15. That's the Ticket
To say that ticket sales are important is an understatement. There is nothing more frustrating or embarrassing than throwing a party and having no one show up. It will be exciting and challenging putting your event together. It will also be very satisfying when you successfully sell your sponsorships and complete your program.
However, the real payoff comes when you see the bleachers full of fans having a great time. That will only happen if you sell tickets.
You Get What You Pay For
Sell tickets? Well, that's your first decision. While most schools will sell tickets, some choose to go with free admission. Let's look at free admission first. The main concern with free admission is that people often feel something is "worth what they have to pay for it." If that is the case, your event will be viewed as being worth very little—or nothing. With that perception, your attendance may suffer.
If you decide to have free admission, you will be giving up a significant source of revenue. In many cases, the ticket revenue is used to help you create a better and more exciting event. It's simple: the more money you have, the more you can do.
Finally, if you put together a quality event, "sell" it to your student body with enthusiasm, and create a buzz around the school, you should have no problem charging for admission. If you consider the other forms of entertainment you will be competing against, chances are none of them will be free. In fact, most of them will cost more than your event.
Make Sure the Price is Right
One of the most difficult decisions will be to determine ticket prices if you decide to charge admission. This will vary significantly with your specific school and community. In general, the ticket price should be set at or below the price for admission to regular-season basketball games. If students get into your regular-season games free, set the price for the Tip-Off at or below the adult admission price. In general, $2.00 - $4.00 will work.
If you think your prices are low, ask yourself, "if we raise the ticket price X amount, will fewer people buy tickets." Or, if you think the tickets are priced a little high, ask yourself, "If we lower the price, will a lot of people change their mind and decide to buy tickets."
You have to consider the elasticity of your tickets. Sorry, that's one of those boring economic terms. In short, try to determine how much your ticket sales will be affected by the price. Chances are, a dollar, either way, will not create a significant shift in demand.
Sell 'em in Advance!
The best situation is to sell as many tickets in advance as possible. If fans already have tickets, they will be less likely to change their mind or be discouraged by bad weather. Many events have a discounted ticket price for advance purchases. This is a great idea but difficult to pull off when your event has a relatively low ticket price. To motivate fans to purchase tickets in advance, there must be significant savings.
If your event ticket prices are only $3.00, how significant of a discount can you afford to give? My experience indicates that discounts for advance purchases are usually not practical for the Tip-Off.
You have now decided whether or not to charge for tickets and set the price if appropriate. Your success in selling these tickets will depend primarily on two things: your promotion campaign and the commitment of you and your fellow students to making personal sales.
Your promotional efforts will be significantly influenced by whether you view your audience as mainly students (typical) or all fans (generally only where they take basketball very seriously). If you target the entire fan base, you will be much more visible in the general community. If this is the case, you may want to have a few ticket outlets such as popular sporting goods stores or restaurants. If you sell primarily to the student body, your success will rest on the shoulders of each member of your group.
One effective means of selling tickets is to divide your class into teams of four or five members. Have these teams compete in a ticket sales campaign complete with prizes for meeting specific goals.
No matter how much advertising you do, nothing is more effective than personal, face-to-face sales when it comes to tickets. Your friends will buy from you because they trust you and believe what you say. If you say it will be fun, they'll give it a shot.
The Physical Ticket
You will need to create and print tickets if you plan to sell them in advance. Although it is unlikely that you will "sell out" in advance, print a lot of tickets. You will want to have each member of your organization check out tickets to sell, and you may also decide to have them at off-campus ticket outlets. The tickets need to look professional, but they do not have to be "fancy." A quality design printed in one color on colored paper should work fine.
If you want to save a little money, you should be able to create your ticket design on Canva.com and print them yourselves. You may even use the pre-cut "business card" sheets sold at most office supply stores. Ensure your ticket design is in line with the rest of your materials in terms of color, layout, logo, etc.
You may even consider an online service such as EventBrite. Using a service like this will make the process easier, allow for simple online sales and look very professional. As you might expect, this all comes at a cost--you may reduce your revenue considerably.
The bottom line, make your decisions based on your goals. One of our goals was to cover the event costs with sponsorship revenue, making the admission receipts pure profit. It may not happen the first time (it didn't for us!), but it is a realistic goal if you work at it.