Selling Tickets: A Proven Method
No one likes to play to any empty house, and other bands don’t appreciate a band who can’t bring a crowd. If you want to build a fan base and get your music heard, then the first step is getting people to your show. That means selling tickets.
The following is a proven method for selling tickets for local bands looking to establish themselves. It revolves around two key ideas: 1) Generating awareness of your concert as far in advance as possible, and 2) Connecting personally with your fans.
- As early as you can, use your social networks to tell everyone you know about your concert. Create events on MySpace and Facebook. Do this with both your band profiles and on each band member’s personal profile. Send it to all of your friends. You want it to be clear to everyone in your personal network that you have a concert coming up.
- Personally contact everyone you possibly can about the concert. A couple of days after you create the events in step 1, call, text, or email, every single person who RSVPed “Yes” or “Maybe.” Make it personal and don’t spam. Also, go through your phones and text or call every single contact who could come, even if you think they’re probably not interested (you might be surprised). The key here is to ask each person if they want to buy a ticket. Don’t ask if they want to come; specifically ask if they want to buy a ticket. Say in your own words, “hey, I thought you might be interested in coming to our show. We really want the concert to be awesome, and we’d love it if you could come. Do you want to buy a ticket?”
- Go out and personally deliver tickets to everyone who said they would buy. People are more likely to follow through on their word if you make it easy for them, so make as easy as possible.
- Personally and publicly thank everyone who buys a ticket. Leave a personalized comment on their MySpace or Facebook profile. Let them know that you genuinely appreciate it. In your own words, tell them, “Hey, thanks for buying a ticket to our show! It really means a lot to us, because without you, we’re nothing.” Be sincere. This endears fans and has the added bonus of shows all of their friends how awesome you are.
- Give a mass “thank you.” Once you’ve sold 20 to 30 tickets or so, send out a mass text message to everyone you can. Say something like, “Thanks to all 30 of you have bought tickets. We still have ## tickets left to sell; text me if you want one. Again, thanks to everyone who has bought a ticket.” This reaffirms to your fans who have tickets that you appreciate them, and puts a little peer pressure on everyone else, “hey everyone else is on the band wagon, why aren’t you?”
- Recruit your friends. You know how you always have a friend or two who think its awesome that you’re in a band and desperately want to act like they are in it too? Put them to work for you as your street team. Tell your most dedicated fans that if they can sell 5 or 10 tickets for you, that you’ll get them in free. This takes some work off of your shoulders and helps expand your reach beyond your own personal network.
- Keep sending out reminders as the concert draws nearer. Make sure that each member of the band posts a bulletin and a status update daily on their MySpace and Facebook reminding people of the show. This is most effective when you’ve already sold a lot of tickets because all of your social network friends probably know someone who has a ticket, and it reminds them that they need to get one too. It also reminders everyone who already bought a ticket that the concert is coming up.
- Send a final reminder text. About two days before the show, send another mass text thanking everyone who bought a ticket. Include the show details (location, time and date, and such). This reminds the people who bought a ticket, and it gives all the last-second procrastinators one final chance to buy a ticket.
- Bonus: Cold selling. When you’ve exhausted your personal networks, go to places like the mall, high schools, college campuses, and anywhere else you can think of where potential fans might gather. Try to sell random people you don’t even know. You might try some variation of the following, “Hey, my rock/acoustic/whatever band is playing a concert tomorrow night at The Basement in downtown Ogden. I though you might be interested in checking us out. Want to buy a ticket?” For most people, this is pretty terrifying. But if you can get comfortable cold-selling, nothing can shake you.
As you use these techniques, keep track of how they are working for you. Keep track (write it down!) exactly how many tickets you sell each step of the way. While you need to work hard, don’t work needlessly; focus your work where you get the most return. As you use this process, focus your efforts on the parts that are selling the most tickets to get the most sales for the least amount of work.