Running your first event: six things people get wrong
1. Pricing the top tier last
Most first-time organisers set a general admission price and add VIP as an afterthought. Do it the other way round. The top tier tells you what your best customer will pay, and everything below is positioned against that number.
2. Opening sales too early
A four-month on-sale window does not sell more tickets. It spreads the same sales over longer and gives you four months of anxiety. Six to eight weeks is enough for almost everything below arena scale.
3. Guessing capacity
Your venue has a licensed capacity and it is not the same as how many people fit. Publishing above it is a licensing breach and a fire safety problem, and finding out on the night means turning away people holding valid tickets.
4. One person on the door
Scanning is fast; queueing is not. Two devices halve the queue and the second costs nothing — it is a phone someone already owns. Work out your arrival curve and staff the first thirty minutes properly.
5. No refund policy until someone asks
Decide before you publish, state it on the event page, and stick to it. An unstated policy becomes whatever the angriest customer argues for.
6. Forgetting the follow-up
The best time to sell your second event is the week after your first, to the people who came — not to a bought list, but to your own attendees, who already know whether they enjoyed it.
Keep reading
- Zones: why this is not just gates plus a spreadsheetVIP areas, backstage, tiered levels and hospitality — each with its own capacity, its own scanners and its own admission rules.Running the event
- The door: scanning, queues and who can see whatAny phone becomes a scanner, scoped to one event and nothing else — and a duplicate scan tells staff when and where, rather than just refusing.Running the event
- Selling a room and a stream at the same timeA stream ticket is a real ticket with a real access window — and the capacity constraint that limits your room does not apply to it.Running the event
- Hospitality: tables, packages and the guest who is not the buyerCorporate boxes, table service and dining packages break every assumption ticketing makes — starting with one buyer, one ticket, one attendee.Running the event
Written and edited by people. Nothing on this blog is generated and published automatically — see our editorial approach.