Membership has its privileges. So do ticket-holders. A ticket to a sporting event says “I have a seat.”
You know the teams participating in your soccer tournament, but do you also know who else is attending? You hope coaches share information about your sponsors, advertisers with parents, players and fans, but are you sure?
Selling tickets would help you manage that vast data you are not now getting, but who would buy a ticket to watch their own kid play in a tournament they have already spent lots of money to participate in? Asking teams to fill out roster data online is always a bit of a dicey game as many won’t due to COPPA laws and other privacy concerns.
But what if you were to be able to get names and emails of parents attending, by simply making soccer tournament event tickets available… for free.
With Eventbrite, you can. (see the real event page we set up for the adidas Warrior Soccer Classic in May)
Our advice
Set up your event on Eventbrite and promote the ticket page to accepted teams and the general public. The benefits to you are:
- An extra level of traction for Google searches on your event when local media outlets compile a calendar for events in your area.
- Deep dive into who is at to your soccer tournament and what they are interested in (in addition to their kid’s games, of course)
- You will also be able to build a marketing list that will make you more valuable to sponsors and advertisers.
- An incentive for ticket-holders. A free sticker when they present a valid ticket at the HQ would be an exceptional premium. You can buy thousands of stickers from Sticker Mule for pennies per and have the added advantage of the teams advertising outside of your event. (check out our Snapchat code stickers here)
Some caveats exist, however:
- DO NOT SELL, RENT OR LEASE THE LIST to anyone. Ever. Manage it internally. If an advertiser wants to send out an offer to the list, do it for them.
- Make sure advertisers and sponsors adhere to YOUR format policies and their creative matches YOUR criteria. Their offer may be valuable, but your list is infinitely more valuable.
- Guarantee the ticket-holders privacy. Take that trust seriously. Word will spread if you abuse it.
- Make sure you explicitly state the free ticket is for the ATTENDEE, not the participating team. It is probably best to only publish the Eventbrite page AFTER you accept teams to avoid any confusion about whether or not a team applied.
Be clear that the tickets are for attendance only. Guard your ticket-holders privacy at all cost. Have fun with the premiums. This is only the start of what you can do for your soccer tournament event when you start “selling” tickets.