Tradeshows and events small and large are driven by the same objective, to provide product and service information or education to a targeted audience. A basic necessity for tradeshow success is to get the audience in the front door. Over the past five years
Eventbee.com has built a network for event ticket sales that focuses specifically on reaching out to potential attendees in creative ways. The Eventbee concept rests on networking sales to reach potential attendees through creative outlets.
Eventbee.com sells tickets from multiple websites and blogs in their partner network. According to Eventbee CEO Bala Musrif, “network ticket selling is a very simple model.” An event manager determines how much commission they are willing to give for each ticket sale. Partners can then copy and paste a simple java script code into their website and receive commissions when ticket sales occur. Any listed event is displayed automatically on the thousands of websites with which Eventbee maintains partnership. The procedure is simple: list your event, add tickets, publish the event, sell tickets, and then receive money.
Eventbee has established and maintains connections through its network of blogs and various promotional websites. Bloggers not only help turn ticket sales, but also fuel the company’s development. Bala explains: “Ticket selling and partner networks – we have moving parts in production and we want the feedback. We’re still testing. We get feedback from bloggers. We are trying to make our tool easiest for the event community to make use of.”
Currently Eventbee offers three ways for partners to earn revenue: acquisition commissions, listing fees, and the “Google model” of CPC (cost per click) fees. “People want to make money multiple ways - bloggers and website owners,” says Bala. Eventbee’s ultimate goal is to sell more tickets, and they aren’t necessarily focusing on the software itself as a revenue generator. “People are willing to pay more for lead generation than for software,” maintains Bala, “The software itself is becoming more of a commodity.” Based on this software-as-service model, Eventbee only charges a flat $1 service fee per ticket, regardless of ticket price, and supports PayPal, Google, and traditional credit card processing.
Eventbee also provides social networking features to build community around events. There are active discussion forums, photo sharing, member to member networking, and customized community home pages. These tools help build the event experience and ultimately increase ticket sales. “We are integrating registration and promotion – everything,” says Bala, “People benefit – it’s definitely a benefit.” Eventbee.com clearly provides benefit as a promotional tool, but the website’s continually growing network is its key value.
Since the company is relatively young, Eventbee is still in a somewhat experimental phase of development. They are trying different profit models to find a best fit for the company and its clients. Eventbee’s current business model appears to work well for consumer shows. The next challenge is to get larger tradeshows and events to consider the tool. While Eventbee is not currently targeting large events, it’s clear that this model of promotion and sales could benefit larger shows as well as small and moderately sized events.
Related Categories: Event Management, Marketing Communications, Members & Associations, Registration & Badging, Internet & Social Networking