Skiddle’s Complete Festive Event Toolkit

Harness the power of Event Series

Events like Santa’s Grotto are a staple of Christmas. After all, who wouldn’t get the warm and fuzzies after seeing the big man live in the flesh?

If you’re hosting a Santa’s Grotto event this year, he’ll likely be making a few appearances in between gathering presents for well-behaved children worldwide. 

It’s a wonder how he fits it all in. 

Our Event Series feature is perfect for Santa’s Grotto events and any event requiring multiple listings. It allows you to add and manage repeating events – known as dates – across the calendar year. Rather than listing multiple events one after another, enter the specifics of your event once and the feature will automatically fill in the details of your event across your chosen dates and times. 

You’ll save loads of time. Plus, all your events will be shown in a sleek calendar view, and if one date in the series has sold out, the feature will cross-promote other dates in the series, keeping your chances of making a sale high. 

Discover how to streamline your listings with Event Series HERE. View our how-to video below.

Use Session-Based Ticketing to create events with timed entry

Crowd management is a crucial part of your Christmas event, as no one wants to enter and leave your event not feeling the festive spirit. 

So, why not use Session-Based Ticketing? 

A relatively new addition to the Promotion Centre, it allows you to create and sell tickets for events which require attendees to arrive at specific times. You’re in control of the time slots, so you can set suitable capacities for each time slot, avoiding any overcrowding or confusion upon entry. 

Plus, you’ll be able to create, edit, view, hide and view a breakdown of all your sessions in the Sessions Calendar. This provides you with an easy to use dashboard and allows you to plan staff around how busy your event is going to be. 

Creating a seamless entry and exit process for your event improves the customer experience, keeping the positive reputation of your event intact. This makes it more likely that customers will come back the next time you host an event. 

Less queues, happier customers and a greater knowledge of how busy your event will be? Sounds like a no-brainer to us. Head HERE to learn more about Session-Based Ticketing. More of a visual learner? Our how-to video shows you everything you need to know. 

Combine the two 

You can combine Session-Based Ticketing and Event Series, giving your customers an even better experience this Christmas.

This will create an event with multiple recurring dates and each event will have its own set of timed sessions.

That’s a win for both you and your customers.

You’re spending less time creating listings and time slots for each event you’re holding. With this free time, you can work on marketing plans and spend time thinking about inventive ways to promote your event. 

For attendees, it gives them a streamlined buying experience. They can navigate the calendar and find the timeslot they need all in a few clicks.

All of this leads to an easier buying process, less stress and a higher chance of sales.

Drive sales with discounts 

While the Christmas period is full of joy and high spirits, it can be expensive. Presents, travel and food costs all burn a deep hole in our pockets.

So, don’t be surprised to see some sales slumps over the Christmas and New Year period. It’s a busy time, which is why customers tend to wait a bit later to purchase tickets.

This is where discounts come in.

A 20% discount, for example, gives customers a bit of respite from the cost of the festive period, creating urgency around your event. Ultimately, this drives sales. Customers know this limited-time deal won’t last, so they’ll be more inclined to grab their ticket and take advantage of the discount. 

You can create single, limited and multi-use discounts in the Promotion Centre in a matter of minutes. Watch our How-To video below to discover how and click HERE for more information.

Take advantage of a genuine re-selling platform

Christmas and New Year: a time of celebration, goodwill, memorable parties and ticket sales. What could possibly ruin that?

Ticket touting.

As an event promoter, you’ll know the risks: fraudulent tickets and customers paying way over face value. No one is a winner when touting is involved.

Luckily, our Re:Sell feature can help.

It’s our official ticket reselling platform, which lets customers sell their tickets to other customers through Skiddle. As we’re the official provider, we can verify the validity of the tickets and stop people from hiking the price up by extortionate amounts.

This gives your customers who want to sell their tickets an easy way to do so and extra security for those who are buying from them. The buyers won’t have to go to dodgy secondary sites and pay a fortune for tickets. 

Head HERE to discover more about Re:Sell. 

Manage crowds with RapidScan 

A crucial part of ensuring your festive events hit the spot this December is providing a positive queuing experience. 

With RapidScan, you can do just that. It’s our FREE scanning solution, available to download on iOS and Android, which allows you to scan a ticket per second. 

This helps you manage queues, ensuring that everyone gets through the door swiftly and safely. 

Cast your mind back to earlier in the article, where we mentioned fraud prevention. RapidScan can offer another layer here, as it recognises fraudulent tickets when they are scanned. 

Plus, it gives you real-time data on who has and hasn’t entered the venue, which can help you keep people safe and keep track of no-shows. 

Head HERE to discover more about RapidScan and watch our How-To video below.

Target accurately with E-Flyers

Looking for accurate, targeted promotion to attract new attendees to your festive events?

Why not try an E-Flyer over the Christmas period? They’re dedicated emails which advertise your event to thousands of potential visitors based on location and event preferences, sent by our Account Support team. 

Let’s say your event is in Manchester, for example. Your E-Flyer will be sent to people who live close to your venue and have attended events similar to yours in the past. 

With this technique, you’re cutting through the noise and increasing the likelihood of reaching people interested in what you’re doing. The fact that the people your E-Flyer is sent to live near the venue makes your chances of generating interest even higher.

Before sending to customers, our Account Support team will send the E-Flyer to you for approval. We aim to target a maximum of around 10,000 people, and a max audience E-Flyer would cost £150 + VAT. 

Contact our Account Support team at promoters@skiddle.com

Send direct alerts to your customers

Keeping on the subject of targeted promotion, our Brand and Artist Alerts can help spread the word about your events this New Year’s Eve.

To be eligible for Brand Alerts, you’ll first need to set up a Brand Page in the Skiddle Promotion Centre. Then, lock it down so only you can add events to it.

Your event must be live, available for the public to view and start after your brand has been locked.

Once you’ve met those parameters, you’ll be all set to have alerts sent to your brand’s followers. We’ll send one alert per 48 hours. Any tagged events will still be eligible for alerts, but they’ll go out 48 hours later. 

Artist alerts are a little bit different. Instead of the alert being sent to people who follow your brand, they’ll be sent based on a customer’s tracking preferences. 

So, a customer may set up their preferences to let them know about any forthcoming techno DJs playing in their area. They may get a push notification or an alert via browser or email. 

With Artist Alerts, you’ll need to tag the people playing at your event. The alert will be sent out 10 minutes after you tag the artist playing in your event, and we limit Artist Alerts to one notification per user per event.

Brand and Artist Alerts mitigate some of the pitfalls of social media. Don’t get us wrong, social media is a vital tool, but your event can get lost in among the algorithm. By encouraging people to follow your brand and using alerts, you can make sure you speak directly to your target audience. 

Head HERE to learn more about Brand Pages and HERE to discover more about Artist Alerts.

Don’t let customers miss out on tickets

Every event promoter has felt the joy of selling out their event.

It’s a validation of all the hard yards you’ve put in. From the ideas phase, marketing, execution phase and beyond, it means you and your team can celebrate.

However, you might end up fielding emails from customers asking if there are still tickets available. Sure, that shows your event is in demand, but it does mean spending a chunk of your day on emails.

So, why not enable Waiting List? It’s a feature in our Promotion Centre which lets customers sign up for a ticket queue. When extra tickets are available from Re:Sell, customers on the waiting list get first dibs on buying them.

You can send the link to any customer who asks about extra tickets, saving you time and giving them a fair chance of grabbing tickets.

Activate Waiting List and keep your event in demand. Discover how HERE.