How To Sell Your Concert Tickets Effectively

Getting an all-out show would be a dream for an independent musician. A full house, loud cheers, and just a great night spent with music sounds like everyday life for massive artists, but is it possible for independent musicians like you to achieve that? Yes! Selling your show tickets would not only take good music you’ve made but a lot of research, and consistent planning as well as new and quirky marketing.

In this article, we have provided 6 techniques you could use to sell your concert tickets:

1. Ticket Booking Platforms
   
   
2. Social Media Marketing
   
   
3. Email Marketing
   
   
4. Irresistible Offers for Fans
   
   
5. Sell Tickets on Spotify
   
   
6. Local Media and Press
    

Let’s dive in!

Ticket Booking Platforms

One of the most important things to consider while selling your show tickets is WHERE you are selling them. There have been many occasions when third parties have not worked out for the biggest of music artists out there. Ticketfly, one such third-party ticketing platform, faced a major data breach that contained all the personal data of the customers in 2018. Many well-known performers and venues were impacted as a consequence, including popular bands like Arctic Monkeys and Death Cab for Cutie. Later, Ticketfly issued a public statement apologizing for the inconvenience caused, and reassuring the customers that they’d take active measures in working on their data security. 

So, it is extremely important to pick the best platforms for selling your gig tickets. And while doing so, you will need to consider venue owners as well. Independent concert venues continue to be in great supply, and some of them have no exclusive agreements with major ticketing platforms. There are certainly plenty of locations that are very receptive to organizing concerts and shows but may not be especially event-oriented. So your gig may not be perceived as a huge event while selling your tickets but it is worth a shot because these kinds of locations provide you the freedom to select the preferred ticket-selling company and manage your own live ticketing process. 

Bandsintown

Bandsintown is a multipurpose service that helps artists handle all aspects of their career, from booking and publicizing shows to controlling and interacting with fans to eventually increasing revenue. Another great advantage of this service is that your account in Bandistown also gets synced with your accounts on Shopify, Shazam, and Linktree. This increases the visibility of your events on numerous websites and social media platforms, hence expanding your audience. 

Do you know what the best part of this is? It is all FREE for artists. Sorted, eh?

Ticketmaster 

This is one of the biggest ticking platforms to exist. Almost monopolizing the market, Ticketmaster is easily the most preferred ticketing service. Due to Ticketmaster’s broad appeal and vast network, musicians can gain a great deal of exposure to prospective fans. This can prove to be particularly advantageous for well-established artists or those seeking to expand their fan base. Ticketmasters frequently work with marketing initiatives, such as social media or promotional emails. By doing this, musicians may better utilize Ticketmaster's service to promote their shows and sell more tickets.

Social Media Marketing

It is a no-brainer in today’s world - you HAVE to push out your upcoming show or gig on your social media. But remember to create a certain premise, and consistency with your visuals through your posts in your social media. Try to strike a balance between making your posts aesthetically pleasing as well as true to your craft and music brand. Visual content is everything so you’ll have to spare some amount of time in making your information on the show as exciting and alluring as possible. 

Instagram

Reels are probably the best way you could create anticipation about your gig and give your fans and followers a teaser of what your show would look like. You could use a small clip of your previous gig (make sure that the recording is of high quality) and add a CTA to book your next show ticket in the caption of the reel. You could also make a 20-second teaser, a compilation, and edits of sorts, of all your previous stage appearances and performances. Take a look at this independent artist who made use of her recent performance, and added lyrics, to market her music better. 

Make sure your posts look authentic and well-designed. Try to make more collaborative posts with the venue’s Instagram page as well. Make sure you provide a link in your bio for the tickets. Including your audience in the process of your marketing could be a great idea too. Hold online contests, something like “Best tagline for my gig will get a fan-meet, comment on this post now!” could work as well. 

TikTok

TikTok is huge because of its growing audience and the never-ending list of influencers who are successful in setting trends every now and then. Apart from making videos for TikTok as well, you could collaborate with TikTok influencers who take a deep interest in music. These could be independent playlist curators, content creators, and so on. 

You could also try running ads on TikTok. TikTok could help sell more tickets because you could run targeted ads, by understanding audience demographics and making calculated decisions. Video advertisements tailored to your show’s sale of tickets can be made, and campaign optimization can be achieved by tracking success indicators. This means that you can actually track if something is working and if some ads aren’t, you can stop running them and optimize the others, because you would get all the data you’d need by monitoring them. 

Pssst…come here: Consider making a TikTok Event Page as well. Make use of TikTok's event feature to set up a specific page for your performance, where you can post information, notifications, and links for ticket purchases. In order to receive notifications and changes, invite users to follow your event page. TikTok also has a TikTok Artist Account made especially for artists where you could get credible information on how well your content is doing, track data, keep a tab on your audience demographics, and narrow down your target audience. 

Let’s not forget the importance of UGC - User Generated Content. This is basically when users of the platform make content about you or use your music in their videos. With selling your gig tickets, you could come up with a hashtag and urge your followers to post content with that hashtag only. Encourage guests to use TikTok to share their event experiences. Share user-generated content on your account to entice others to purchase tickets and highlight the excitement surrounding your performance.

