[Projectleiding] MCH2021 ticket sales timeline

[jeroen at ifcat.org]

Juerd/Attilla,

Clear legal T&C for coupon & ticket sale phases must be completed before announcing this, you do not want to make changes to them in the 1,5 years leading up to the event.
A clear explanation of timelines for coupon & ticket sale phases should also be available and not change for the 1,5 years to the event.

We also need to make clear the 2 reasons why we are doing this:
   1) To enable people who are more difficult to put the whole amount on the table in one go with multiple vouchers over various months, to put money aside to attend MCH2021
   2) Cash flow for the event to make the down payments for terrain tents and infrastructure.

As we are selling tickets for quite a number of months bi-weekly is maybe also a lot of work, monthly should be fine in my opinion.

As for vouchers & guaranteed tickets :
- We should ask ourselves is this really a problem ? I would gladly have to discuss this problem when it actually arises 😊
- A solution could be to sell coupons between April and the end of November 2020, then on 1 December 2020 mail all coupon holders a voucher code to buy an exclusive early bird ticket for the lowest price in the shop to allow them to convert the coupons into shop items.
  That gives them about 25 days of exclusivity to get their ticket before at some Congress day the Shop opens for everyone.
- We can monitor this very well in the shop it is very unlikely that we sell 5000 coupons in the first day, that is a gradual process over months and if we do see this problem arise we have plenty of time to discuss and take action.

Greetings

Netsmurf




> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: Projectleiding <projectleiding-bounces at lists.ifcat.org> Namens Attilla de
> Groot
> Verzonden: 28 December, 2019 10:42 PM
> Aan: Juerd Waalboer <juerd at tnx.nl>
> CC: projectleiding at lists.ifcat.org
> Onderwerp: Re: [Projectleiding] MCH2021 ticket sales timeline
> 
> Hi Juerd,
> 
> > On 28 Dec 2019, at 22:19, Juerd Waalboer <juerd at tnx.nl> wrote:
> >
> > Looks fine, and I'm enthousiastic about the coupon concept. Let's hope
> > our visitors like it as much as we do.
> >
> > Attilla de Groot skribis 2019-12-28 15:11 (+0100):
> >> - April 2020 (day tbd): Start selling coupons — Terms & conditions
> >> ready
> >
> > Just to make sure: the things *under* time point, are dependencies
> > that need to be done first, right? So T&C first, start selling after that.
> 
> That is indeed the intention. Also because of the remarks below, we need to
> be clear on the conditions of the coupons before starting selling them.
> 
> >> - Mid-December 2020: Start ticket sales
> >> - From January 1st 2021, increase pricing bi-weekly with to be
> >> determined value
> >> (...)
> >> - Raising ticket prices after sales starts will, hopefully, incentify
> >> visitors not to buy their at the last moment
> >
> > Although I generally like the concept of increasing the prices (a
> > similar thing with "early bird" rates worked well for HAR2009 iirc), I
> > think bi-weekly is rather gradual. Wouldn't larger steps give a
> > greater sense of urgency?
> 
> We can look at that, it isn’t set in stone of course. The price increase should
> be higher when the steps are larger, but then I’m afraid that this will create a
> rush before these exact dates. I assume that people can use a calculator to
> see what the price will be at a given point in time (or we can just list it in the
> ticketshop).
> 
> >> - Selling coupons gives us, hopefully, necessary cashflow. It will
> >> also give visitors the possibility to “save” money for a ticket if we
> >> provide a ticket guarantee.
> >
> > This "if", does that selling coupons without a guaranteed option to
> > buy a ticket is also on the table? If so, why, and how would that work?
> >
> > How do we deal with unused coupons? Given a guaranteed ticket, this
> > could mean a visitor spot is reserved but only a fraction of the money
> > is paid. Given a non-guaranteed ticket, it could be that someone has
> > paid a part of a ticket but has no chance to buy a ticket when the
> > event is sold out. Will we need to issue refunds? Should there be a
> > coupon-only phase before the regular ticket sales? Is there a deadline
> > for buying your guaranteed ticket?
> 
> I thought about the “if” part after I wrote the e-mail. I think this is something
> we need to think about, because you’re quite correct about this.
> 
> We can make a coupon valid until a certain date (simply not valid and no
> refunds after date x), however if we then sell 5000 coupons, we can’t sell any
> other tickets until this time since people might claim a ticket with their coupon
> if we guarantee a ticket. On the other hand, this might also be a nice problem
> to have of course…
> 
> Do you perhaps have a suggestion on this?
> 
> >
> >> - Having a fixed value increase would still provide the possibility
> >> to give discounts for specific reasons (e.g a discount voucher at EH
> >> or another event)
> >
> > HAR2009 had discount codes, that were nice for statistics too.
> > (Everyone got the discount for HAR, even they didn't have a code.) I
> > wonder if these stats are still available somewhere, as it may give
> > some insight into the more successful marketing efforts.
> 
> Maybe Brainsmoke has something around, but I doubt it will be very useful
> from a statistical standpoint.
> 
> — Attilla
> 
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