Venues Don’t Sell Out…

Venues don’t sell out. You sell them out.*

By this I mean, it’s an active process and the result of relentlessness in multiple areas of continuous improvement. It’s sustainable and explainable.

I once heard an ticketing legend of the 80s and 90s (can’t tell you who but it’s fair to call him a Ticket Master), say that nobody ever sold a ticket. They all sell themselves. In his day, that was somewhat true. He was mostly a music guy and back then, the industry underplayed and undercharged. Concerts were mostly just promotional appearances for CDs.

But that’s long gone. Not just in music and arts, but football and other sports too. You gotta sell, brothers and sisters. You build a sell out brick by brick. You stack up your gains and wins til you finish that wall. Not sure about this metaphor, but you get the idea.

It’s hard work, but the good news is it’s sustainable and explainable. It doesn’t happen to you like the weather. You cultivate it, like a garden. That’s two metaphors, and they’re both valid.

*Sometimes venues DO sell themselves out. All the MLS games with Messi in them last year. Taylor’s tour. Hamilton on Broadway in 2015. I had to beg a publicist to beg a publicist to get this one. But I paid face.

It’s not common but it happens. The problem is that when marketers get a taste of that, they get addicted and spend the rest of their careers wanting to go back…