The hot new trend for festivals is making every aspect of the event as eco friendly as possible - right down to the ticketing software. Here's how you can sell more festival tickets by being eco-friendly and lower your event production costs at the same time!
Marketing To Millennials
In 2013 it is nearly mandatory that festival operators make the effort to tailor their events to appeal to the Millennial generation (aka "Generation Y") since they are such a dominant demographic in festival ticket sales.
But marketing an event to Millennials is more than a superficial veneer. Generation Y are a very savvy bunch who can spot a disingenuous, halfhearted effort right away.
Barbara Bylenga of Outlaw Consulting, experts on understanding trendsetting youth, says:
Millennials are especially passionate about things that impact others: the planet, the environment, social justice, poverty. They see their passions as a way to define themselves as ‘changemakers’. What other generations might consider an ‘interest’, Millennials see as central to who they are. They define success in terms of their ability to turn these interests into accomplishments or even a career. Hence their passions are especially motivating.
As such, the festival operator's commitment level to what Gen Y deems important must be sincere and deeply ingrained into every aspect of the event. From the food being served, to so-called "leave no trace" outdoor ethics, a successful festival should adopt the business best practices that match the personal policies of its attendees. One of the best ways a festival can appeal to Millennials is by being environmentally conscious or "eco friendly."
A busy festival operator may not have the time to learn all the intricacies of how to have an eco friendly event. That's were consulting firm Saatchi & Saatchi comes in. Saatchi recently held a workshop for festival operators to learn strategic thinking when marketing their event to generation Y. The workshop had several prominent festivals in attendance (Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and SXSW Music), which is proof of the importance of eco friendly practices to sell more festival tickets.
During the business workshop, Saatchi made numerous recommendations for festival operators, including:
- Leave No Trace, Yet Leave a Trace: The music festival has a strict ‘Leave No Trace’ policy that’s bolstered by its waste diversion program. The great thing about this is that a San Francisco resident can visit Golden Gate Park the weekend after the festival and not even know that Paul McCartney and tens of thousands of concert-goers were there seven days earlier. The bad thing is that the festival has no lasting impact on its surrounding community. So we say, ‘Leave a Trace’! Integrate into your beloved city and partner with a wide range of local nonprofits to create lasting impact that extends beyond the three-day festival.
- Inspire Attendees to Act Now: Encouraging concert-goers to put their compostable beer cups in the green bin is a great start, but the next step Outside Lands can take is to creatively inspire people to become music-loving change makers. Imagine what a load of empowered citizens could do for their communities if they attended a music festival that informed them how to ‘do good’ while having fun.
Incorporating most, if not all, of the Saatchi recommendations is a good first step. But the entire end-to-end experience of attending a festival includes the ticketing process, which can be made to be as eco friendly as all the other aspects listed above.
Eco Friendly Ticket Options
Tickets are the first impression Gen Y has of your festival, so making that first impression a good one is very important. The eco friendly ticket purchase process should include options that help reduce waste and utilize environmentally conscious materials like recycled paper. It is important to note that eco friendly ticketing has a simultaneous benefit of lowering costs.
Recycled paper tickets
When buying paper stock for traditionally printed tickets, look for environmentally friendly attributes like hemp fibers, high percentage of pre and post consumer waste, and pulp made from certified sustainable harvested wood. These specialized ticket stocks take color ink just as well as regular ticket stock but may cost a small amount more (a cost that can be amortized into the ticket price). After choosing eco friendly paper for tickets be sure to boast about it on the ticket itself ("Proudly printed on 40% post consumer waster recycled paper!")
Barcode wristbands
An alternative to having paper tickets, is using the latest in barcoded wrist bands. Barcode wristbands cost more than paper tickets, but they offer several business benefits.
Wristbands contribute greatly to improved gate security and efficiency. The faster festival goers can get through the gate, the more time they'll spend buying concessions. Large outdoor festivals often have dozens of entrances, so ticket fraud can be a concern. Staff armed with barcode scanners can keep fraud to a minimum by scanning wristbands at every entrance and exit. Entrance and exit scans can improve a festival's bottom line by generating rich data sets. The data accumulated from scanning wristband barcodes can be used later to refine a festival's business plan and marketing campaign.
Print- at home tickets
In between recycled paper ticket stock and barcode wristbands is the print-at-home ticket option. Print-at-home tickets are a feature of the ticketing software that will lower your costs by using the buyer's printer paper and toner. At the gate, the patron presents the ticket they printed at home and the barcode gets scanned just like the wrist bands mentioned earlier.
Sell More Festival Tickets With ThunderTix
Once you are committed to making your festival as eco friendly as possible, be sure to choose a ticketing software that supports all the best practices that Millennials expect.
The Thundertix plan for festivals features support for the most popular thermal printers, most likely one you are already using. And we offer sophisticated barcode ticket printing and scanning in our festival plan. We save you time with barcodes on the thermal paper tickets you print in your box office.
We also offer the cost savings of Print-at-Home tickets that attendees print themselves using their printer ink and paper, not yours.
Need to incorporate eco friendly practices in order to sell more festival tickets? Please contact us at your convenience.