The Art of Pricing Conference Tickets: Balancing Value and Experience for Your Audience
In this episode, we discuss the question: "How much should a conference ticket cost?" and dig deeper into the underlying thoughts and concerns behind this question. When people ask this question, they often mean: "Is this conference worth what we're trying to charge?" or "Can I get away with charging this much?" These questions reveal fears about reputation, the value of the event, and how the audience will perceive the ticket price.
It's important to understand your audience's values and preferences when determining the pricing for your conference or event. It's crucial to know not only your audience's demographics but also their psychographics and willingness to invest in your event. We discuss the significance of context and how it can inform your pricing strategy, as well as the role of event technology in creating an experience tailored to your audience's needs.
By understanding the value offered to attendees and how they perceive it, organizers can effectively communicate the benefits and ensure an exceptional experience. Factors such as audience demographics, affordability, geographic accessibility, and who is paying for the tickets must be considered in the marketing strategy.
Timestamps and Key takeaways
0:06:23 - Uncomfortable feelings around money and marketing
0:16:05 - How uplifting is a community event if the audience can’t afford it?
0:19:46 - Assessing Value and Pricing for Conferences (64 Seconds)
Uncomfortable feelings around money and marketing
“A lot of the underlying source of those questions comes from a couple of different things. One is not having a clear marketing strategy. And through developing a good marketing strategy, that will help you develop the confidence to address what value you're offering in a way that articulates the desire to to invest that much money into it. And really understanding who you're targeting and what their perception of value is. There's another kind of underlying thing, and I am a party to this. So I can completely relate to this hatred for selling, being seen as a salesperson, as a marketer, as somebody who's trained to pitch you on something. And I think that's true for a lot of people especially if you're in the community space where you're developing a community and an audience around a shared experience, around a shared purpose, it can feel icky to feel like you need to capitalize on it in some way.”
How uplifting is a community event if the audience can’t afford it?
“And then they're marketing an event to an audience that cannot afford to attend. And then they're wondering why they can't sell the tickets. It's because your audience is struggling to pay their own bills, and now you're asking them to drop three thousand dollars on your experience or your retreat or whatever. you should have done your homework. And it's embarrassing to see this a lot. Where these ridiculous prices do not match the audience that they're trying to reach. And then they want to wonder why it's not working. “
“On the flip side, I can offer a more concrete example. We just recently wrapped up a project with a client who wanted to do a first time conference and virtual conference for a community that she had been leading for some time. And it's a community that has been, it's free to join. It's very much focused on the people coming together to improve their work experience in their sector. And she's been essentially subsidizing the costs of running this community out of pocket because it's something she believes in. And has cultivated this amazing group of people.”
“Well, it was clear from the get go that that one of the core reasons for hosting this online event was to be able to introduce a first time ever paid event for the community to attend, but with the express purpose of raising operational funds to continue sustaining the growth of the community because there's a certain extent to which this client can, put in time and money and effort into doing it. So knowing that, going into it, we were able to be very sensitive to what the production costs were. Of course, a virtual event with the scope we were looking at was much cheaper to produce than anything in person. And we were able to set the ticket prices that were sensitive to the sector, the industry, the kind of average income across this group of people and make it in a way that was fairly affordable. “
Assessing Value and Pricing for Conferences
“So the core question that we're asking or that people ask us is how much should a conference ticket cost or how much should we charge for my conference? What they're really asking is is what we're creating actually worth what we're wanting to charge for it? Can I get away with charging this much, feeling like maybe this is a little hyper capitalist, maybe like I'm trying to profit here off of things? Or are people gonna be mad at me? Am I gonna get any backlash over charging x amount for a ticket?”
“And some of the solutions that can help avoid that in the first place are really understanding what outcomes you're offering, what value are you delivering to your attendees? How do your attendees perceive that value? Because how they perceive it may differ from you know, the work you're putting into to deliver that value. And really understanding who your audience is, all of those demographics where they are, what they can afford? Are they willing to travel to do something in person? Is geographic accessibility important? Who is actually paying for the tickets? Is it their employer? Is it them? All of those questions will inform your marketing strategy understanding how best to communicate the value, which is essentially what selling is communicating value. And delivering on an exceptional attendance. “
Transcript
0:00:14
How do you as a leader of a growing community, truly make a conference or event that has impact, a gathering with purpose and an attendee experience that knocks their socks off? An event that leaves your audience in awe and wondering where you've been their whole life? Make It Kickass is the podcast that explores these questions by uncovering the strategies, tactics and tools that we use every day to bring our clients' conferences to life.
