15 Proven Tactics to Get More People to Buy Event Tickets
You know this already but…generating increased ticket sales can not come from just doing more of everything (not least as budget rarely allow for this approach). It comes from doing the right things, in the right order, at the right moment in each potential audience members booking window. having sold 36 million tickets, here’s a few tactics that I can say with confidence actually work.
INTRODUCTION
Every marketing team in the experience economy is solving the same problem: a fixed number of seats/places, a window that closes permanently, and a financial target you need to hit. The question is how to get more people through the door and by default how to get the right people through their booking window before that opportunity shuts.
The tactics that follow are not a list of hacks or growth tricks. They are the practical, commercially grounded approaches that consistently move the needle for marketing and sales managers working across theatre, festivals, immersive entertainment, visitor attractions, live music and consumer events.
Some of these are operational. Some are strategic. All of them are applicable regardless of how large or small your organisation is. Work through them as a diagnostic: identify which ones you are already doing well, and be honest about which ones are worth your time and effort to trial.
TACTIC 1: BUILD DEMAND BEFORE TICKETS GO ON SALE
For the majority of events, the moment of on sale should not the moment to start your marketing. An on sale is about converting. By the time your booking page goes live, your audience should already know the event exists, want to attend, and be watching for the tickets going on sale.
That means building anticipation before the on sale through press, social content, email teasers, partner activity and community seeding. The campaigns that consistently perform well at this are the ones where demand has been built deliberately in the weeks before.
If the first communication about your event is also the first attempt to sell it, you are already late and need to create a new way to build interest and create conversion.
What to do
Set a pre-announcement date and build a communication plan from it. Great PR is highly underrated and hard to find.
Use interest registration or waitlists to capture intent before tickets are available
Activate press and media partners ahead of on sale, not simultaneously with it
Seed content in communities and networks where your audience is already active
TACTIC 2: MAP YOUR BOOKING WINDOW AND PLAN CAMPAIGNS AROUND IT
Every ticketed experience has a booking window, a pattern of when sales are likely to be strong and when they need support. Understanding that shape before you write a single brief is one of the highest-value things you can do as an experience marketer.
For most events, sales spike at announcement, flatten in the middle, and pick up again as the date approaches. But the specifics vary by format, by audience, and by price point. Knowing your pattern means you can plan for it rather than react to it.
What to do
Pull historical sales data by day or week across comparable previous events
Identify your natural dip periods and schedule specific campaigns to support them
Plan your communication sequence to match demand shape, not just campaign calendar convenience
Build in decision points where you can read live data and adjust spend or messaging
TACTIC 3: USE EARLY BIRD MECHANICS THAT ACTUALLY REWARD EARLY BOOKING
Early bird pricing works, but only when it is genuine. An early bird offer that is immediately followed by another deal, or that does not meaningfully reflect better value, trains your audience to wait rather than act. It also signals that your full price is not quite what it appears to be.
The mechanics that work are the ones where early bookers get something real: better seats, a lower price, exclusive access, or genuine priority. When early booking feels rewarding rather than tactical, it generates two things, the conversions and goodwill.
What to do
Tie early bird pricing to something real, such as best available seats or a price that genuinely will not return
Communicate the reason for the deadline, not just the deadline itself
Resist the temptation to extend early bird periods when sales are slower than hoped
Honour what you promised, do not undercut early bookers with subsequent offers
TACTIC 4: SEGMENT YOUR EMAIL LIST AND TAILOR MESSAGES ACCORDINGLY
Batch-and-blast email is one of the most common and most costly habits in live events marketing (most ticketing system swear by it though). Sending the same message to your entire database, regardless of who is on it, wastes reach and erodes the value of your list over time. I’ll admit though that it can feel good to send an email to 200,000 rather than 20,000 but trust me those 20,000 are far more qualified and likely to engage.
The audiences in your database are not the same. Past bookers behave differently to people who have only ever expressed interest. People who attended last season respond differently to people who came three years ago. Segmenting by behaviour, recency, and preference, and adjusting your messaging accordingly, produces meaningfully better results.
What to do
Segment as a minimum by: past bookers, lapsed bookers, interest-registered but never purchased, and new subscribers
Write different subject lines and opening hooks for each segment
Use purchase history to personalise recommendations where your platform supports it
Monitor open rates and click-through rates by segment and adjust frequency accordingly
TACTIC 5: RECOVER ABANDONED BASKETS
Cart abandonment in live events is higher than in almost any other sector. People start the booking process, hit a point of friction or indecision, and leave. In many cases they still intend to book and they just did not complete it at that moment.
Abandoned basket recovery is one of the highest-return, lowest-cost interventions available to any ticketing operation. It captures warm intent that already exists without requiring any new demand generation.
