struggling to sell tickets :(

lolly1981

hello

i am holdinga fundraiser for world cancer research fund and cancer research uk soon, we have a live band and buffet. we are charging just a fivera ticket. however we seem to be really struggling to sell them.

does anyone have any ideas how to boost the sales, we have 250 tickets to sell but really struggling.

thanks for any advice

bex2002

hoe have you been advertising the event so far?

MoaningMyrtle

Advertise in local cancer charity shops, in the local hospice(s) charity shops and hospice noticeboard/newsletter. Your local radio station may give it some free airtime as it is for charity.

Good luck!

lolly1981

we've asked all friends lol i have put posters up in the pub, my cousin has put one where she work, the local school and shop. we have a facebook page we've been sending to anyone we can think of.
the pub will also be putting a bit in our local paper to advertise the evening. that wont be yet so we have no comeback of f that yet.

ive even given tickets to my husband and a friend to try and sell to people they work with and know

we thought getting people to donate prizes for the raffle would be the hard part but on a whole they have all been really generous. just selling the tickets for the night is a struggle

bex2002

as well as the facebook page join twitter and add lots of people and tweet about you cause, put a lonk up to the facebook pages, if u tweet celebrities they will often retweet it to all of there followers so you get a wider audience. have seen many people with thousands of followers do this!
As the other poster sugests adverts in charity shops.
Ask to put posters in any local shops.
you could ask the local radio station if they could put an advert out or if they can mention your fundraiser on air.
I will have a think if there is any more i can think of.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

see if you could put posters up in works canteens, factories, supermarkets hospitals etc

I would see if you could get a local paper to do a feature, and promote the event...also it might be good to get some factual information about certain cancers and how many people it effects etc...

Dont know when your event is, but dont forget people are buckling their belts for the stormy financial times ahead... the recession isnt over yet...

also is the band doing the gig for nothing? my hubby is in a band, and normally do x amount of charity gigs for nothing...

Savvy_Sue

Getting people to an event the first time you run it is always a bit of a struggle: how do they know it's going to be good?

It's got to be word of mouth: friends of friends of friends of friends who are going to be there have to be told how great it is!

Ianna

Well done for running this event! It can be difficult selling tickets in my experience you have to (gently and nicely!) push them on people. Posters and other advertising are great but I find people don't actually get round to ringing the number on the poster, they need someone to be there to physically sell them a ticket. Set up a justgiving site so that people can pay for tickets online, you can set up an automated email to go out so that when they buy a ticket you they get an email with your contact details so they can pass on an address to send a ticket to.

Other ideas:

Offer people a discount, for example if they buy 3 they get one free or they get £1 off each one when they buy 5 or whatever works for you. Customers love a bargain! You could also have a raffle that everyone automatically gets entered into if they buy a ticket or say that if they buy a table they automatically get a free bottle of bubbly for the table.

Give people some to sell to their friends and offer one free to them for every 5 or 10 they sell. This encourages them to sell more and gives you a whole new batch of people (their friends) that you probably wouldn't reach.

Have you tried freshers fairs? There's loads going on at the moment, there might be one you could visit. Ring your local unis and colleges to see if you could go round selling tickets.

Have you spoken to the charity that you're doing this for and asked them to advertise you via their website, email list or newsletters? They might have some ideas about people and groups you could contact.

Remember that the people that are most likely to be interested in buying a ticket are people personally effected by cancer so you could drop by your hospital and see if they have any suggestions and see if you can put up posters around there, you might get people working in the hospital who would like to go.

How about speaking to your local churches and seeing if you can pop in on sunday and try and sell some tickets? If you explain that all profits go to charity and that it's a family friendly event they might be really keen.

I really hope this goes well for you, it's a fantastic thing to do and no matter how many tickets you've sold you've advertised the charity to a lot of people and you can't put a price on that. Let us know how it goes, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!

Ianna

One more....speak to your local supermarkets about selling tickets outside over the weekend. If they're not up for that ask to do a bag packing day where you pack your bag for customers and ask for a donation in return, you can tell them about the party at the same time.

piratefairy

It can be really tough to get a bag pack organised at one of the bigger stores - months in advance usually to set one up, so depends how long you have to sell the tickets..but they are actually good fun once all the organising works out..