Why should you promote your event?

Organising events is hard. You juggle competing calendars, acoustic specifics and staffing logistics, not to mention rival events. Plus, at the time of writing, there are rolling and ever-present COVID-related restrictions, doing their best to squeeze hospitality and performing-arts industries into their leanest possible forms. All this is after you’ve found a band, artist, DJ, or performer who will suit your venue and who (ideally) you personally enjoy.So, it’s an easy conclusion to draw that even without COVID, the most disruptive event since VB changed their recipe, organising music events is hard.There are a lot of moving pieces here, but if you’re a seasoned organiser you’ll have these ingrained as reflex, not creating any stress a stroll couldn’t untangle. However, once you’ve been through these steps and your event day rolls around, you’re now at the most important question of the journey - will people actually come! And the worst part? By the time the event arrives, this is now totally out of your control.Like furnishing a freshly built house, event promotion is the final and arguably most important step in event creation. Why bother creating an event that no one will come to? And no, this is not a hypothetical reflection, like “if a gig happens and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?” The answer is yes, and it will be a sad, sad day for venue and artist alike.

Nudges and decision making

Nudges are all around us. They form a part of ‘choice architecture’ and can be found in the ways supermarkets are structured, the pre-checked buttons saying ‘I would like to receive marketing information about this company’ at the bottom of the page, or putting snacks at the checkout in every store you’ve been to. Simply put, nudges exist to silently and unconsciously guide our decisions every single day.Regarding your event, you can use nudges to expand your attending audience. Social media is one of the greatest nudgers we have, constantly pushing and pulling us towards different products and experiences. Advertising your event on Facebook will always be one of the best places to start, however you can support this platform with further reminders. For example, information about upcoming shows on your website, or posting event information within the venue itself.Every time an individual interacts with one of these pieces there will be a growing momentum within them to learn more, get interested and eventually buy a ticket. And once they have bought one ticket to your event, they are more likely to buy another. This is due to the status-quo bias, where we are more likely to repeat purchase decisions that we have already made.

Types of event promotion

You could promote your event whichever and however way you want. You could post flyers, scream it from the rooftops, create billboards or filter it through an underground network of covert event spies. Ok, maybe not that one (how would you get in touch with them anyway?), but there is no right or wrong way to promote your event. The important thing is that you do.That being said, there are some tried and true methods which you can do relatively easily and regularly.

Analogue promotion

This is maybe the simplest, and one of the most effective forms of event promotion. It’s essentially producing some physical post that can sit on, outside or inside your venue, and it’s effective because you are targeting your best customers - the ones who are already there, or are close by!A few thought starters for analogue promotion are:

• Chalkboard a-frames to sit on the footpath outside your venue
• Posters within the venue
• Toilets have been proven as extremely effective locations for educational posters
• Using your TV’s
• Small paper or cardboard bartop a-frames
• Table tents or posters for bar tables
• Chalk on the footpath outside your venue
• Chalkboards mounted to the outside of your venue

Collateral promotion

Outside the physical world, and before we get to your social media, there are a large collection of sources you can turn to for promotional support. Here are some thought starters for your collateral promotion:

• Your own website!
• This is a great place to start, and can be a great asset for quickly and effectively communicating with your future audience
• Install your Surreal gig widget which will automatically update your upcoming events with any changes your audience might need to know.
• Performing artist promotion
• It’s safe to assume that those who follow an artist on social media enjoy their music, and are interested in seeing it live. So, your artists’ following represent fresh audiences with a potentially high purchase intent.
• If they aren’t already, feel free to encourage your performing artists to post about their upcoming gig. To make the post easier for them, you can send them them a gig posters you’ve created for your own promotion
• Other current event sources, like ‘what’s on Melbourne and timeout
• Googling common search phrases like ‘upcoming gigs’ or ‘event calendar’ will provide you with a long list of event sites. Feel free to contact these sites to get your event listed - it’s often free and very easy!Some examples include:
• Whatson Melbourne (or your state of residence) 
• Eventbrite
• Timeout
• Concrete playground
• Urban list
• Hiddencitysecrets
• Event finda

Social media

As mentioned, creating your event on Facebook is another great first step. Facebook is the great researcher, and will effectively target your most likely audience. But most importantly, this step is extremely easy to do. Plus, it can be a great resource for your attendees, who can find information like start times, ticket resales and which of their friends have clicked ‘attending’.Once you have created your event, you then have the option to ‘boost’ it’s awareness for a fee. Simply list your budget, duration and objective (ticket sales vs awareness), and you’re off!This is a really simple but effective social media campaign, designed by Facebook so that anyone can do it.

The Importance of event promotion

To promote your venue’s event is to capitalise on all your hard work in the organisation. It’s the last step in your event journey, and the previous suggestions are just some of the places to start. Beyond that, there’s a mountain of information on the internet covering this topic, from the ideal lead time of promoting before the event, to social media and ticketing strategy.However, the most important thing isn’t how you promote your event, it’s that you do it at all. Any promotion you do, whether it’s post-it notes on pints or a fully-fledged social media campaign will help develop your event’s success, create a happy performing environment for your artists, and establish your venue as a serious music destination. Although post-its on pints may be less effective than some of the other ideas mentioned…

Joining the next generation of venues taking local music to the forefront of the U.K. entertainment scene? Check out our Complete Live Music Rundown for Venues to help you get started.

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