Pay up! Or not, whatever.
So I'm doing a blog about the design/ digital events scene in Manchester and the issue of charging for events.
This is something I've wanted to blog about for a while and will use Get It Out as an opportunity. I hope this seems like a view of the industry from my perceptive and not any kind of rant, although it is quite long...
Disclaimer: This is something I'd be interested to hear feedback on. I'm not saying I'm right, or I know the answer, there's no research behind it, it's just what I've seen.
In the beginning
Over the years I've put on plenty of industry events. It started in 2006 with The Circuit Series. They started up because The Circle Club wanted to get a crowd in early doors. The idea behind this was that attendees might be new customers who would come back, but also because it would get a bar spend in for that evening.
The format was a debate panel, as no one else was doing it. I wanted to make it feisty. Keeping it informal, so people felt comfortable but also well produced, so it didn't feel amateur. Topics differed from business through design to property and Manchester in general. For the panel I tried to get people who were interesting, had differing views and had the 'famous factor' ie: people might just come because it's them. None of the panellists asked for money, social media wasn't as big as it was today and although I did put a lot of work in, we always got audiences. They were often subbed by their companies to attend.
I charged £6 on the door and took the takings and also got a cut of the bar and often sponsorship. It probably didn't cover the amount of time I put into it, but It was certainly enough, because I also enjoyed the events and the people I met at them.
Then the environment started to change. It was the recession. People stopped coming. Speakers started asking for money. A lot of other events started popping up, small meet ups, basic networking events. All of which were free.
I gave up. It was starting to become very difficult to get people to come. I even made them free, but even the idea of even coming and paying for drinks seemed too much for people. So sadly, I put The Circuit Series to rest.
EVENT = FREE STUFF
A few years later, and I watched people expect FREE. In all walks of life. It got even worse with many Twitter people being invited to launch events put on by PR agencies all over Manchester and not only getting in for free, but also getting free food and drinks and sometimes more. 'EVENT' became synonymous with 'FREE STUFF' with hashtags like #launchpartythursdays being banded around and the term 'ligger' being used to describe people on the lookout for a free sandwich.
One of the most disheartening things I saw on twitter (more than once) was someone with a cool little project putting together a little handmade launch party to try to help spread the word of their not-for profit whatever and then people not only asking whether there would be free drinks at the event, but then scoffing and haughtily demanding why they should even go if there was nothing free! To be honest,they were right, I don't know what Miss Fanzine was expecting inviting That Twitter User with all of their 1200 followers to an event with nothing free. I mean, why on earth would they make the effort? They have 1200 followers. What's the incentive? It's certainly not an interesting creative project. Why would anyone want to enhance their lives with that? In fact, just make a bank transfer directly into their account...
...Anyway, I didn't mean that to get so scornful. But things cost money.
The Northern Quarter street party had a backlash for charging. I agree that charging was kind of against the 'let's all club together' mentality of a street party, but I understood that it's not always so easy to run an event for free, and stuff had to be paid for.
I'm attending (not really!)
There seems to be a reaction against this more recently. It's not cool to be a ligger and people have gotten used to the launch party thing and calmed down a little. But in the meantime, all of the networking events that sprang up are carrying on and getting more followers, and there's more and more events until my entire diary is filled up with samey Eventbrite or Meet-up based networking events. Each one has hundreds of people signed up to it's 'I'm attending' list, but less than half of those people will show up. because they sign up for them all 'just incase' and with no commitment.
"Just oversubscribe your event" many would say, but I've seen a couple of disasters when that happens. People standing, not cool, people turned away, worse than not cool. It sounds cool: "yeah people complained, but my event was so popular people had to stand and some where turned away, next time book it quicker" - But that's not how I work. I'd rather stage a professional event where everyone knew they were getting in and could fit appropriately in the venue.
Things are a changing...
Anyway, since The Circuit Series, I've ran quite a number of other events, just for something to do, sometimes freelance, and mostly for free. They've worked out quite well, and I've not had any disasters. I charge for The Feed, to cover venue and equipment costs (It doesn't cover it) - it's not as easy as it used to be, but attendance is quite good. There are other examples; Blab is the bigger sister of Northern Digitals. They charge for their events and they also sell out within hours.
Why Am I getting hung up on attendance?
The problem with not filling the venue is bad for a few reasons:
1) For the speakers: It's terrible presenting to a half empty room
2) For the attendees: So there's no atmosphere and no one new to talk to? Pfft.
3) For the venue: I often get the venue from very trusting venue owners based on a bar spend purely to cover their costs.
If I know in advance there's not much take up, I know to do more marketing.
Charging at Get It Out
Get It Out is my latest venture with Hugh Garry. His time is split between London and Manchester. He feels London has more creative events going on, and that's his motivation behind wanting to set something up. I was keen to get involved, because Hugh has the right contacts and had some great concepts. I love all of the events going on already in manchester, but I do think there's room for more. So long as they're a little different.
We debated the idea of charging, initially, only for one reason. Attendance. The venue is small. We could try the oversubscribe thing, but you can't be sure all of those people wont turn up. Or even will turn up. I've seen it happen. I've had 70 RSVP's to a Circuit Series and had a handful turn up. Even if you charge, a percentage wont turn up, but it limits this to a sensible number.
I was worried about the charge, because I wanted it to be a more friendly affair. I even considered going in blind and not having any tickets or registration AT ALL. Thought it might be quite
interesting to see what happened. Anyway, after a consultation with Hugh and Twitter, I nervously put a £5 charge on the eventbrite page.
We wanted people who wanted to come to come.
What will we do with that money?
We don't know yet. We thought about giving it back to attendees somehow in the form of food and drink or even a raffle. We also liked the idea of having a pot that we could dip into and pay travel for people from far and wide to share their stories with us. Or to put into bigger events.
What's the point in this post?
I dunno, I just wanted to give my perspective on charging for events. What do you think? How do you feel about paying for events? Do you run events and have some thoughts?
