Free vs Paid Entry : What To Expect At Your Event

There are 3 attendee registration models to choose from when organizing a trade show or conference, free, paid, and a hybrid of the two.

How you choose to price your event is entirely down to you. However, there may be expectations based on your event industry that set precedents, but that doesn’t mean you have to conform to them!

Let’s take a look at each of the pricing models, their benefits, and their drawbacks.

Free Entry

For trade shows, this method of entry is by far the most common. Trade shows are about volume of people and offering free entry removes any event cost barrier to your prospective attendees.

This makes their decision to sign up one they can make immediately before seeking approval from their manager to attend.

The biggest benefit to you as an event organizer is that you have to work less to attract registrations as a whole.

But that doesn’t mean that simply offering free entry is a guaranteed winner. Your exhibitors will want the right people for their product and service at your event and not just a bunch of random people who are there for a day out and the free swag on offer.

In my experience as an exhibitor at free to enter events, the audience demographic is very diverse which makes it really hard to find the diamonds amongst the coal from a lead perspective.

So it is important that whilst offering free attendance that you work hard to grab the interest of attendees your exhibitors actually want at your event.

If you don’t do this, then you will disappoint your exhibitors and they won’t return next year.

When planning a free to attend event it can be very hard to predict how many attendees will actually turn up on the day of your event.

A lot of attendees will simply register for an event in order to add it to their diary. Their decision to actually attend will come later.

When later arrives there could be many things that have happened that could affect their decision to attend or not, from moving jobs, health, or work related pressures that simply don’t allow them to, even if they intended to attend.

The decision not to attend for free events is an easier one for the attendee to make simply because they have no investment in your event. They stand to lose nothing by not attending, but you stand to lose a lot.

How much does this affect your actual turnout?

Our data shows that overall free events see an average attendee turnout of 55.34% based on their registrations.

Your event itself might achieve a higher turnout percentage. We have events that offer free tickets that attract a turnout percentage in the region of 60-65%.

So what can you do to make sure that your turnout percentage of attendees equal or exceed your goals?

• The simplest thing you can do is over subscribe your event. If you want 1,000 attendee to turn up, register 2,000.
  
• Invest in strong marketing tactics that build anticipation and fear of missing out to convince those who are on the fence to commit to attend.
  
• Create reasons to attend. This could be a celebrity speaker, fun activities, or other opportunities that attendees couldn’t get anywhere else.
  
• Enlist the support of your exhibitors to boost your sign up chances by them marketing into their subscribers and followers.
  
• Take registrations at the door of your event. If you’re in an exhibition venue, there might be people there attending other events that may also find your event interesting for them.

Paid Events

Choosing to charge a fee to register your event isn’t something to be scared of doing, even if your competition offers free entry.

When you charge for entry you’re telling your attendee that your event is premium and the only way they’re going to get access to that premium is to pay for a ticket.

This does set the attendee expectation higher vs a free event.

Attendees will expect things like:

• food and drink
• access to seminars and workshops
• access to other content (on demand, digital, literature etc.)
• access to VIP events like networking parties etc.

all to be included in their ticket price. Seminars and workshops are the most valued asset an attendee will pay for. The opportunity for them to benefit from these makes the ticket price worthwhile.

However, with paid events, these will often attract less in terms of volume of attendee registrations than free events.

This is because to attend they will need to justify their reasons to their manager, secure budget, and have space in their diary free to commit to attending.

If they aren’t able to attend, then they lose money. This makes their registration decision a lot more cautious.

When you offer free tickets, your registrations happen with regular peaks that are usually off the back of specific marketing activities.

With paid tickets, registrations happen in a hockey stick movement. A short burst at the beginning for early birds, then slow and steady with not much growth for a number of weeks and then a burst of activity in the weeks before your event.

Don’t get fooled into thinking that because paid events attract less registrations vs free events overall that they are a worse option. Far from it.

What you get from paid events other than a revenue stream is quality attendees.

As attendees will need to spend money, their decision to register is more qualified. They have to have a reason to attend and not just going for a day out.

Exhibitors prefer paid to enter events because they know this. They know it will be easier to find their ideal customer and that attendees are there specifically for a reason and will be more engaged.

Attendee turnout therefore is much higher than free to attend events which makes planning and budgeting for your event much easier to do.

Overall paid events using Just Attend with our event check-in achieve an average of 87.33% attendance vs registrations.

Even with paid events it is still important to over sell your event as some will inevitably have to cancel or not turn up. However, with a higher guaranteed turnout, the magnitude of this is a lot less vs free entry.

Hybrid Entry Events

Hybrid entry might be an option for you to split the difference. If your event is a trade show and conference, exhibitors will still want good footfall through the exhibition floor while seminars are going on.

Offering tiered tickets with a mixture of free entry to exhibition and paid entry into VIP areas and seminars is a good way to offer something for everyone.

When organizing a hybrid entry event it is important that your event check-in system is capable of matching tickets to access benefits and then your onsite check-in system can determine if an attendee has the right permissions to access the area or seminar they’re trying to get into.

Fortunately, with Just Attend you can do just this and we can also supply the staff and technology at your event to control access to these premium areas.

Planning attendance for a hybrid entry event is not much different than any other, the same rules and turnout expectations remain the same for each part of your attendee demgraphic, paid and free tickets.

You can use the hybrid nature of your event to upsell to exhibitors exclusive access to premium attendees through matched services, meeting bookings, and networking opportunities with your paid clientele whilst also providing good overall foot fall and flow through your event.

Many trade shows around the world employ this method with great success.

Aside from the technical challenges around controlling attendee access to VIP areas you also need to consider other things to help distinguish paid and free attendees.

Here are some tips to help you do this:

• Consider printing different badge designs to distinguish between different types of attendee
  
• Arrange your check-in area with distinct queues for free and paid attendees for a more check-in premium experience
  
• Arrange welcome packs for paid attendees that offer benefits that free attendees don’t get to make them feel valued
  
• Scan in and out every attendee who attends your event each time so that you get a good data that you can use in your foot fall analysis
  
• In your event system ensure that you limit visible access to things like seminars based on the purchased ticket access rights. This way your attendees won’t be confused on which seminars or events they have access to
  
• Offer clear upgrade paths and options on your event platform that allow an attendee to easily upgrade their participation
  
• Have technicians on site ready to help your attendees. Should an attendee want to upgrade their experience to access an area, have someone available to help them do this to capitalize on their spontaneity.

Which Model Is Right For You?

Hopefully by now you’re able to make the right choice for your event and are armed with the insight to that gives you confidence in your decision.

We can help you with your choice no matter which option you choose.

If you choose the free ticket entry you don’t have to start paying for the platform license until you reach 50 registrations. This allows you to start accepting registrations whilst you’re busy trying to secure your first few exhibitors.

If you choose paid tickets, we don’t charge a commission, transaction fee, or withhold your ticket revenue. All payments are processed using your own Stripe account.

If you choose hybrid, you can set up multiple ticket access groups that will restrict what the attendee can see on your agenda based on their registered ticket and you can use our mobile app to validate tickets directly from the attendee badge outside each VIP area.

In all 3 options we offer full onsite badge printing services and even do it yourself by using our software on your own PC.

If you’d like to find out more about Just Attend, book a demo below.