$5300 in $100s please. That's what we said at the bank this morning.
See, whenever you have a free IRL event, you tend to get a lot of no-shows. Plenty of people sign up and RSVP, but ultimately far fewer show up.
This isn't a big deal if you have unlimited space and anyone can just show, but if you want to have an event at a small venue, and you can only host, say, 80 people, you need to have a sense of how many are coming. That's why you require signup, that's why you require RSVPs.
But still, many don't show. We've run into this with our own free events over the years. You "sell out" of space, but you end up with 15 extra seats because people don't show. Those seats could have been filled with people who really wanted to be there. We could charge, which might help, but we really want this to be a free event.
So what to do? How can we find a way to bridge the gap between who says they'll show, and who will really show? How do we shrink the delta?
We're trying something tomorrow.
Tomorrow we have a Breakfast with Basecamp IRL event in Chicago. It's entirely free. As long as you show up.
When you register you're charged $100. And if you show up, you get a crisp $100 bill at the door. So you're made whole, it's entirely free. If you don't show, you forfeit your $100. It costs you money not to be there. A little incentive.
This isn't a new idea. Some restaurants have been charging for reservations, essentially asking you put down a deposit which can be applied to the meal if you show. If not, you lose the deposit.
So we're doing the same thing, except for a free event, and rather than apply the deposit to the meal or ticket price (which we don't have), we just literally hand you back the cost of admission, with a smile.
I'm really curious to see if it works. I'll comment back with the no-show rate and compare it to our last event where we didn't do this at all.
See, whenever you have a free IRL event, you tend to get a lot of no-shows. Plenty of people sign up and RSVP, but ultimately far fewer show up.
This isn't a big deal if you have unlimited space and anyone can just show, but if you want to have an event at a small venue, and you can only host, say, 80 people, you need to have a sense of how many are coming. That's why you require signup, that's why you require RSVPs.
But still, many don't show. We've run into this with our own free events over the years. You "sell out" of space, but you end up with 15 extra seats because people don't show. Those seats could have been filled with people who really wanted to be there. We could charge, which might help, but we really want this to be a free event.
So what to do? How can we find a way to bridge the gap between who says they'll show, and who will really show? How do we shrink the delta?
We're trying something tomorrow.
Tomorrow we have a Breakfast with Basecamp IRL event in Chicago. It's entirely free. As long as you show up.
When you register you're charged $100. And if you show up, you get a crisp $100 bill at the door. So you're made whole, it's entirely free. If you don't show, you forfeit your $100. It costs you money not to be there. A little incentive.
This isn't a new idea. Some restaurants have been charging for reservations, essentially asking you put down a deposit which can be applied to the meal if you show. If not, you lose the deposit.
So we're doing the same thing, except for a free event, and rather than apply the deposit to the meal or ticket price (which we don't have), we just literally hand you back the cost of admission, with a smile.
I'm really curious to see if it works. I'll comment back with the no-show rate and compare it to our last event where we didn't do this at all.
-Jason