12 Unbeatable Benefits of Online Ticket Sales

Short answer: Online ticket sales have several benefits including wider reach, more sales, cost reduction, high margin, credibility, and more.

The success of an event depends on a lot of factors, but nothing is more important than ticket sales. If you don’t generate enough ticket sales, you might not break even and you will lose money. Event ticket sales are an important factor that contributes to event success.

Around 84% of event marketers say that technology has a positive impact on event success and this includes the channels you use to sell event tickets.

As an event organizer, you should use the internet to sell tickets for your events. Online ticket sales offer a lot of benefits that contribute to the success of your events.

This article explores the major benefits of online ticket sales that will help you better understand why selling tickets for your upcoming event online is necessary and what’s in it for you and your customers.

What Are Online Ticket Sales?

Online ticketing or online ticket sales means selling event tickets through the internet. This includes a wide range of ticket selling such as via website, ticketing platforms, event landing page, online kiosks, etc.

Statistics show that 64.5% of the total world population has access to the internet as of Q3 2023, and the number is growing. And as more people have access to smartphones and the internet, they prefer buying event tickets online instead of offline.

The online event ticketing market is expected to grow from $143 billion in 2021 to $288 billion in 2030 and this is mainly due to the widespread use of the internet and overall growth of the event industry.

How Do Online Event Tickets Work?

Here is how online event ticket sales work for event organizers:

1. You sign up for an online ticketing platform like TicketsCandy (it is a free ticketing app that does not charge any fee to the event organizers)
2. Set up your event and price your tickets using the ticketing platform’s interface
3. Create your event landing page and sell tickets from your website
4. The buyer enters details and buys the ticket online with a credit card or mobile wallet
   
5. The payment processor collects the payment and the buyer receives event and ticketing details via email
6. You receive the payout from the ticketing platform

Buyers can purchase event tickets with a single click from any internet enabled device making it easier for them to shop tickets online.

But what’s in it for you as an event organizer?

Let’s find out.

Benefits of Online Ticket Sales

Selling event tickets online using a sophisticated ticketing platform offers you a lot of benefits that aren’t available otherwise. The major benefits event organizers enjoy during online ticket sales include:

1. Reach a Wider Audience

The best thing about online ticket sales is that it increases event reach and helps you reach a wider audience. Not selling tickets online means you lose customers that only purchase event tickets online.

Research shows that a whopping 2.64 billion in the world shop online. It also includes people who purchase tickets:

Source: Oberlo

Selling event tickets online through your website, a standalone landing page, social media, or any other channel increases your event reach which increases awareness, registrations, and ticket sales.

2. More Ticket Sales

Online ticket sales mean more sales.

A survey revealed that 40% of event attendees prefer buying tickets online.

When you sell tickets online, it means your event has an online presence leading to more views and higher sales.

Research shows that 80% of paid ticket sales are generated before the event day and only 20% of people purchase paid event tickets on the same day. This means if you are running a paid event campaign, you should ensure that 80% of the attendees can purchase tickets before the event day.

Expensive tickets are even reserved in advance by as much as 50% of attendees.

And this is where online ticket sales play a key role because event websites and third parties like marketplaces are the most common places where people shop for tickets.

Selling tickets online lets you reach potential attendees through different online channels to boost ticket sales before the event day.

3. Better Event Marketing

Another way you can boost event ticket sales when selling them online is through online marketing. Having an online presence means you can leverage digital marketing channels to reach your target audience easily and cost-effectively.

Online ticket sales require online presence either in the form of an event website or an event landing page and this lets you promote the event with digital marketing channels including SEO, content marketing, PPC, email marketing, social media marketing, social ads, etc.

Online marketing is more targeted, less expensive, and delivers better results. It costs a minimum of $150 to reach 2,000 people through a broadcast ad campaign while it only costs $50 to reach 2,000 people through a search campaign:

Source: Asset Digital Communications

Additionally, online marketing is highly targeted, unlike traditional marketing which is more of mass marketing. This increases the conversion rate of online marketing campaigns and significantly lowers customer acquisition cost (CAC). With low CAC, the profit margin increases and you earn more per ticket sale.

You get an event page when selling tickets online and it acts as the landing page for your digital marketing campaigns. If you create an event website, it gets easier to convert visitors into attendees.

4. Convenience

Selling event tickets online is convenient for event organizers (and customers).

When you have to sell tickets online, you need an event ticketing platform that manages everything end-to-end including event creation, attendee management, ticket sales, payment processing, payouts, and more.