I'm Isaac Watson, executive producer of Kickass Conferences, and we are here to help you make it kick ass. Welcome to another episode of Make It Kickass, I am Isaac Watson, executive producer, and with me in our virtual studio is the one, the only asker of Good Questions, Nessa Jimenez.
Hi, everybody.
This is our operations manager and is one of those just fantastic people who knows how to get to the crux of things. And that's why we are doing this podcast together.
0:01:20
If you are fresh into things, we are spending this season of the podcast focused on those core questions that we get asked a lot from people. And teasing out, what exactly are they asking? What are the underlying problems that are drumming these questions up? And what are some things that we can offer as solutions, as alternative things to think about, different questions to ask to help answer those in a little bit more intelligent way from the context of conference production. So without further ado, this episode's question is “how much should a conference ticket cost?” And I will slightly reframe that by saying that usually, especially when working with our clients, the question is phrased, how much should we charge for tickets? Right?
Right.
So let's talk about what people really mean when they're asking that question.
0:02:22
Nessa, what is your laser focused evaluation of that?
Yeah. So when we start having these conversations about money, we start asking for clarification. What do we mean by this? And I think the most popular one is, “is this conference actually worth what we're trying to charge?” And worth is the keyword there. Because there's a billion ways to answer that question. What is worth? What does that all mean? So that's usually the big one.
0:02:58
And then eventually, it'll usually come out as, “can I get away with charging this much?” And I put “get away with" in quotes because it's as if we're trying to cheat somebody or trying to pull a fast one. This feeling of, I wanna charge it or, I know this should be the price, but I just don't feel comfortable with it or I'm scared of this number. So how do I get away with it?
0:03:31
And finally, this one is especially true of community leaders. Are people gonna be mad at me for charging this much? Am I gonna get attacked or canceled on the Internet because of how much this conference costs? And I mean, that right there, are people gonna get mad? People get mad about all the things. Welcome to the internet. Like, are you gonna get mad at me? That's like the backlash, how is the audience gonna respond to the ticket price when I finally announce it?
0:04:12
And I think underlying that is this kind of question around reputation. Am I going to be seen as money grabbing or trying to capitalize on the community I've created or are people going to think that I'm just trying to take them for everything I can. And that I think it adds to the– generally the relationship that we have as I would say, predominantly in the US, but I I think is also the case in modern society, it has this really complicated relationship with money. And so I think that especially as people get into the mix of business and community building and purpose, it can get really, really murky. We have a lot of feelings come up and a lot of concern around reputation and how we're being perceived with other people. So I think that those are also some deeper kind of psychological stuff that I don't think we'll be able to get into but there is– I just wanted to acknowledge that there's a lot of weird money stuff going on in your brains, like, impostor syndrome and sort of this shy lack of confidence because our community leaders aren't used to being in the spotlight.
0:05:38
And presenting these types of events, it might feel like they are. and putting themselves out there so it can be scary. But yeah, there's a lot and we could go on about that forever, but we won't. So now that we know the questions that people are actually trying to ask us and what they're trying to get to. tell us a little bit about what the actual problem is and how we get to that? So I think if you're asking questions about cost and how much you're asking people to pay for it, and this is, of course, presuming you're charging tickets for your event, which most of our clients do.
0:06:23
A lot of the underlying source of those questions comes from a couple of different things. One is not having a clear marketing strategy. And through developing a good marketing strategy, that will help you develop the confidence to address what value you're offering in a way that articulates the desire to to invest that much money into it. And really understanding who you're targeting and what their perception of value is. There's another kind of underlying thing, and I am a party to this. So I can completely relate to this hatred for selling, being seen as a salesperson, as a marketer, as somebody who's trained to pitch you on something. And I think that's true for a lot of people especially if you're in the community space where you're developing a community and an audience around a shared experience, around a shared purpose, it can feel icky to feel like you need to capitalize on it in some way.
