Most fairs are large outdoor events, and large outdoor events aren’t like other types of events. There are so many unique considerations, risks, and factors that can affect a large outdoor event’s success – from selling tickets, to pivoting based on weather or traffic problems during the event, all the way to managing logistics as people enter and exit the event. Choosing a fair ticketing provider that understands fairs can make a significant difference in your event’s success.
Outdoor Event Experience Matters – A Lot
There are many ticketing providers that you could use to sell tickets to your fair. Some of them are big companies with brand names that people know. Others are smaller but no less capable of helping you sell tickets. However, all of those ticketing services are not the same. When you’re holding a fair, you need to choose a ticketing service with deep experience working with large outdoor events, or you’re putting your entire event at risk.
Think of it this way. The big brand ticketing provider that everyone knows – do your research and you’ll see it doesn’t offer phone support to event organizers or ticket buyers. While that may be acceptable for a small event that doesn’t need to generate a lot of ticket sales in a short amount of time, it should be a deal-breaker for any large outdoor event, including fairs.
AttendStar has been ticketing large outdoor events for many years, including fairs, Renaissance festivals, concerts, air shows, and more. Did you know we ticket one out of every four air shows across the United States each year? We work with outdoor events that attract hundreds to hundreds of thousands of attendees, and we understand not only what works to sell tickets for these events but also what problems could arise and how to prevent and navigate them.
Ticketing large outdoor events is a specialty that the AttendStar team has worked hard to perfect over the years, and we’ve launched a number of unique offerings to cater to fairs, air shows, and so on along the way. Following are just a few ways we help fairs and other large outdoor events not just sell tickets but also be as successful as possible:
Phone Help When You or Your Ticket Buyers Need It
For large outdoor events, AttendStar offers dedicated phone support for event organizers. With a large outdoor event like a fair, things will go wrong. It’s inevitable, so you need to know that you can get help by phone when you need it. AttendStar has a dedicated phone line for large outdoor event organizers that rings directly to our expert outdoor events team.
If your ticket buyers need help, who do they call? You don’t want to have to manage ticket buyer calls leading up to your event, so AttendStar handles it for you. As the event date gets closer, calls will go up, and AttendStar manages them all. Recently we handled more than 3,000 ticket buyer calls in the three weeks leading up to an air show!
We provide a unique phone number for your large outdoor event at no extra cost. It comes with advanced voice mail, call queues, after hours support, and an interactive phone menu system that directs calls automatically to the right person (ticket-related calls go to AttendStar and fair-related calls go to you). You’ll be so glad to have this as the date of your fair gets closer!
Parking, Gate Management, and Logistics Help
AttendStar offers a variety of parking, gate management, traffic planning, and logistics help to large outdoor event organizers, in addition to ticketing services. Our onsite operations team can come to your event with flags you can use for gate and traffic control.
In addition, we monitor weather and traffic and send text messages to ticket buyers when there are problems that could affect their entry or experience at your fair. We’ve been offering this service to air shows for free for many years, and it’s saved them from many disasters.
Onsite and Offsite Help
In addition to offering onsite help for parking, gate management, and logistics at large outdoor events, AttendStar’s operations center in Nashville operates the phone center and tracks local weather, local police, and traffic reports during events. Throughout the events, they stay in contact with your event organizers and our onsite team to ensure things go smoothly for everyone.
Advertising and Marketing Help
Not only are a variety of email marketing and digital advertising features built into the AttendStar ticketing software but also, our event marketing team can work with you at no extra charge to optimize your planned marketing investments. We can also help you create marketing strategies and direct you to our trusted marketing partners to implement your plans.
Technology Help
AttendStar helps large outdoor events with the latest technology, including ticket scanning using our own software and equipment and event-specific mobile app development. In addition, our onsite operations team brings its own land-based and satellite internet to support our ticket scanners, so there won’t be any problems scanning tickets even if the local WiFi is slow or goes down.
Your Next Steps to Sell Fair Tickets
Organizing and ticketing a fair is a unique process, and you need to work with a ticketing provider who understands what’s at stake, what could go wrong, and how to address and solve problems for large outdoor events.
Don’t put your fair at risk. Do your homework and choose a fair ticketing service like AttendStar that understands your fair and can help ensure it’s as successful as possible. Contact me directly at gary@attendstar.com or call (615) 823-1164 and let’s talk!