The main benefits you get with an event ticketing app include:

• A simple and easy-to-use online interface to create and manage any type of event
• Event page builder where you can send online visitors for event registration
• Customized checkout process
• Attendee management with detailed analytics
• Ability to manage payments online and get funds transferred to your bank

Compare these benefits with selling tickets offline physically. You need an office with a POS where potential event attendees can visit to purchase a ticket. It requires manual work such as entering attendee details into the system, managing payments, ticket printing, etc.

The process is not streamlined and quite daunting.

If you want to make your life easier and boost the productivity of your team, you should sell tickets online through a ticketing system. Research shows that automation improves productivity, job satisfaction, creativity, and it simplifies processes:

Source: Workflow

It is much more than convenience, online ticket sales push your event organization business one step closer to automation which offers valuable perks that can’t be achieved otherwise.

5. Low Cost To Sell Tickets

Selling event tickets online is much more cost-effective than selling them offline through a ticket office.

Online selling is automated. It requires no manual work, and, therefore, you don’t need an employee to overlook ticket sales. It makes online ticket sales cost-effective due to higher profit margins.

Since you need a ticketing service for online ticket sales, carefully selecting the right ticketing platform can significantly lower your costs. TicketsCandy, for example, is a free event ticketing tool that passes its tiny 0.9% fee on to the attendees.

You can set up an event landing page, checkout process, and other details in a few minutes after signing up with TicketsCandy. And it works automatically without any supervision. People can purchase tickets online 24/7 effortlessly.

So, you can sell event tickets online free of cost and you can pass the benefit to the buyers in the form of reduced ticket price.

In contrast, offline selling costs you a lot of money in different forms including:

• Office rent
• Equipment and furniture
• Salaries
• Administrative costs
• Miscellaneous costs

All these costs are eventually passed to the ticket buyers in the form of higher ticket prices. And your profit margin per ticket reduces significantly.

The difference in cost is huge and this makes a lot of difference in margins, at the end of the day.

6. Improved Event Credibility

Source: Brightedge

Around 68% of online experiences start with a search engine which means people type a search query in a search engine when they are looking for something. Even if people are about to shop at a physical store, 82% of them consult their phones before making an offline purchase.

The same goes for your event.

Imagine, a potential attendee enters the name of your event in a search engine and finds no information. You lose a customer and credibility – forever.

Online ticket sales improve the online presence of your event in the form of a landing page or website. The more online assets you have, the better. And this significantly improves event credibility.

As much as 75% of people judge a business’s credibility based on its website.

Source: Kinesis

You and your event appear authentic and reliable when potential customers see that they can buy tickets online through a secured page using reliable payment processors.

Even if they do not buy online, having everything in place online gives your event a boost in terms of credibility and trust.

7. More Control

Online ticket sales give you more control over ticket sales, attendee management, attendee registration, ticket price control, real-time analytics, and more.

You get full control over your entire event with the right ticketing app.

For example, you can register attendees manually, you control inventory, you can change attendee details, you can manage seating, and you own all the data related to attendees and events.

The exact features depend on the ticketing platform you are using. Some apps are quite flexible while others have limited functionality. You need to choose your event ticketing service carefully and go with the one that gives you full control.

TicketsCandy takes the lead here.

It has a highly intuitive dashboard that helps you manage ticket sales, attendees, and your entire event. You can create and sell unlimited tickets across multiple ticket types including recurring events and multiple-day events.

8. Additional Sales Channel

When you sell event tickets online, it adds a touchpoint for your customers to connect with your event and buy tickets. The more channels you have to sell event tickets, the better.

Businesses that do not sell via multiple channels lose as much as 30% of sales and using 3 or more sales channels increases order rate by 494%. A Harvard Business Review study reported that 73% of consumers prefer shopping through multiple channels:

Source: Clerk

If you are already selling tickets offline, it is a good idea to add more channels with the help of an event ticketing app. The major channels that a ticketing platform offers you include:

• Event landing page
• Your website
• Social media platforms
• Event marketplaces
• Third-parties.

TicketsCandy, for example, promotes your event on its social media channels to give a boost to your event. It means one more touchpoint for your target audience and this is a great way to increase ticket sales when you are using TicketsCandy to sell tickets online.

The best thing about online ticket sales is that it gives you access to lots of sales channels. There is a lot of scope and a wide range of channels you can use to reach your target audience. You don’t get such a variety of diverse sales channels in the offline mode.

9. Improved Attendee Management

Gone are the days when event organizers used to have printouts of attendee lists with their names. One great aspect of selling event tickets online is that it makes attendee management easy, fun, and automatic.