0:07:43
And then the third piece is just not having a very high confidence in the attendee experience that you've crafted. Right? Because normally, before you start selling tickets for an event or a conference, you've done some work on your program. you know what you're crafting, what you're creating, and if you don't have high confidence in the experience that you're putting together for your attendees, it's gonna make it really uncomfortable to try and sell that. Right?
0:08:24
So these are some of the underlying problems. I know some of them are a little like I said, they can get kind of into a psychological thing where it's impostor syndrome and a crisis of confidence and self esteem and reputation and things like that. But these issues of having a solid marketing strategy or not having a solid marketing strategy can really affect your ability to to deliver on selling tickets.
And it's a framing issue. instead of saying marketing strategy, let's look at it from the perspective of framing. Because once you say marketing strategy, once you say selling, I mean, Jesus. We know the Internet is just inundated with all of these marketing people and scammers and they've always got something and there's the tricks and the tips. Right? And Isaac, you know, this, I just cannot. I'm not really on social media at all because I'm just like I can't with this.
0:09:26
But I think at the end of the day, it was an event for the community. Right? Because the organizers, the community leader, that's who our clients typically tend to be. It can be a framing issue. So in their mind because they're thinking about it from that sleazy marketing perspective. And they forget that what they're doing, what we're doing is that we're building an experience for their community, people that they already interact with, like, every day. we're not taking from them, We're giving to them. And I wish we could do conferences for free, for everybody all day, every day. What reality is that there are hard costs and have to be paid for. But our community leaders are creating something that the attendees invest in but that we hope and we build it that way that they get way more out of it than what they put in. Right? Like, that's always our goal.
0:10:31
So some of the some of the things we walk through with our clients to kind of solve for these underlying issues is first thinking about the outcomes for your event. What are your attendees gonna take away? When all is said and done, what do they remember? What do they learn? What aha moments are you giving space to have happened? What experiences are you helping them share with other people? Because that right there, even if it's qualitative instead of quantitative, that is value. And those kind of lasting moments and that vibe and that experience that they come away with is one of the highest rates or highest contributors to perceived value. That you can have on the audience. I think another thing is just understanding how it is that your audience perceives value. What do they value? Where does it matter?
0:11:42
We've spent another episode talking about Event Tech. And, if you have an audience that doesn't care, or isn't accustomed to high-tech solutions, then why would you invest in fancy event tech? Because that's not gonna make a difference to them in the end.
Yeah.
0:12:05
And that comes back to the question we started with. what they're actually asking is, is the conference actually worth what we're charging? Well, the worth comes from what you're offering. Right? And who wants it? Because something that's valuable to me might not matter to somebody else. So who is your audience? Is it the people that really care or they don't care?
0:12:29
And I think event platforms and event tech isn't an easy Area to talk about because, yeah, there's so much event tech that the attendees don't even notice. You spent, like, ten thousand, twenty thousand dollars on a thing. They didn't even notice it, didn't even look at it. And it's because you bought a thing or you rented something or whatever service that your audience does not care about. You know?
0:12:55
And to me, like, the big solution is just knowing who your audience is, knowing what their values are. When you're thinking about pricing, it's not not just about recouping production costs and finding a price that allows you to achieve that. It's about knowing what your audience can afford. You really need to know who your demographics are. Demographics, psychographics, psychographics, all of the different components that make up your audience are gonna influence their decision to attend or not.
0:13:32
To invest or not in this. If you're doing something in person, how willing are they to travel? We've seen this through the last year or so of dealing with COVID where certain groups of people are itching to go out again and have a higher tolerance for risk while other groups do not. And so how do you how does your particular audience feel about that kind of stuff? If you're doing work within a particular professional industry, who's actually paying for them to go? Right? Is it coming out of pocket from each individual audience member? Or is it more likely that an employer's gonna support that through an education fund. What do you know about the current state of education funds within that particular sector? Is it a balance between the two? All of this stuff affects how you adjust your pricing? What geographical area are they coming from?