What to do
Implement abandoned basket email flows triggered within the first hour of abandonment as well as at 24hrs and 3 days
Test message tone, a simple reminder often outperforms a discount offer
Include a clear, direct link back to the specific event and seats
Follow up with a second message 24 hours later if no action has been taken
Track abandonment rate and recovery rate as standing metrics - you’ll be impressed
TACTIC 6: COMMUNICATE SCARCITY BUT ONLY WHEN IT IS REAL
Scarcity is one of the most powerful motivators available to live events marketers — and one of the most misused. When every campaign for every show features urgency language regardless of actual sales, audiences become immune to it. The signal stops working.
Real scarcity does not need embellishment. When you are genuinely selling down, saying so clearly and specifically will drive action from people who are already considering booking. Reserve urgency messaging for moments when it reflects commercial reality.
What to do
Define internal thresholds that trigger scarcity communications, such as 70% or 85% sold
Use specific language, 'fewer than 50 seats remaining' outperforms 'limited availability'
Segment scarcity messages to people who have shown interest but not yet converted
try not to manufacture urgency through countdown timers or artificial availability limits — it destroys trust
TACTIC 7: MAKE THE BOOKING PROCESS FRICTIONLESS
Every unnecessary step between the decision to attend and the completed booking is an opportunity for the customer to abandon. Checkout friction is one of the least glamorous problems in experience marketing and one of the most commercially significant.
This is not a creative challenge. It is an operational one. But the return on fixing it is immediate and measurable.
What to do
Time your own booking journey on mobile and on desktop and note every point of friction
Reduce the number of screens or steps between basket and confirmation where your platform allows
Ensure booking pages load quickly and slow page speed directly affects conversion
Test guest checkout options and requiring account creation before purchase loses significant volume
Make it easy to book for groups. Group booking friction is a significant source of abandoned transactions
TACTIC 8: DESIGN WORD OF MOUTH INTO YOUR CAMPAIGN
Word of mouth is not a bonus outcome that happens after a great show. It is an active marketing channel that needs to be designed for, from the moment the event is announced through to post-attendance.
A recommendation from someone who has already attended carries more conversion weight than almost any paid placement almost 30% more. The people most likely to recommend are your happiest existing bookers. Building a strategy to activate them is one of the highest-leverage things you can do.
What to do
Create shareable content that gives early bookers something to share, not just a link
Build refer-a-friend mechanics into your booking confirmation and post-purchase flow
Identify advocates in your database, high-frequency bookers, community leaders, repeat attendees and communicate with them differently
Give people a reason to talk about the event before they attend, not just after
Make post-show sharing easy and rewarding, the 24 hours after an experience is your highest word-of-mouth window
TACTIC 9: USE PAID SOCIAL TO TARGET INTENT, NOT JUST INTEREST
Paid social works best in live events marketing when it is used to close intent, not generate it from scratch. Retargeting people who have visited your booking page, watched your content, or engaged with previous campaigns is significantly more efficient than broad audience acquisition.
The cost-per-conversion gap between cold audience targeting and warm retargeting in live events is substantial. Most teams are not allocating their paid social spend effectively across the booking window.
What to do
Build retargeting audiences from booking page visitors, video viewers, and email engagers
Sequence your paid social to follow the booking window, awareness early, conversion-focused later
Use dynamic creative that reflects the proximity of the event date and real-time availability
Test message and format by audience segment that what works for cold audiences does not always work for warm ones
Monitor cost per conversion by audience segment and reallocate spend accordingly
TACTIC 10: OPTIMISE PAID SEARCH AROUND BEHAVIOUR
Paid search for live events does not behave like paid search for most other products. Booking intent spikes at specific points in the selling window, near announcement, near the event date, and in response to external triggers like press coverage or word of mouth. Flat-rate bidding across the entire window misses this.
Understanding your booking window shape and adjusting your paid search strategy to match it, both in spend and in the language of your ads, it is a meaningful differentiator.
What to do
Increase bids and budget around your natural conversion peaks
Use ad copy that reflects where the event is in the selling window, early campaigns look different from final-push campaigns
Ensure landing pages match ad intent precisely and a generic homepage for a specific show is a significant conversion leak
Track and optimise for conversion, not just click-through rate
Build separate campaigns for branded terms, event-specific terms, and category terms
TACTIC 11: STRUCTURE YOUR EVENT CONTENT FOR AI-DRIVEN SEARCH
Search behaviour is shifting. Answer engines are increasingly generating direct responses to queries like 'best immersive experiences in London this weekend' rather than returning a list of links. If your event content is not structured to appear in those responses, you are losing discovery traffic you may not even be tracking.
Answer Engine Optimisation, the practice of structuring content so it is surfaced in AI-generated search responses iis not a future consideration. It is already commercially significant for experience economy businesses competing for discovery.
The teams that understand AEO now are already gaining ground over those treating it as something to address later.
