Best way to sell tickets online for a local Platinum Jubilee street party

MoneySavingAndy

Hi All,

Although this might not strictly fall under the banner of 'charities', we are planning a community street party to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee in June, which will probably involve around 200 neighbours and friends.

We'd like to sell tickets to our neighbours - probably around £5 for adults and £3 for children - to fund a cream team and a barbecue, and if we have any excess money we will give it to a local charity.

It's possible to door-knock of course in the old-fashioned way, but if we can give people an online option that will appeal to many as we already use a WhatsApp group to communicate with many residents. Does anyone have any suggestions on how best to do this, please? Ideally, it should be possible to:

• Sell tickets at two different prices (adults and children) for a household in a single transaction
• Capture house details (for the organisers) so that we know who has bought what
• Be easy to transact on a phone using ApplePay / GooglePay / bank card
• Produce some sort of paper or e-ticket ticket (not essential though as we could push tickets through doors)
• Offer the ability to refund if we have to cancel
• Have little or no fees/charges as this is just a small community event and we want to keep costs down
• Ideally be a recognised brand that people will trust

Does anyone have any experience of good online services to use for this purpose?

Many thanks,

Andy.

Savvy_Sue

the only one I have any experience of using is EventBrite. Yes, there are fees / charges for chargeable events, and no, I don't know what they are. If you were also able to sell them in a local shop (saving the fees), that would give people a good range of options, but I guess you'd have to be careful not to oversell the event. 

MalMonroe

I think this street party has been asked about before, pretty recently, was it you? I think that was about closing the road. That must have been arranged now?

Can't everyone just do what people usually do when it's a street party and bring something themselves? 

I was once forced to attend a street party as I lived at the end of the cul de sac where it was all happening. My absolute worst nightmare. But anyway, we all just took our own food and there was no ticket selling. Sandwiches, cakes, buns, crisps, etc. No barbies. 

Ours was all arranged by word of mouth. Knock on doors, go and get to know your neighbours. Not everyone is online or has WhatsApp. I think 200+ people will be an absolute nightmare - that is NOT a 'small community event' to me. How on earth will they all be controlled? There's bound to be drinking - and I don't even want to think of the mess left behind. Hopefully the group of organisers will clear up. 

But if you must have a party and sell tickets then it should be per household, not per adult/child. You could just have a cream tea, that's a brilliant idea. People could make and bring sandwiches, pies, quiches, crisps, etc. as we did with the one I had to attend years ago. But no barbecues please because that's just adding more expense and it's not fair to those who are (a) vegetarian or vegan (b) not attending. 

Please don't 'capture house details' because that'd be a total breach of privacy.

What about the people who really do not want to participate? Will they be steamrollered? Ignored?
. 
What about having smaller parties along the street instead of one big collaboration?

'Ideally be a recognised brand that people will trust' - How will you achieve that between now and the Jubilee weekend of 2-5 June?

MoneySavingAndy

Thanks very much for taking the time to reply. I don't necessarily agree with all the comments, however I think that is in large part down to me not providing sufficient context and I appreciate all the feedback nonetheless, thank you.

The reason for asking about a ticket/payment system was just to add convenience for those that prefer to work this way and don't, for instance, use cash much, and to save the organisers a bit of time - we would rather spend time together on the day rather than collecting money in advance.

We have done all the usual leaflet drops and door knocking (as well as having a WhatsApp group), and yes, we do have many good neighbourly relationships, so this post was just to explore the idea of providing a way to get contributions for those who might prefer this for convenience, not to exclude others who don't or can't use electronic means where we would take a different approach. We are also planning to cater for vegetarians, although we have surveyed the street and amongst those able to come there are very few (5%), so I don't think that in itself is a reason not to have a barbecue, particularly as we know that 90% of households were keen on the idea. And yes, if the weather is fine, I anticipate a lot of drinking (people will be asked to bring their own), but I am pleased to say that we have very responsible and courteous neighbours and will not have any problems when it comes to their behaviour or clearing up afterwards.

We have also been considering the option of everyone contributing something, and may yet decide to do that, we were just working on the basis that many would prefer to pay a little money, a few people then do a supermarket run and then off we go. The idea of just telling everyone to bring food though is still one that we may adopt.

Cheers,

Andy.

PS It wasn't me asking about street closure, although we have submitted an application to do so!

Jenna_Appleseed

Why don't you just do a Jubilee Big Lunch event? (instead of an internet money maker)
https://www.edenprojectcommunities.com/the-big-jubilee-lunch

Tranboy

I trust the issue of liability insurance has been addressed.

Streetparty.org

Eventinsurance.co.uk

Thrugelmir

Charging neighbours to attend what is a national celebration seems extremely divisive. Street parties should be informal events. A chance to meet and mix. The thought of an organising committee telling others what to do seems totally inappropriate. 

74jax

MoneySavingAndy said:

Hi All,

Although this might not strictly fall under the banner of 'charities', we are planning a community street party to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee in June, which will probably involve around 200 neighbours and friends.

We'd like to sell tickets to our neighbours - probably around £5 for adults and £3 for children - to fund a cream team and a barbecue, and if we have any excess money we will give it to a local charity.

It's possible to door-knock of course in the old-fashioned way, but if we can give people an online option that will appeal to many as we already use a WhatsApp group to communicate with many residents. Does anyone have any suggestions on how best to do this, please? Ideally, it should be possible to:

• Sell tickets at two different prices (adults and children) for a household in a single transaction
• Capture house details (for the organisers) so that we know who has bought what
• Be easy to transact on a phone using ApplePay / GooglePay / bank card
• Produce some sort of paper or e-ticket ticket (not essential though as we could push tickets through doors)
• Offer the ability to refund if we have to cancel
• Have little or no fees/charges as this is just a small community event and we want to keep costs down
• Ideally be a recognised brand that people will trust

Does anyone have any experience of good online services to use for this purpose?

Many thanks,

Andy.

How many bbqs do you have? 200 people is a huge event. If you are charging for catering does anyone have a catering licence, if so they should know how to go about this. Just make sure the public liability insurance is adequate and check out where people can drink in public spaces. 

DCFC79

Thrugelmir said:

Charging neighbours to attend what is a national celebration seems extremely divisive. Street parties should be informal events. A chance to meet and mix. The thought of an organising committee telling others what to do seems totally inappropriate. 

I thought that myself, what would there be to stop neighbours getting together to setup an event themselves.