Our top 10 tips for a great pop up event!

10 October 2013

 Pop
up events are everywhere and they have been for a few years now, further to our blog ‘better late than never’, we have now hosted our first ever pop up
event ‘SEA LIFE After Dark’ targeted at the young professional Londoner who wants
a unique experience that is quite literally here today and gone tomorrow.

We’ve
learnt a few things along the way which helped make this event a sell out
success and we want to share them with you. Here
are our top 10 tips for putting on a pop up experience!

1. Take the leap

You
do not have to be a world famous attraction to take the leap into pop
up events. You just need to have a goal of what you want to achieve – a unique
experience!

Small event
caterer or budding chef?Get
your name on the map and create a supper club. Remember Rachel Koo? She moved
from Croydon to Paris with only eight hundred euro’s, put herself on a three
month cooking course at a patisserie and in 2010 opened the smallest restaurant
in Paris in her twenty-one metre squared flat. Next thing she was on BBC2 with
her own show. Off you go!

Event manager for
a corporate brand? Perhaps you’re looking for new ways to reach
consumers with an experience out on the road, check out these guys who will
help you find a space for your pop up, think uber cool spaces at great rates https://www.wearepopup.com/hello/

2. Research
your market – who are they and what do they want

We
were confident there was a market for our After Dark event, we were not completely
confident they would buy. So we asked many young professionals like us (no
children and work a fast pace in the city) if they would be interested? Our
suspicions were confirmed, they could not think of anything worse than
wrestling tourists in central London
on a Saturday. However if someone offered them the chance to come to a unique
experience in the evening, with a drink (always wins) perhaps some food, all at
a competitive price then it might just sway them!

3. Research
your competitors

Do
not stop short of dedicating a day or evening to checking out their event, you
also need to find out how well their event sells, how they market it and how
they involve their customers.  Don’t forget to check out the reviews!

4. Think
about the date and location

Check
there are no other major events on such as fireworks night, think about when
people get paid and think about the actual location; is it easy for guests to
get to and from?

5. Set
up an online ticket page

www.eventbrite.com – need we say more. If
god delivered an angel to the pop up world, this was it. A dinosaur could use
this website it’s that easy and it will give you all the tools you need to sell
your event as well as promote it. Here are our top 3 mini tips for eventbrite:

1. Use promotional codes – you can
set up a code to give certain guests a preferred rate, great for press or VIPS!

2. Use the analytics page to see
where your traffic is coming from

3. Send a survey post event –
automatically linked with Survey Monkey you can send out a post event survey –
keep it short, we recommend five questions.

6. Offer
an incentive

Include
a drink in the ticket price, this signals good value for money or advertise an
early bird ticket price, this is a great incentive for the keen beans and will
get the ball rolling with ticket sales.

7. Find
out where to market your product – what do your target market read online and
offline?

There
are a tonne of London event press who feature ‘whats on’ type listings but not
all of them will come back to you (even if you call and email them multiple
times). Don’t panic…. speak
to the local community websites or local ‘what’s on’ listings in your borough,
it’s surprising how many hits they get! Spend money to make money, we took a
risk and spent money with the Londonist who offered us the BEST package
including social media coverage which drove our ticket sales.

8. Talking
of which, get social!

Make sure you
use all the channels possible to promote your event. Create some fun tweets and
Facebook posts, offer a competition to win tickets, create pinboards or
instagram images which show what your event is about and make sure they link
back to your ticket page. Don’t forget to create a hashtag, you can search it
and see what people are saying about your event.

9. Love
your ambassadors

It’s
not just the press that might review your event, try and find bloggers from
your industry too! Offer them free tickets or free food and drink. Look after them, it might just help you in a great review and these reviews will pop up on google
when people are searching for your event!

10. Accept
that it may not be perfect

It’s
like jumping off a cliff ledge on holiday! Firstly, give yourself a pat on the
back for taking the leap; secondly learn from the first leap and the second one
might be easier! If you gathered a survey of feedback, analyse it. If your
ambassadors attend pop up events all the time, then ask them to compare their
experience.

Come and check
out our upcoming pop up experiences:

Cinema
Club After Dark
https://cinemaclubafterdark.eventbrite.co.uk/

Scream
After Dark Halloween Party https://afterdarkscreamhalloween.eventbrite.co.uk/

SEA
LIFE After Dark
https://sealife-afterdark.eventbrite.co.uk/

This blog was written on Thursday 10th October by Emma Greenfield