This post is part of a series (but, this is the first one) that tells the story of our journey to build our community through events. Here’s why we’re doing it. We are starting off as novices and our goal is to be as transparent as possible as we learn.

A little background

Our first ever event was this past November. We went big, it went great, and we learned a lot. One of the biggest things we learned was to start small and build up. We took that learning and decided to start creating smaller events and doing it often.

To start off, In January, our VP of Product, Beah, wanted to see if she could pull off an event in 1 week, with very little planning. The resulting “Great Beer Experiment” was a success.

With these events under our belt, we decided to make this a real thing. Rachel from our Customer Success Team raised her hand to be the point person, and we’re off and running with the goal of creating at least 1 event every month.

First up: The Flower Potluck on Wednesday, April 30th at 6pm.

The Flower Potluck

We went live with “ticket sales” on 4/18. Ticket sales in quotes because we decided to make it free to see what impact it had on registrations and no-shows. We set a cap of 15, sold them in a few days, upped the cap to 18 and sold those by 4/22. Feelin’ good. This time around, marketing consisted of a few tweets and some emails to friends.

The event was to be outside, picnic style on the grass (free venue). We were providing food (wraps, $200) and wine ($85). We also spent $57 on supplies to cut and bundle the flowers and some extra greens for the bouquets. Total cost was $342.

As the day approached, so did the rain. We briefly debated rescheduling but decided on the morning of to hold the event, but move it inside to the lounge space in our office. We were pretty worried about attendance.

The event time arrived and ::drumroll:: 9 people showed up. The rain was pretty serious — the train tracks by our office were underwater the next morning — so all things considered, we were feeling pretty good about our group. 1 of them was from Ticketleap, 3 were friends of Ticketleap, and 5 people were new to Ticketleap altogether.

Building our community

The event was a lot of fun. The rain helped out with communitas, and the small group bonded over flowers, wine, wraps, and good conversation. It was a successful little experience.

But did this actually make a difference for us? We serve thousands of customers, millions of ticket buyers, and are trying to grow by many millions more. Did this event help us do that?

When we write a blog post, or publish a video, sure it gets pageviews (sometimes not even that), but building true meaningful connections — even just social engagements through retweets, comments, etc. — is difficult. How many meaningful connections come from a blog post that is viewed 10,000 times? Maybe a small handful.

Let’s compare that to the stats from our tiny little event. 5 people were new to Ticketleap and were getting exposure to our brand in its best light and 3 others were strengthening their connection. These event goers shared 18 times on social media mentioning Ticketleap (14 Instagram, 2 Facebook, 2 Twitter), which collectively got 93 likes or comments, and the event page itself got 79 likes on Facebook.

In addition to the easily measurable stuff, each person brought a bouquet of flowers back to their home or office which hopefully led to conversations about Ticketleap. The bouquet lasts about a week, but they also took back a story, an experience with our brand, that lasts much longer. A new community member is at least as valuable as a new customer because they help us spread the word.

If we craft a tweet or write an article, we’d be thrilled with 8 truly meaningful connections with our community + 179 social engagements. After seeing what the tiny little Flower Potluck could do, we’re even more excited about events as a powerful way for us to continue to build our community. Next up? The Spring Wing Phling. Stay tuned.

Some event planning things we learned

• Lighting: Nothing beats sunlight, and if the weather cooperated we would have had plenty. But we moved it inside and under our fluorescent lit office. It is hard to escape the feeling of “I’m at work” with fluorescent lights.
• Fuel social shares: Getting 2 social shares per attendee is pretty good. In retrospect, the reason was pretty obvious: flowers are very photogenic. This wasn’t an intentional move, but it sure worked, so maybe it will be next time! Maybe a contest where a free ticket to a future event goes to whoever can take the best picture on Instagram.
• Go with the flow: We’re really glad we didn’t cancel because of the rain. The people that did come bonded even more.