Table of Contents
Understanding your sports event
There are a few tips that will help you to create the best sports event, enticing new attendees and maximising turnout. With some clever marketing, a clear plan of action, and the use of technology to assist with ticketing and live updates, you can ensure a secure, efficient, and spectacular sporting event for your guests.
Plan thoroughly – the first thing you need to do when organising any type of event, is to plan it in as thorough a way as possible. Putting this brief together will summarise the event, provide a clear description, the objectives of the event, the date and venue, the capacity of the venue, the audience profile, budget, number of staff you will require, and the schedule.
Publicise the event – you need to organise the event with a view to maximising attendance. To do this, you need to publicise it as well as possible, reaching as many people as possible that fit the profile. There are many ways to advertise an event, and depending on the size of the sports event you could have the reach of national TV and radio, a good website and social channels to leverage.
Utilise technology – as technology improves over time, so too does the chance to improve the spectator experience at big sporting events. Not only should you use the latest technology in the planning and execution of your event, but you should also use the best eticketing platform to provide spectators with the best possible process of purchasing and using tickets.
Why does eticketing matter to sports events?
Online ticketing has changed the way that you can maximise attendance for a sports event and maximise the enjoyment of the attendee. As with any other type of event or business, putting on sporting events and selling tickets for those events are all about brand building, and creating an environment that the customer enjoys and wants to experience again in the future (hopefully multiple times). If you can utilise the technology associated with eticketing platforms in a way that engages well and makes it easy for an attendee, they are more likely to come back again, and talk positively about your ‘brand’.
When eticketing platforms work well they offer the following benefits:
Provide easy access to tickets – digital and etickets are great additions to the world of event planning. They make it incredibly easy for your customers to purchase and immediately have access to the event ticket on their smartphone. These can be seamlessly downloaded into a mobile wallet if you wish, or just left in the email and/or app to scan upon entry. An eticket can also include event information, a map to the venue, and any other important bits you need the attendee to know.
Simple scanned entry – etickets have made it a simple and seamless process for entry into the event arena on the day. Ticket scanning at a turnstile helps to reduce waiting times when queuing and secure a speedy entry. It also adds an extra layer of protection against ticket fraud and ticket touting, which can be a big problem at some large sports events.
Make it easy to choose a seat – you can build in a ticket seating plan for the event, that makes it easy for customers to choose where they want to sit and allows them to view what it will be like where they are sitting ahead of time. This makes it easier to find your seat on the day, and plan for any emergency exits if required.
Event updates – eticketing platforms provide instant access to your customers in terms of updating them with important event information. It can also include a customer contact button which allows you to get in touch with the event organisers or ticket sellers if you have a query as a customer.
Provide options in advance – you could also provide attendees with some additional extras that they might want to purchase in advance. This could include package options for food and drink to be bought in advance and collected on the day, or access to sports teams’ merchandise that you can also secure and avoid the queues when at the sporting event.
Event organisers are always looking at ways in which they can approve the overall experience for the attendee. This matters not only on the day or days of the event itself, but also in the entire ticketing process in the build-up to the event. If you are a punter buying a ticket to a sporting event, you want as smooth a process as possible. This starts from the moment you purchase the tickets, the delivery system for the eticketing platform that the event organiser chooses to use, and instructions on how to use the tickets and where to be on the day of the event. All of these things come together to create the perfect, memorable event for spectators. If any part of that goes wrong, such as the eticketing system crashes, or the etickets are not easy to download to a mobile wallet or similar, it can cause annoyance or even panic for attendees, and this could put them off in the future.
