which many large companies have had huge success with, it can also be lots of fun to design.

Booking Protection

Booking Protect’s refund protection gives ticket purchasers the opportunity to apply for a full refund if certain unforeseen circumstances occur and they can no longer attend an event. They will add booking protect at an extra cost as they make a purchase, and a percentage of this goes straight to you.

Having Booking Protect available is proven to increase sales and increase the value of your sales. Booking Protect gives customers peace of mind when buying their tickets, improving confidence and therefore sales.

We also completely take away the whole refund predicaments, directing customers to let us handle it. This means that your team can focus on what matters most.

Try Booking Protect’s platform today. Contact us to talk directly to one of our handlers, and see how our flexible platform could work for you.