If I Was There…

This week is the annual Event & Arena Marketing Conference in Indianapolis.  For the first time since this blog started I am not going to the conference.   Since last year’s conference I have become a chef and melding the world of live entertainment with the world of culinary (I have never worked so hard for so little money!  But I love it!).   Anyway, it’s just not going to work this year.  Plus, I blew the conference budget on the Ringling Bros. promoter reunion.

If I did go to this year’s conference, this is what I would ask:

1. What is the industry doing to get butts back in seats?
2. Are you using social networking to market and is it really selling tickets?
3. What do you think of the Live Nation / Groupon deal? 
4. Are you thinking of offering your non LN shows on sites such as Groupon, Goldstar, and LivingSocial?
5. What is new in marketing our shows?  What really does work to move tickets?
6. If you work in the venue marketing department are you getting what you need? If not, what do you need?
7. What are the latest trends in group sales? What are your group leaders telling you?
8. What still works and what doesn’t with traditional media?
9. Media promotions: Are you still getting them?  Are they effective?
10. What is the industry doing to get butts back in seats?

You may notice that number one and ten are the same question.  This is by far the most important question to be answered at the conference.  This should be the number 1 focus of this year’s conference.

Since I won’t be with you in Indianapolis, I am giving you the chance to be a guest blogger.  If you have info, comments, or gossip you want to share from the conference, send them to me and I will post them.

Online Coupons

I get my daily offers from both Groupon and Livingsocial and I always chuckle.  Not because the deals are funny but because this concept was so… frowned upon just a few short years ago in the entertainment marketing world, and some still do. I was part of a concept in 2000 that was way ahead of its time with grouptickets.com.  These sites have taken our concept to the next level.  I was almost a dot-com millionaire!

I love these social coupon sites.  They have taken the idea of group sales and super groups to the mainstream.  You can get discounts for restaurants, car washes, clubs, bars, dental, etc…  The one participant I don’t see a lot is our industry.  Some are doing it, but they are in the minority. What is wrong with us?  Why are we always one step behind?  We should be all over these sites. I just read this morning that even the movie business is using it. Lions Gate Entertainment is offering a half price coupon on Groupon for an upcoming movie release.

Everyone always thinks that coupons make the product look cheap.  It’s all in how you market it!  If you market it cheap, it will be cheap.

If your show performs with empty seats then you should be looking at these sites. Why leave the seats empty.  Why do you try to fill them with comps?   When you paper the house you have no idea how many will cash in the comp. With these sites, the customer has to buy the coupon.  The chances they will redeem it are much greater.  

These sites offer minimum and maximum coupons that can be sold.  They offer time limits.  You can control the flow of coupons.  They do a mass email marketing campaign for you.  Do you realize how many million people get their daily emails?

No I’m not on Groupon’s or Livingsocial’s payroll, just a happy consumer who gets it.