Newsletter

The pros and cons of "free"

Build your event pricing around your audience and revenue strategies

Agnes Varnum

08 May 2024 — 9 min read

A colleague reached out to me noting that her organization is producing strong, relevant free conversations but some events have high levels of no-shows resulting in an embarrassingly low crowd. Since most of The Texas Tribune’s events were (and continue to be) free to attend, I’m familiar with this dynamic.

Pros 👍🏽

If your journalism is of the public service variety and your mission is to be as accessible as possible, making an event free is the clearest signal that all are welcome. It’s standard to see 50% drop-off for free events; don’t get discouraged, plan for it.

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Most people will give you an email address to attend a free event.
Free events are a top-of-funnel activity. Collect their email addresses and start building a relationship with those who sign up. Even if they don’t attend, they’ve expressed an interest your work and have left the door open to being engaged. Using an event registration tool that allows you to check in people that attend (and hopefully capture email addresses from walk-ins), you will have a list of those who actually attended and those that didn’t.
Craft customized post-event follow-up messages.
Having a communications plan for each group allows you to strategically engage them. I suggest a post-event survey to those that attended followed by a pitch for money, assuming the event went smoothly and they’ll want to pitch in. For those that didn’t attend, perhaps a link to a video or story from the event, an invite to sign up for a related newsletter, or another action that you’ve found engages casual readers.
Track your total RSVPs, final actual attendance and compute your no-show rate for each event.
Your attendees are giving you usable data to better understand your audience. Your no-show rate will help you plan for future events and should give you ideas about event characteristics to test to lower the no-show rate. You can try tactics like sending more reminders, using a more accessible venue, changing the time, or other creative ideas for generating FOMO next time. Conversely, if your no-show is 30% and starts to slide, review what changes you’ve made that might account for the difference. Outliers aren’t the same as a trend, but you can’t tell that unless you track the data consistently.
Target double the number of RSVPs to get the audience size you want.
If you want 100 people in the room, you need 200 RSVPs. If you have 10K on your invite list and you typically enjoy a 30% open rate, then 3K will open the email; assuming 10% click through, you have 300 people checking out your event. If 50 of those folks RSVP, your conversion is 16% (high and unlikely, another metric to track and work to improve). Not enough to fill the room, you’ll need another 150 RSVPs. So, presumably you’ll send more email to the same people and promote across your organization’s ecosystem, provide partners with promotional materials, and good old fashioned outreach, the elbow grease of event work. Improve conversion through better subject lines, more compelling CTAs, etc. using testing practices you’ve learned for newsletters and membership.
Sell sponsors on the value of making your event accessible to all.
As Evan Smith liked to remind Tribune audiences “Events are free to attend but not free to produce,” or when he was in a salty mood, “This sh*t doesn’t pay for itself.” He spent a fair amount of time at the top of every event thanking corporate and foundation sponsors, in-kind donors, and members, whose financial support made it possible for us to host free events. I also communicated at every touch point that sponsors didn’t play a role in determining event content, speakers or questions. While Evan was comfortable in the business and editorial aspects of this, your organization might decide to separate these functions, but your audience will appreciate transparency in how the event is funded and reassurance that sponsors aren’t calling the shots.
It’s easier to promote free events.Most people at most organizations will be happy to spread the word about a free event. As soon as there is a ticket price attached, their spidey-sense goes off that they might need to get paid to promote it if you are making money. While I know it’s tough (or impossible) to cover event costs with even modest ticket prices for civic events, that nuance is lost on those we beg for favors. It’s an easier ask and an easier favor if the event is free.

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Cons 👎🏻

Be very flexible, organized and communicative with vendors
I would typically plan an event for 150-200 attendees, but I would mark the final date to confirm the room set-up and catering numbers. If I got to that final date and I had 200 RSVPs, I’d have to take the numbers down. I’m now expecting 100 people so I would reduce seating and catering accordingly. Remember that if you have 200 seats and only 100 people in the room, it’s only half-full. If you have 100 seats and 90 of them are full, you have a sell-out. Weirdly, people don’t notice that you could have fit double the number of tables in the room. Instead, everyone feels like it was a success. Trust your understanding of your no-show rate and don’t be above tactics that paint the right picture. Sometimes, more than 100 people would show and I’d have to pull out extra chairs. AWESOME! Nothing feels more like success than standing-room-only (just don’t let it happen regularly).
Disappointing speaker or sponsor expectations
Less so for elected officials since they are used to speaking to groups of varying sizes, but in general, speakers want to know that their time is valued so you want to fill the room on their behalf. Sponsors who were promised 200 people and get half that may likewise be disappointed. The pitch for our events were between 150-200 because that was our average, but if we knew we were going to a rural area or the venue capacity is only 100, or some other factor that might limit the audience, that was communicated so the sponsors’ expectations were appropriately set. When they saw our “oversold” room, they were happy (see Con #1). Our motto was “underpromise and overdeliver.”
Perceived value and uncertain ROI
I never thought that someone RSVPing and then no-showing was because they didn’t think we did good events (I may lack humility). I assumed that life got in the way and without skin in the game, their commitment was low. If you’ve set realistic vs. fantasy goals, this shouldn’t sink you, especially if you are basing assumptions on your tracked data. A post-event review of quantitative and qualitative metrics will hopefully prove you’ve hit your marks. If you’ve fallen short, you’ll need an honest assessment about what went wrong. It’s a learning opportunity and only an issue if you continue to miss the mark. But I’ve seen newsrooms pull the plug on events because of perceived low value or ROI, which is why I started this Substack. I want you to be successful with your events!

