How do I get people to buy festival tickets early?

The buying pattern is very similar whatever kind of festival it is, because people think they can wait, and you’ve got to show them they can’t.

It’s mainly the initial strategy, the first thing you even say about it, and with festivals you show you’re going into a new campaign with the colours or the brand changing. We put up a post saying we’re back for another year, sign up for our newsletter, and spent money on ads getting people signing up, and immediately that’s a brand new audience, and they’re feeling the urgency because they’re seeing other people engage with the post.

Your existing audience thinks, I know how it goes, I can buy a ticket whenever I want, so the new people sell it out, and then the others panic.

I treat it as, doesn’t matter if you’re already on our mailing list, you still need to sign up. I don’t want to assume anyone’s keen when they’re not, so I start broad, send it to everyone and say you all need to sign up, and once they’ve signed up I’m only sending to them unless it’s big line-up news, because it’s good database hygiene not to email people when they’re not interested.

It also moves all the risk to the first few weeks, because the organiser has their money up front.