Summer is fast approaching and your festival's event awareness efforts are in high gear. Locals have their tickets and anticipation is growing - but is that enough? Right now your local tourism board is being visited by those planning their Summer vacation, so make sure your festival is listed! Here's how to make the most of June tourism using the embed codes from festival ticketing software.
Local advertising, social media conversations and good old fashion word-of-mouth have increased your festivals' event awareness for locals - but what about all those folks from out of town? Festival operator due diligence should include event awareness for tourists.
Tens of thousands of people are planning their Summer vacations, right now, as you read this.
For festival operators, that represents a huge ticket sales opportunity that often goes neglected.
One of the best ways to bring your festival to the attention of Summer vacationers is to get listed on the city and state tourism board websites. Doing so is much easier (and cheaper) than you think.
The city of Fairhaven, Massachusetts is urging festival operators to take a few minutes and make sure their event is listed on the city’s official website. It is important to note that being listed is a free service provided by the city, as it is a mutually beneficial endeavor Tourism is a lucrative pursuit for both private and public entities, so it is only natural for Fairhaven (and your city) to promote Summer festivals in earnest:
There is NO CHARGE to have your listings publicized - The Fairhaven Office of Tourism is preparing an updated list of Fairhaven Attractions and a list of Fairhaven Summer Events...groups holding public events within Fairhaven from May through early October--plays, concerts, fairs, festivals, open houses, tours, athletic events, etc. should submit information. Please include prices and how to get tickets, if applicable, as well as a phone number or email address for the public to get more information.
The City of Fairhaven is just one example timed to coincide with the peak of June vacationers searching for activities at their destination.
Other cities and states reaching out and working with festivals include Charlotte North Carolina, the State of Minnesota and Indiana. Each respective tourism website follows the same format mentioned by Fairhaven (dates, ticket availability, etc.) and each currently have Summer tourism campaigns in high gear.
The Indiana state tourism board provides some statistics that should convince all festival operators to make the effort to be listed on their city/state tourism website:
Each year, Indiana welcomes more than 62 million people to its many tourist attractions and events. The Indiana Office of Tourism Development (IOTD) works to coordinate efforts to promote travel throughout Indiana. Additionally, IOTD assists to enhance the visitor experience by providing up-to-date travel information for pre-planning activities and the duration of their Indiana vacation.
Having your festival listed with a link is great, but some tourism board websites go so far as to enable tickets sales directly on their website, providing a time-saving experience for the out-of-town visitor planning vacation activities. Tourism boards rarely ask for financial compensation in exchange for selling tickets on their websites, and if they do, the fee is nominal.
The ability to sell tickets directly on a third-party website is a function of "embeds" from the festival ticketing software used by the operator. Using embeds, small pieces of computer code that are added to the third-party website, the festival operator can sell tickets on any third-party website (tourism board, local TV station, popular blogs), without any geographical restrictions.
Speaking of, if your research shows a good chunk of your festival patrons come from a certain far-off area (out of state, or out of the country for that matter), you can reach out to that area’s tourism board and embed ticket sales directly there as well.
When it comes to extending your sales to third-party websites using embeds, not all festival ticketing software is the same.
The ThunderTix plan for festival operators includes sophisticated embeds as part of our new Event Restricted Access feature. If your busy schedule doesn't allow for protracted back-and-forth exchanges with a dozen different webmasters at third party websites, you can securely give them access to your ThunderTix account and let them grab the embed code themselves.
Of course when it comes to your ticket sales data, extending account access can be fraught with worry, especially with 3rd parties that are not directly under your control. You need very fine-grained control to ensure the best security practices while still making it easy for the webmasters of tourism sites to present your festival to their visitors– and sell tickets. The ThunderTix Event Restricted Access feature lets 3rd parties get the embed codes to sell tickets on their external websites without you having to hand over the keys to your entire kingdom.
Need to switch to ThunderTix right away? Our pricing structures for festivals and one-time events are tailored to meet your special circumstance. Ticket sales for festivals are often in the thousands and tens of thousands, and our festival ticketing plan is tiered for that reason. We have several ticket levels to choose from, each one is an economical way to start selling tickets to make the most of June tourism!
Ready to get started? Please contact us at your convenience.