Coronavirus (Covid-19) Update from Event Genius by Festicket

In light of the uncertainty we currently face around the ongoing spread of coronavirus, the events industry is facing an unprecedented challenge with empty venues, cancellations, customer safety, travel bans and a significant loss in customer confidence affecting all of us on a daily basis.

Here at Event Genius by Festicket, we work with over 4,000 festival and event partners from around the world, and our global team has been working closely with many affected promoters to help reassure customers during these unprecedented times. As a result, we have been fortunate to gain unique insights into the best practices being used across the international live music industry in terms of fan engagement for consumer confidence and the most effective ways to maintain an element of consistency around ticket sales during this period.

We are committed to supporting promoters and ticket buyers during this difficult time, and have therefore curated some recommendations and actions that we hope will have a positive impact on ticket sales and the industry as a whole. We have also highlighted some initiatives we are carrying out ourselves that are already helping our clients.

1. If you don’t currently expect to postpone or cancel your event, publish a statement to reassure your customers of this.

Some key things to cover include that you are planning for your event to go ahead, that you are following the guidance of all the relevant national and international authorities and that keeping your customers up to speed as situations develop is one of your top priorities.

2. Start planning a backup solution to reschedule the event for later in the year.

The large majority of customers that already bought tickets for your event will still want to attend the event even if it is rescheduled. There is still a large number of unknowns surrounding the virus and how it will develop so planning for multiple eventualities is recommended. More events are being postponed each day and so this year, the traditional summer period will be pushed back to later in the year to allow for this. All fans and companies are already planning accordingly.

3. Join our FlexTicket initiative.

The FlexTicket initiative on Festicket gives festival-goers peace of mind with flexible cancellation on ticket or package bookings made up until the 30th April 2020. If you are a festival promoter, join the FlexTicket initiative today alongside the likes of Rock in Rio, Mad Cool, Montreux Jazz Festival and many more. Read the full FlexTicket terms and conditions here.

The response from customers so far has been brilliant allowing us to unlock a dedicated budget to help promote the initiative and all the festivals involved. We recommend that all festival promoters also promote this via their newsletter and social media.

4. Revert to Early Bird ticket prices for March/April 2020.

Releasing an appealing “early bird’ price offer for a limited time period will create an incentive for customers to book their tickets now.

5. All events that action the suggested points above will benefit from a dedicated marketing campaign fully paid for by Event Genius by Festicket.

We’ve had numerous conversations with event, festival and industry partners since last week and strongly believe marketing campaigns will be sustainable for those events that can action our recommendations.

As a result, Event Genius by Festicket will be happy to create a dedicated marketing campaign for your event across all our most successful channels (email, social media, etc…) at no cost to the promoter. Please reach out to your account or campaign manager who will build this for you and share it for approval.

6. Follow expert advice

Lastly, we at Event Genius by Festicket take the safety of our customers, staff and the public at large very seriously. Our best hope in such a situation is to follow expert advice, and as such we defer to the World Health Organization and NHS in the UK for guidance.

Throughout this uncertain time, collaboration across the industry is key. We will remain focussed on and determined in supporting our customers and partners from around the world and will continue to monitor the situation closely.

If you have any thoughts, questions, concerns or even ideas that we should be exploring, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. For further updates as they become available please subscribe to our newsletter below: