How I Sold-Out My First IRL Event

Started from ground zero. Now, I'm hosting 50 people at the coolest social club in New York?!

To be clear, I would never have imagined that the event would sell out when I started planning it. Actually, I didn’t even know I would host IRL events. Roster Radio started as a podcast. As I was going though the rebrand process, I decided to spread my wings, and expand into live podcast events that would give founders and operators actionable insights they could apply to their work. The value proposition, you ask? Tight panel topics, elevated programming, exclusive venues, and lifelong connections.

So, this event leg of Roster Radio started from ground zero, and catapulted into a beautiful full-production networking mixer last week. Much to my surprise, we sold out a week before the event, with 30 paying guests, and 3 incredible panelists. The caveat was that I didn’t bother reading material like this to map milestones ahead of time—I didn’t really spend much time on planning, just made mental notes, and jumped right into execution.

Thought I’d pop in here to share a breakdown of everything I think led to selling out.

• Branding: Find ways to incorporate branding into all the little moments you’re creating (i.e: event page, collateral for social media, your email signature). I actually had name stickers customized, so every photo would have a little RR in it😉

• Messaging: Messaging is the cornerstone of community. In the planning phase, build out a cadence of communication for both, panelists, and guests.

  • Panelists: You’ll want to make sure you send them weekly updates to get their sign off on collateral, share news about partnerships, share venue limitations, and get their feedback on the programming, structure, and questions for your panel. Find opportunities to give back to them, so they can begin to develop long-term trust in you. After the event, make sure you send them a real thank-you note. If you can afford it, send them a gift too—for lending their expertise and goodwill to your platform!

  • Guests: Engage your guests like your life depends on it. You don’t just want them to buy a ticket and show up day off, you want them to be excited about your event, to talk about it with friends, family, and anyone they meet on the street. For instance, I used some of the data from my panel research—byte sized fun facts about the facial skincare category—as a plug for the reminder email the Friday before the event.

• Partnerships: TBH, I owe the success of this debut event to all the brand partners that supported me. I had a choice of beverages, goodie bags that were spilling over with beauty products, and discount cards for some of the most expensive services in the city! This didn’t just help sell tickets, it also helped lay a foundation for future partnerships. For example, at my next event, I have a ceremonial matcha company organizing a live tasting. Who doesn’t love to share authentic experience with new friends?!

• Mission: If you don’t believe in what you’re creating, nobody else will. Share your story, your ‘why,’ as many times as you can. That’s what panelists and guests relate to. For me, a big priority was to make this event accessible to people between jobs, so I made sure to keep the ticket price affordable.

  

• Feedback: Giving your guests the opportunity to share how their experience was, is such an important step to be able to reflect on (not necessarily) what went wrong, (but) what could be better. Based on this first event, my priorities were:

  • Find a venue that has more space, so more people can join.

  • Make sure there’s A/V set up, so people in the back can hear all the panelists.

  • Design the floor plan for seating in a way that nobody’s view is blocked.

  • Create a ‘Plus One’ ticket type so people can get $$ off for bringing a friend!

Here’s hoping all these tips work a second time too!

I’m using this post as a checklist to plan my second event, slated on August 6th, 2024. If you’re a fragrance beginner (or just curious about the world of scent), come to the next Roster Radio LIVE, at Maxwell Social: https://lu.ma/4zg5289l.

In the meantime, please let me know if you have any tips for me to succeed in the world of events!!