Your Event Sold Out! Now What?

Later this month, Anita will be attending an event featuring Rachel Hollis, author of the best-selling book “Girl, Wash Your Face.” 
 
Hollis has been a hot ticket for our local chamber’s Women Connect anniversary. So big, that the event quickly sold out. Anita, and many others, were placed on a waiting list. 
 
To accommodate growing demand for tickets, the Chamber of Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo quickly decided to move the event to a larger venue. More people could hear the author AND celebrate Women Connect. Woo-hoo!  
 
A sold-out event is every event planner’s dream, right? If all the tickets are gone, you’ve planned an event that people want to attend. If all the tickets are gone, you’ve likely covered your costs. 
 
But sell-outs come with their own set of challenges. ​

When you sell out a day or two before an event you have one option: congratulate yourself on good budgeting as you keep plugging away at the last minute details you need to complete to pull it off. 
 
But when sell-outs happen with time to spare, you – like the Chamber – have some decisions to make. 
 
To our extreme pleasure, we have sold out an event, twice. The first time, it happened three weeks before the event. The second time, 11 days before.  
 
Both times we were faced with two options: 1. Open a bottle of champagne and celebrate the fact that we had a strong plan of action and our event would go on as planned; or 2. Pour a cup of coffee, grab a pencil, and consider how to accommodate more people.  
 
Adjustments can mean a variety of considerations from the extreme – secure a new venue or add another day – to the less drastic change of furniture or room layout. Each carries additional questions that relate to settings, seating, menu, budget, staffing, and materials.  
 
Here are some things to keep in mind as you make those decisions: 
 
Don’t sell out strategy. Before changing an event, circle back to your strategy. Why did you want to host the event in the first place? To make money? Connect people? Educate? Go through your strategy and think through how all, not just the additional, people will be served.  
 
Do the math. All of it. How many additional tickets do you need to sell to make financial sense of the added work it takes to reconfigure the setting for new seating and additional menu items, the material and staff time? Will everyone get what they paid for?  
 
Consider the time. Do you have enough time and energy to pull it off?  Do you have enough staff to manage the day with additional people? Can you order and ship more give-aways for the swag bag? Can you print more materials for the packet? Do you have time to construct additional custom birch-bark name badges?  
 
Consider the place. Sure, maybe you CAN fit 75 more people in the back of the room, but really, SHOULD you make them stand?  
 
Carry the torch. Don’t forget about messages! Can you quickly create a new plan to clearly communicate the new order? Do you need to create additional signs or activities to maximize your space or guide people to the new meeting place? 
 
Congratulations, you’ve sold out! Take a moment to enjoy the success and then make your next move strategic. 

​EDITOR'S NOTE: This blog is adapted from one that originally ran in March 2015.