When to have paid tickets 🎟️

It looks like more pros than cons for free events and while I enjoyed producing free, open to the public events, there are times when paid tickets are more appropriate.

A ticket price higher than $10 is an investment with an intention to attend. When they’ve paid for a ticket, they are also adding it to their calendar and likely to attend. In my experience, less than $10 will still see a good turnout but there may still be a fair no-show percentage because the investment isn’t high enough. If your event requires everyone to show up for one reason or another, it must be paid. Consider longer promo timelines and modest paid promotion, if necessary.
Celebrities will completely throw off what you know about your audience.I did several free events with high-profile speakers and every time, I lost, as in way fewer people than even standard no-shows. Everyone will RSVP for a celebrity but most of those people aren’t your normal readers/event attendees and are unlikely to show. Trust your normal trends to your regret. I can talk more about this if it’s of interest but bottom line, paid tickets for events including celebrities.
Production costs require ticket sales as part of the revenue pie.The Texas Tribune Festival falls into this category and is one of only a few paid Texas Tribune events. In the early years of the event, the Tribune distributed a lot of comp tickets aiming to build the event audience, but once a comp, attendees don’t want to switch to paid. As the event got bigger, the production costs went up accordingly so when I took over as festival director in 2016, one challenge was to convert comps to paid tickets. I utilized various strategies and it took two years, but ticket revenue rose significantly, along with the production budget. I’ll write another post on the anatomy of TribFest — I’d love to have your questions in comments or send me a message.
High dollar = high qualityWhile we can likely all agree in principle that free events can and should be as high quality as something you’ve charged for, it’s human psychology to see value in things that are expensive or exclusive. For events where the direct public service mission isn’t as clear, for example a one-on-one with a business executive, you may sabotage perception of value by making it free. Pricing too low or too high can torpedo this type of event so do your market research on similar events in your area and test the waters with a median value. If tickets sell out quickly, you priced them too low. If they don’t move, too high. If you are sheepish about charging, consider adding some value, like free drinks or snacks, a swag gift, or something else than helps justify the ticket cost beyond the great program. You can also consider charging a higher price for reserved seats vs. general admission if you still want to have an accessible price point. I’m always surprised at how fast reserved seats sell out so price them high!

Final thoughts

If you need another reason to track event trends, consider that if an event isn’t filling up at a similar rate to events in the past, there may be something wrong with the program. Are the speakers a mismatch for the topic or audience? Is the topic framed correctly for the target audience? If you notice sluggish pick-up, i.e. your not converting at your normal rate, review the program.
A concurrent virtual option may eat in to your in-room audience. I noticed at the end of 2019, the Texas Tribune’s average in-room audience was on the decline while the average livestream audience was trending upwards. If you are offering a livestream, spend time building that audience, and plan to reward those who show up in person by ensuring extra benefits like networking time or catering.
There can be significant differences in regional audience profiles. In a few communities in Texas, people just won’t RSVP at all or they’ll do it a day or two before the event. You’ll get to know your community well but if you travel, tap into local producers’ knowledge to set your expectations for any variance from your norms.
Events are a team sport. Everyone at the org should own their relevant piece of the work outlined above, because events aren’t separate from the work, they are the work if you want events to benefit your organization. Don’t expect a part-time freelance producer to make any of what I’ve outlined above happen for you. If it means you can only host one quarterly event to accomplish what I’ve outlined, so be it.

By now, you might have guessed that I have a high tolerance for anxiety; I admit that I spent many sleepless nights worried over having full rooms. But over time, I learned to trust my understanding of how things would play out. Being an event professional means rolling with the punches of unexpected issues on the day of the program, so someone who can deal with their anxiety and stay calm and flexible on show day are your best bet for staff in charge of events.

I hope this helps frame your thinking around free vs. paid events, but please add your comments or questions.