This document provides 8 tips for increasing event attendance: 1) Choose the best date; 2) Simplify registration; 3) Use email marketing; 4) Create an event hashtag; 5) Create social media events; 6) Optimize the event website; 7) Promote the event through industry connections; 8) Thank attendees. It emphasizes the importance of registration success and maximizing attendance. Simple strategies like email reminders, hashtags, and thank you notes can significantly boost engagement and word-of-mouth promotions leading to higher registration. The overall message is that event planners should focus on accessibility, promotion, and gratitude to fill seats.

1. The Sold Out Event
8 Ways to Increase Event Attendance

2. 2Title of the book
Your next event may be the biggest event you’ve ever held – crossing international
borders. Or it may be an exclusive invite only mastermind meeting.
Regardless of the size of your event – increasing attendance is one of the most important
components of any event. After all, no matter how much time or expenses you devote to
your keynote speaker, event app, or your ‘WOW’ factor – none of it will matter if
no one comes to your event!
So how do you attract attendees to your event, that are qualified and truly interested,
insuring that your expenditures are being maximized and optimized? Believe it or not – it
doesn’t take magical thinking or unicorn hoping.
Maximize your efforts and your resources –
these 8 steps will help you increase event attendance!

3. 3The Sold Out Event
1. Choose the Best Date
When planning your event –
plan with numbers in mind.
Reporting shows that events that
begin on Monday’s have the
highest amount of registered
attendees – both in advance, and
those that show to fill their seats.
Being mindful of the time,
date, and season of your event
prepares your event for success
from the very first decision.
Be mindful of other events,
holidays, and circumstances that
may keep attendees from your
event.
Registration success based on the
first day of the event.
Seats filled at events based on the
day of event.

4. 4The Sold Out Event
2. Simplify Registration
Registration shouldn’t be a
battle – in fact it should be the
most simple component of your
event.
MeetingPlay’s registration
process allows event planners
and professionals to create a
uniquely customized and yet
simple online web registration
platform that can be integrated
with your current tools.
This one place hub allows you
to easily track, measure, and
share registration opportunities
before your event, with an ease of
access when at your event.
Online registration is the #1
request of event attendees.

5. 5The Sold Out Event
3. E-mail
Odds are you already have
multiple e-mail addresses in your
funnel that you can reach out to
and share your event. Yet this is
an often under utilized and lost
opportunity for event planners.
Examples of emails that you
can send to potential event
attendees:
1.Save the Date
2.Formal Invitation
3.Reminders
4.A Last Minute Push
5.Follow-Up/Thank You
(after the event)
45% of emails are viewed on
mobile devices.
Event Industry News reports
that the best event invitation
send times are 6:00AM,
10:30AM, and 4:30PM. The
worst time is after 5:00PM.

6. 6The Sold Out Event
4. Create an Event Hashtag
Utilizing an event hashtag
helps build not just event
engagement, but the amount of
attendees at your event!
By encouraging the use of
your event’s hashtag early on, you
are allowing your early bird
registrar’s an opportunity to
market and excite others about
your event for you.
When you distribute
newsletters, send emails, or in
anyway talk about your event,
make sure to include your event’s
hashtag so that your attendees
can be aware and join in on the
conversation and community –
and thus provide effective event
awareness!
According to a 2014 Pew
Research study, hashtags
increase engagement, awareness
and effectively attendance by over
300%

7. 7The Sold Out Event
5. Create Events on Social Media
Odds are your company or
event brand already has social
media channels (If not, they
should!).
Leverage these ‘free’
resources as an opportunity to
share awareness of your event.
But don’t just spread the
news on your page, make a
specific community for your event!
1.) Create a group on
LinkedIn dedicated to those
attending your event
2.) Make a Facebook event
from your company’s page.
(☆And don’t forget to spread
awareness when you tweet by
including your event’s hashtag!)
Promote your event with a
Facebook event page.
Click here to learn how to create a Facebook event page..
Click here to learn how to create a LinkedIn group.
Bring awareness of your event
with a LinkedIn group.

8. 8The Sold Out Event
6. Optimize Your Event Website
While event websites are a
necessary component of any
event in 2016 – they often fail to
optimize for encouraging and
finding new attendees.
1.) Content – By adding a blog
to your event’s website, not only
are you able to regularly update
your potential attendees, you are
also helping Google see that your
site is consistent and relevant.
2.)Call to Action – Don’t make
the same mistake we’ve all seen
before: We go to an event’s
website and have to search all
over to find where we can even
register for the event. Include your
call to action after every blog post
you share, as well as in obvious
locations across your website.
Research has shown that websites
are viewed in an F pattern - Make
sure your call to action is on the
top of page.
Companies that blog receive 55%
more visitors

9. 9The Sold Out Event
7. Crosstalk Your Event
There is great power in
connection – and that doesn’t stop
with event promotion.
Having an active and regular
voice in the industry which your
event represents – allows event
professionals an opportunity to
reach out and ask industry
leaders to share their event.
It also allows opportunity for
event professionals to share
awareness of their event in
conversations and online
communities without coming
across as ‘spam’ or ‘pushy’.
“We also regularly engage with
local community groups, going out
and giving talks in schools and in
offices as well as using our shops
to promote our events and our
army of 400 wonderful volunteers
to help shout about what we are
doing and getting more people on
board. “
- Chris Bray, Head of Marketing &
Income Generation at Eden Valley
Hospice

10. 10The Sold Out Event
8. The Power of Thank You
Remembering to say thank
you doesn’t need to be something
you save for after your event.
When attendees register for
your event, your online
registration system will automate
a successful registration email.
Make sure to include the simple
words ‘Thank You’.
This simple, yet often
forgotten pre-event phrase
encourages a feeling of
acceptance and gratitude, which
has shown drastic increases in
word-of-mouth event awareness
and registration.
“By sending a thank you email
after our event attendees
registered, we were able to
generate 217% more attendee
leads from word of mouth efforts!”
-Sarah M., CMP
Mystique’ Resort Events

11. 11The Sold Out Event
There’s no excuse to have empty chairs at your
event. By employing the strategies we shared in this
eBook, your next event can be a sell out too!
Did you know the MeetingPlay mobile event app
can help you track, measure and encourage
attendance at your next event? Visit our website to
learn more!