By Sam Tran
Long lines = long wait times.
You know LineCon when you see it.
It doesn’t need to define your convention. But how do you prevent it?
Simple, have your attendees register beforehand. That might not seem so simple, so here are 9 ways to increase pre-registration for your convention.
If signing up or paying for your convention is time-consuming or confusing, people just won’t. Even if all the traffic in the world is checking your convention out, you won’t convert any of them if the process makes them think too much (also called cognitive load).
Solution? Do the thinking for your attendees - make the information they need to put in clear, concise, and cut down to the essentials. Then, feed them one thing to fill out at a time - everyone gets scared if they see too many words to read.
Remember, when it comes to registration processes, the quicker the better. For example, Stride Events’ registration process is a simple 2-page form. Anything more than that, and you’re losing people.
To prevent your attendees from procrastinating, give them deadlines. Deadlines drive action. Display a count-down timer, show limited slots, or use tiered pricing (or all three!).
On your website and other places, showing a clock that steadily marches to the end of a deal, or the ticket itself, will remind your customers to not waste time.
Showing limited slots will demonstrate exclusivity and scarcity - not everyone can get in, or get this deal, so they need to get it before it goes away!
Tiered pricing is when the price increases depending on time or quantity. For example, the first 100 people to register will pay $10, the next 100 pay $15, and everyone else afterward must pay $18. Registering early means a cheaper purchase; registering later makes it more expensive. People will feel a need to act quickly before tickets are gone or the prices go up.
Everyone loves feeling like they got a deal. You can simply offer discounts at times and locations of your choosing to encourage attendees to pull the trigger. A great idea would be offering group discounts - if people pay for a bulk amount of tickets, they can pay less for each individual ticket. A simpler way could be “buy 6 tickets and the 7th is free.” This works great for getting your customers to market your convention for you!
You could also offer benefits, special gifts, or exclusive experiences for registering early. Partnering with related businesses to offer these deals (with discounts too!) to attendees is a powerful way to mutually benefit both companies and deliver greater value to your consumers.
Remember, the principles behind promos and urgency are “loss aversion” and FOMO. Loss aversion is a human bias that leads us to disproportionately outweigh the potential loss of something over the potential gain of another thing, though it may be objectively more valuable.
FOMO, or “fear of missing out” is all about not getting something that other people are getting. The key is to make consumers feel like they’re missing out if they don’t purchase/register soon.
If you want more people to register before your convention, offering a rebate upon registration can be very attractive to your participants. After a set amount of time, registrants will receive a return of a portion of what they spent on the ticket. Not only will more people pre-register, but more people will be willing to purchase tickets they otherwise would not have. Incentive programs offer discounts, gifts, points, etc. for a specific action, like referring a friend, posting the event on social media, or simply registering early.
Spreading the word is a must. If you want your attendance to grow exponentially, you’ll need to recruit as many of your attendees as possible. Invite them to share the convention with others, get discounts for a plus one, two, three, or more, or offer other deals for referring someone to your convention.
This goes hand-in-hand with incentive programs. Offering incentives to your customers for sharing their ticket purchases on social media is a simple and powerful way to create buzz about your convention. Further, you can partner with other sponsors and vendors to share your convention on their channels as well!
There are a bunch of event calendars online that make it easy for people to find events. For example, people looking to do a 5k can easily find calendars of 5ks in their area.
Make sure your convention is posted on the appropriate convention calendars, and interested people will be able to find you! Fancons.com, animecons.com, and others are great for comic conventions, anime conventions, gaming, etc.
What’s more, since you’ll have more web pages linking to your site online, you will be more easily found on search engines.
You attracted the customer. They’re interested. They’re about to purchase a ticket, when all of a sudden, their mom calls, and they close out of the tab. We know, we’ve been there. What you’re experiencing is an abandoned cart - people who were about to pull the trigger, but got distracted, or perhaps are still undecided.
People need reminders. People are forgetful, or they’re on the fence about attending your convention, or both. It can be very frustrating to have people be one click away from purchasing a ticket. Contacting potential attendees with a reminder email helps them get going, ensuring you don’t miss out on easy sales. The great part about it is that you can automate this email process!
Sometimes, people just need to be invited. If you’ve organized similar events in the past, send your past attendees an announcement about your upcoming convention. Remind them of how much fun they had last time, and they’ll want to come again. Email and advertising are good options to achieve this. In fact, offer all your attendees a free email subscription to remind them of upcoming events, with special offers, discounts, or whatever else you’d like to do to sweeten the deal.
Very importantly, these attendees must have had a good experience the last time they came to your convention. That’s the most important thing!
Start building a loyal fanbase. Reward the people who keep coming back to your convention year after year. Offer some exclusive deals, prizes, VIP status, and priority to your most loyal and avid participants. Stride Events makes this easy with its Loyalty Program feature. It’ll automatically send unique promo codes to attendees based on the number of years/times they’ve come to your events. They’ll keep coming back, and you can bet they’ll be the first ones to register.
Only you can prevent LineCon. Armed with these tips, you’ll never have to worry about it again. Choose which ideas work best for your convention and strategy. Don’t know which to pick? Ask us! At Stride Events, we want to help you with all of these and more.