Meta ads

Meta ads are another great way to promote your show. It’s affordable for most independent artists since it takes a daily budget of $1 to get decent results. Facebook will also provide you with a reduced cost-per-result if your ad campaigns for your gigs are effective. All you need to do is create a Facebook Business Manager Account because it helps centralize all your components like Pages, Facebook assets, and more. 

Pssst…come here: Download Facebook Pixel and add it to your ticketing webpage. This aids in tracking conversions and improving the performance of your advertising initiatives, so you will know exactly how many people have bought tickets after seeing your ads and it will help you make a real-time decision on whether you should continue or stop running these ads. 

Email Marketing

Email marketing? Isn’t that outdated?

NO! Email lists are still a vital resource for every independent musician out there. It is very important to build your email list, which may include those who have purchased merchandise or tickets to your past performances from your website, or who registered to get your newsletters, record label A&Rs, local venue owners, music promotors, music agents, and other professionals you would likely meet while networking your way through the music industry. 

So pushing out your show or gig through emails will make more sense because not only would it look professional and intriguing, but it’d likely get reliable results because it’d reach previous customers and loyal fan followers who are more likely to attend your shows than newer audiences. Make sure to formally invite everyone on your mailing list to your local gigs with a special email. Invest some time in drafting the subject line of the email because you’d want them to actually click on your email in their inbox. Next, make sure your newsletter’s design is visually appealing and very easy and straightforward because you want them to not just open your email but also read what you are trying to say. Make sure you have included a CTA and a link to buy your gig tickets as well. 

Irresistible Offers for Fans

Who doesn’t love free stuff?

So naturally, giveaways, freebies, and fan-meets are all great incentives to attract more people to buy tickets for your shows. This is not only a great way to instantly grab the attention of those viewers but also show your appreciation towards your loyal and growing fanbase. 

The most traditional method is offering a discount on the price of the ticket. You have the option of selling the tickets at a discount or including a unique gift with every ticket purchase. A tangible item, such as one of your merch items or early access to an unreleased song, may act as a gift.

There’s no specific and structured method to this really - it really just depends on how you would like to express your gratitude to your fans and followers and making sure that it is the truest reflection of your love for your listeners - so make sure that you don’t do this as a marketing gimmick, but as something you’d do anyway. Make sure that you inform them or announce that you are doing giveaways and freebies on your social media and emails and how they could avail of them. 

Sell Tickets on Spotify

You may have noticed a section called Events in an artist’s profile on Spotify. This is where you could sell your show tickets on the streaming app. Spotify partners with various ticketing services, some of which are DICE, Ticketmaster, Eventbrite, Bandistown, and AXS. You should have your events listed on either one of these platforms. At least one artist's name, the commencement time, the venue's name, and the concert's name must all be listed in the concert listing. Spotify curates concert schedules and provides followers with suggested artists and musicians based on their location, following, and musical tastes. If you have already registered with any of those ticket booking platforms, then Spotify will automatically update the listing on your artist profile. 

You can also manually enter your event if it is not featured on any of the aforementioned platforms. You could use Songkick’s Tourbox tool to list your event on Spotify. You have to sign up and verify your artist profile on SongKick’s Tourbox. Next, you decide which artist’s profile the show should be featured on, in case you’re performing with different artists. Your events with the pre-sale links will be uploaded to Spotify through Songkick’s Tourbox and it takes some time for this to happen. However, you could always contact the Spotify Support Team in case you face any issues. 

Local Media and Press

Try to get press coverage for your music and get your show ads published in local newsletters, both online and offline. Draft press releases and try to get them featured in local newspapers, try to get in touch with journalists for an interview, and push out your gig or show as the lead angle. Don’t forget to try and get in touch with radio stations to get a short ad/announcement for your show, if not getting featured in a radio show or interviewed. Make a pitch for your event to local bloggers, influencers, and journalists who cover local events and entertainment. In return for publicity, provide them with free seats, special access to interviews, or behind-the-scenes material.

Pssst…come here: Collaborate with nearby media channels to conduct competitions or giveaways of tickets. Local media usually have a loyal and wider readership and following so hosting giveaways along with utilizing local media could be a great option. 

Additionally, you could also ask bloggers or local media to cover your event to get more press coverage for your gig. Request them to submit summaries or reviews of the event because it will help in getting prospective attendees for future shows and will also show the credibility of your performance as well as of you, as a music artist. 

That’s pretty much it! Note that the techniques mentioned are ideas that you could try out because they are also affordable. There isn’t a blueprint or a standard for selling your concert tickets mainly because the industry has always been dynamic and moving with different waves that come about every year. This article aims to help you kickstart your efforts in marketing and selling your shows or gig tickets. You will eventually learn and figure out what works best as and when you explore and try different other methods. 

Independent musicians also have a fair chance at making successful all-out shows given they utilize and maximize the tools and features that are made available to them. Careful planning and creative marketing could definitely help you promote your gig and sell more tickets for your gigs! 

We at GreaseRelease, have a bunch of curators on our network who are looking for new & exciting music to push on their massive playlists. If you make music and want to reach a wider audience, check out our submission platform and get a chance to reach millions of listeners! Submit your tracks now!