0:14:31
We've had a lot of discussions in the last year or so with other conference producers and organizers about the regional pricing, especially as the pandemic has allowed these geographical expansions in audiences. The geographical accessibility to attend a virtual event is massive once you navigate the time zone shifts. but the economic index between different regions can be so sparse sometimes that you know what a North American attendee sees value in paying vastly outpaces somebody in another country where average salary is a heck of a lot lower And there's less discretionary income. So all of these things, this is great context, you know, and that's one of the reasons why we love digging into this during the strategy process. Is because we are massive believers in context informing what we do and having that kind of context around who the audience is, what they're, what they're willing to do, what they need, what they're missing in their lives or in their professional journeys. Is going to inform what we can then intelligently price a conference to be.
0:15:49
Yeah, and when you say can I get away with charging this much? That just tells me you don't know the audience. You don't know who they are and what they need in the realm of pricing.
And I see this, Isaac, you've seen this as well.
0:16:09
Whereas these events that are supposed to be uplifting community events and like, we're gonna learn and achieve in the community and all of these, I don't know what it's called, self help or or like these lifestyle types of events. And they're all for the community, whatever. And then they're marketing an event to an audience that cannot afford to attend. And then they're wondering why they can't sell the tickets. It's because your audience is struggling to pay their own bills, and now you're asking them to drop three thousand dollars on your experience or your retreat or whatever. you should have done your homework. And it's embarrassing to see this a lot. Where these ridiculous prices do not match the audience that they're trying to reach. And then they want to wonder why it's not working.
0:17:11
On the flip side, I can offer a more concrete example. We just recently wrapped up a project with a client who wanted to do a first time conference and virtual conference for a community that she had been leading for some time. And it's a community that has been, it's free to join. It's very much focused on the people coming together to improve their work experience in their sector. And she's been essentially subsidizing the costs of running this community out of pocket because it's something she believes in. And has cultivated this amazing group of people.
0:17:53
Well, it was clear from the get go that that one of the core reasons for hosting this online event was to be able to introduce a first time ever paid event for the community to attend, but with the express purpose of raising operational funds to continue sustaining the growth of the community because there's a certain extent to which this client can, put in time and money and effort into doing it. So knowing that, going into it, we were able to be very sensitive to what the production costs were. Of course, a virtual event with the scope we were looking at was much cheaper to produce than anything in person. And we were able to set the ticket prices that were sensitive to the sector, the industry, the kind of average income across this group of people and make it in a way that was fairly affordable.
And in the cases where it weren't, we developed a very robust scholarship program where we have sponsors subsidizing a large number of tickets so that it was inclusive and accessible to those who wouldn't or for some reason couldn't afford that. And through that, we were able to sell with confidence and say, this is what we're putting together. We were transparent about the financial goals of the event. These proceeds will continue to help this community operate. And that allowed us to market successfully. And it was great. In the end, like, we hit our budget goals, and we have now operational income for this community to keep working throughout the year. And there's a trajectory set for future events. And that right there is like a little encapsulation of, yes, this is how you decide who your people are, what you're creating, why you need revenue, and how that's going to carry forward.
So why don't we wrap this one up then, Isaac? Alright.
0:20:02
So the core question that we're asking or that people ask us is how much should a conference ticket cost or how much should we charge for my conference? What they're really asking is is what we're creating actually worth what we're wanting to charge for it? Can I get away with charging this much, feeling like maybe this is a little hyper capitalist, maybe like I'm trying to profit here off of things? Or are people gonna be mad at me? Am I gonna get any backlash over charging x amount for a ticket?
0:20:38
And some of the solutions that can help avoid that in the first place are really understanding what outcomes you're offering, what value are you delivering to your attendees? How do your attendees perceive that value? Because how they perceive it may differ from you know, the work you're putting into to deliver that value. And really understanding who your audience is, all of those demographics where they are, what they can afford? Are they willing to travel to do something in person? Is geographic accessibility important? Who is actually paying for the tickets? Is it their employer? Is it them? All of those questions will inform your marketing strategy understanding how best to communicate the value, which is essentially what selling is communicating value. And delivering on an exceptional attendance.
Thanks for joining us for this week's episode, the eternal question, how much should I charge? Well, you can actually figure that out by using a tool that we use our clients regularly, and you can get a free copy of that tool at geteventlab.com.