What to do
Implement schema markup for events, including dates, ticket availability, and venue
Write event descriptions that directly answer common search queries and who is it for, what will they experience, why book now
Structure FAQ content on event pages around the questions your audience actually searches for
Ensure your event content appears on platforms that are indexed and referenced by AI search tools
On Sale Live, the annual confex for the experience economy, covers these developments in real time. It is worth being in the room for those conversations if you are serious about staying current.
TACTIC 12: ACTIVATE YOUR EXISTING BOOKER DATABASE FIRST
The cheapest audience you have is the one that has already bought from you. Past bookers know your brand, have trusted you with their time and money, and are more likely to book again than a cold prospect who has never engaged with you before.
Yet most experience economy marketing teams treat each campaign as if it is starting from scratch, investing heavily in acquisition while underutilising the commercial value sitting in their existing database.
What to do
Give past bookers advance access or exclusive windows before general on sale
Personalise communications based on what they have attended previously
Build a lapsed booker re-engagement programme for anyone who has not attended in the past 18 months
Track yield per email send for your booker database separately from your general list and it will tell you where to invest
Treat your database as an asset to be grown and maintained, not just a distribution list
TACTIC 13: BUILD PARTENERSHIPS THAT REACH YOUR AUDINECE DIRECTLY
Paid media is one route to reach. Partnerships are another, often lower cost and higher trust. The right partnership puts your event in front of an audience that is already predisposed to want it, delivered through a voice that carries credibility.
The most effective partnerships for live events are built around shared audiences rather than brand alignment. A food and drink newsletter with 30,000 engaged subscribers in your city is often more valuable for a hospitality-adjacent event than a national media placement.
What to do
Map your audience's other interests and identify the newsletters, communities, and platforms they are already engaged with
Build a partnership outreach programme that targets audience overlap, not brand prestige
Offer partners something genuinely useful such us; content, access, tickets, shared coverage, not just a logo
Track redemption rates from partnership promotions to understand which partners deliver genuine conversion
TACTIC 14: MAKE THE GROUP BOOKING CASE EXPLICITLY
A significant proportion of live event attendance is group attendance. Families, friend groups, corporate outings, celebration occasions. Yet most marketing treats every transaction as a solo purchase, which means the group occasion is often not surfaced or supported.
Making the group booking case explicitly in your content, your booking flow, and your communications is a straightforward tactic that most teams underinvest in.
What to do
Create landing pages or content specifically addressing group booking, occasions, logistics, what is included
Promote group pricing or benefits where they exist, the corporate buyers in particular need to understand the offer
Reduce friction in the group booking process, it is significantly more complex than solo booking and often drives abandonment
Target content around celebration occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, work events, where group attendance is the natural default
TACTIC 15: MEASURE THE RIGHT THINGS AND ACT ON WHAT YOU FIND
Marketing activity without clear measurement is effort without direction. The metrics that matter for selling tickets are not the same as the metrics that look good in a report and the gap between those two things is where commercial performance gets lost.
The goal is not more data. It is clearer line of sight between your marketing decisions and the commercial outcomes they drive.
The metrics worth tracking
Conversion rate by channel which channels are actually closing sales, not just generating traffic
Cost per acquisition by segment, what it costs to convert cold prospects versus warm audiences
Booking window conversion curve, when are people buying relative to the event date
Cart abandonment and recovery rate and how much warm intent you are losing and recovering
Revenue per seat across the selling window and whether your yield is improving over the campaign
Email yield, revenue generated per send, tracked by segment
Repeat booking rate, the percentage of this event's audience who have booked with you before
These are not exotic metrics. They are the commercial foundations of understanding what your marketing is doing. The fact that many teams are not tracking them consistently is an opportunity for those who are.
THE DISCIPLINE UNDERNEATH THE TACTICS
None of these tactics work in isolation, and none of them replace the underlying commercial thinking that makes experience marketing effective. They work best when they are applied within a clear understanding of your inventory, your booking window shape, your audience segments, and the revenue goal you are serving.
What separates strong experience marketers from competent ones is not access to better tactics. It is the ability to read the commercial picture clearly, sequence activity intelligently, and adapt decisions as live data comes in. That combination applied consistently across campaigns, is what drives durable ticket sales performance.
The experience economy now has professional development infrastructure specifically designed to build these skills. You do not have to piece it together from general marketing training that was not built with your context in mind.
Written and published by Dawn Farrow’
READY TO BUILD THESE SKILLS PROPERLY?
The GIEM Experience Marketing Masterclasses is built specifically for marketing and sales managers in the experience economy. On sale strategy, commercial frameworks, audience psychology, digital skills, and AI-driven search all taught in the context of ticketed experiences, with a peer cohort who share your professional world.
Masterclass details: www.theGIEM.com
Annual sector confex: On Sale Live at onsale.live
Consultancy and strategy: dawnfarrow.com