According to a survey, 58% of B2B companies use event platforms to manage online events as they offer features like attendee registration, scheduling, and ticketing. And 68% of event organizers have issues managing attendee engagement and this is a reason as much as 54% of event organizers focus more on improving attendee experience than logistics.

Attendee management and engagement get problematic if you have a large event. It can be tackled effectively when you are using a ticketing platform for your event where you get access to an easy-to-use dashboard for attendee management.

Here is what attendee management normally includes:

• A complete list of all the registered users
• Attendee information including name, type of ticket purchased, booking time, payment status, and more
• Create and/or amend bookings
• Management payments and refunds
• Send automated notifications via email or SMS to all the attendees
• Segment attendees based on different variables for sending targeted messages
• On-site event registration service
• Track checked-in status on the event day

You get these features when you are selling event tickets online because that’s when all these details are captured by the ticketing app.

Integrating your ticketing service tool with the CRM tool helps you take attendee management to the next level. This lets you nurture and grow your relationship with attendees even after the event and you can pitch them upcoming events.

When you have a list of dedicated and loyal attendees, it reduces your cost to acquire new attendees for upcoming events. And you not only generate instant sales for new events, but it significantly increases your profit margin due to low marketing cost (since you sell a certain percentage of tickets to existing attendees).

Start building long-term relationships with attendees using TicketsCandy’s free ticketing app.

10. Scalability

As an event organizer, you have to create and manage all types of events including small and large. Today, you might be organizing 5 events a week, and after 2 months, you might be managing more than 20 events.

This is a reason why event organizers should stick with online ticket sales as you get a better chance to deal with changing demand. Varying ticket sales can be best handled with online sales as you don’t need to adjust your resources.

For example, TicketsCandy offers unlimited events and unlimited tickets making it an ideal app for event organizers. You can manage all types of events and ticket types with one single tool.

Importantly, online event ticket sales make your business scalable.

Every business reaches a constraint zone where it has to either scale or retreat. When your event organizing business is at the hyper growth stage, you should have the right, scalable event app:

Source: Scalable

You must have the right tools and resources to scale your business. And the first problem an event organizer faces at the time of scaling is the inability to manage multiple events at the same time. This often leads to understaffing an event which is the biggest problem that event organizers face.

This can be addressed easily if you are selling tickets online as you can arrange staff for the event day based on the number of bookings.

The ticketing platform grows with your business. Make sure the software you are using supports unlimited events and tickets.

11. Enhanced Security

Selling event tickets online via a reliable ticketing app ensures high standards of security which is, mostly, not available with door-to-door ticket selling.

When customers buy a ticket from a website or an event page with your logo and business details, it minimizes insecurities. The online presence of your event makes it secure and reliable.

Studies have shown that 74% of consumers prefer making payments in digital form instead of cash or paper checks and 65% of people believe that digital payments are the most secure form of payment. According to CNBC, 60% of people won’t buy from a merchant that doesn’t offer any electronic payment option.

Event ticketing apps use a payment processor to manage all incoming and outgoing payments. For example, TicketsCandy used Google Pay and Apple Pay as payment processors and these are secure and reliable payment processors.

The use of a secure payment processor at the checkout stage boosts buyer trust.

The probability of getting a fake event ticket from a scammer reduces significantly with online ticket sales as buyers know they are buying tickets from an authentic event website.

12. Improved Post-Purchase Experience

Source: Voxco

Post-purchase experience is a critical factor that determines if your current attendees will buy an event ticket from you again or not. Around 86% of consumers make a buy again decision based on their post-purchase experience.

As discussed, loyal attendees reduce the overall CAC for events and this increases your profit margin. Post-purchase experience leads to attendee loyalty when they see that you are offering them support even after the purchase, they are more likely to buy again.

The ticketing platform you use to sell event tickets online helps you improve the post-purchase experience as you have all the attendee details. You can send email reminders, share customer support details, and interact with them through email regularly.

You can manage post-event services as well. Once you have the attendees email addresses, you can send them newsletters and useful content for engagement.

All of this is only possible when you are selling tickets online and have the necessary tools and contact information to build long-term relationships with your customers.

Final Thoughts

Selling event tickets online isn’t a matter of choice, it is a necessity. Your ideal customers are using the internet and spend most of their time online. An average person spends 6 hours and 37 minutes online per day which shows how crucial it is to sell tickets online.

You have to be where your customers are.

Online ticket sales aren’t a big deal. It is simple.

Choose an event ticketing platform, create your event, and start selling tickets.

Need a better deal?

Use TicketsCandy to create unlimited events and sell unlimited tickets free of cost without paying a single penny.

Get started today.