[I’m Sarah Barden, a BizLab Summer Fellow investigating revenue streams for WBUR CitySpace. I just graduated from a dual degree program between Wellesley College and Olin College studying mathematics, engineering, and user experience design, and I’ve started a Master’s in Engineering Management at Dartmouth this fall.]

Two main ways to generate revenue from your audience at events are through tickets sales and donations. Making revenue through tickets sales has been CitySpace’s main source of audience revenue so far, with about $58,000 in net ticket revenue for events since opening in February, through the end of July. 

Asking for Donation at Events

Prior to this summer, CitySpace had not asked event attendees for donations. Based on our data analysis, that over 70% of our attendees are not WBUR donors, yet the majority of event attendees are WBUR listeners and familiar with WBUR’s events and content.

Because of this, we hypothesized this audience was primed to give to WBUR’s CitySpace.  So we decided to test asking for donations both at the event and at the moment of ticket purchase. For our testing, we used two different platforms: GiveLively, a donation platform, and OvationTix, our existing ticketing system. 

We first used GiveLively to test live donations asks during events at CitySpace. The GiveLively fundraising platform is free for nonprofits that includes text-to-initiate donations and a live display showing real-time donations. During events, we could project a screen with instructions on how to donate: 

When attendees text “cityspace” to the number 44-321, they receive a donation link where they can donate using Google/Apple Pay or credit/debit card. The mobile-friendly webpage is shown below:  

We made asks at three different events, receiving $216 in donations from 11 donors. There were 306 attendees total over these three events, so only 3.6% of attendees donated, and donated an average of $19.64 per donation. We had widely varied results across events: most of the 11 donations came from just one event, which we suspect has to do with the emotional content of the event, inspiring people to donate. 

Asking for Donations at Ticket Purchase

After the event donation experiments, we turned on the ability for people to donate to WBUR CitySpace while purchasing or reserving tickets through our ticketing system, OvationTix. 

In the first two weeks this capability was on, we received $167 from 27 donors. There were 585 ticket transactions total, so 4.6% of ticket buyers added a donation — a higher percentage than asking for donations with GiveLively at events.

There was an average of $6.19 per donation, which was significantly less than the average donation through GiveLively. This is likely due to the recommended donation amounts displayed. As seen in the screenshots below, the OvationTix preset amounts were 5, 10, 25, and 50, whereas in the GiveLively test, the presets were 10, 25, 50, and 100. 

Our experiments found that the effort to raise donations at events was high (because of our team needing to break the event flow and coach people on texting to donate) and the yield was lower than the zero effort approach of asking ticket purchasers for donations. Our team will continue to run experiments, including one where OvationTix is set to the same preset amounts as GiveLively, to compare more easily. But our overall conclusion is that donations are best asked at the time of ticket purchase. 

Ticket Pricing

Ticket sales were an existing revenue stream for CitySpace, and we wanted to analyze ways in which this revenue could be increased. Since opening, most events at CitySpace were priced between $0 to $20. We hosted 17 free events, 5 $5 events, 17 $10 events, 12 $15 events, 7 $20 events, and 1 $50 event. 

In the survey discussed in my prior post, we found that price was not a driving factor in attending (which indicates price flexibility) and we received comments about pricing such as “Very reasonably priced which makes it affordable for a broader audience than many other events.” ($20 show) and “Thank you for making this affordable for the whole family.” ($20 show).

This led us to believe that we could raise prices for certain events, but how much and when? Our CitySpace team wants to keep some low prices to have an economically, geographically, and racially diverse audience. Raising the price of all events to $50+ would make events economically out of reach for a desired population. But tickets can not always be free or below cost, because CitySpace needs to remain financially sustainable. 

More evidence for raising ticket prices is the relationship between ticket prices and attendance. In analyzing audience data, we found that that a lower ticket price is correlated with lower attendance. In the chart below, each of the vertical bars is one CitySpace event and the height of the bar is percent of ticket purchasers who attended. If 200 people bought tickets and 100 people came, the bar would be at 50% attendance. The data shows that as the price for events decreases, the percentage of attendees decreases. This relationship makes sense because the more you have financially invested in an event, the more likely it is that you will want to cash in on that investment by attending the event.  

Because CitySpace wants to have some free and low cost tickets to not exclude any groups from attending, a mechanism for addressing the willingness of some to pay higher prices is variable pricing, which is offering different ticket prices for different levels of perks at an event. 

Variable pricing is also a way to increase the number of attendees at an event. If tickets are $20, that might attract 100 people to the event. If there is also a discount ticket price for $10, it can attracts students, senior, or low-income individuals that otherwise would not have come. If there is also a high ticket price for $40 with better seats, for example, this attracts people who have more disposable income and perceive an added value for attending.

In analytical terms, a flat price of $20 might only make $2,000 in revenue, but with three different ticket prices, revenue increases to $3,000. The 100 people who bought regular tickets will still attend the event, but different ticket prices attract new buyers, as outlined in the table below:

To predict future ticket sales revenue based on variable pricing, you can use spreadsheet calculations to plan out how many events of each ticket price you plan to hold. For example, say you plan to aim for 60 events in a year and want half to be free or low cost. Predicting the tickets sold per event and how many of each event will show the total revenue for those events. You can add to this basic model premium and discount pricing, to fine tune the model to determine where variable pricing will most increase revenue. 

The CitySpace team is currently testing variable pricing for events this fall, where higher ticket prices get front row seating and sometimes an extra gift, and they will be evaluating the revenue generated from these events.

Summary

1. For donations at events, we recommend choosing the ask strategy that works for you. In CitySpace’s case, using our ticketing platform to allow ticket purchasers to simply add on a donation was the best route forward, and doing live donation asks will only be done at a few events, since it is not feasible for the team to do live asks at all events. For events where your audience is seated for a long, unique event with breaks, like a conference, gala, or dinner, live asks may work very well.
2. Variable pricing is a wise move to increase revenue while keeping events affordable for certain populations. In particular, variable pricing can attract new attendees that would not have otherwise come. It is worth it to try this method at a few events to test out logistics, revenue amounts, and attendance.

[I’m Sarah Barden, a BizLab Summer Fellow investigating revenue streams for WBUR CitySpace. I just graduated from a dual degree program between Wellesley College and Olin College studying mathematics, engineering, and user experience design, and I am starting a Master’s in Engineering Management at Dartmouth this fall.]

What is WBUR CitySpace?

Since opening five months ago, WBUR CitySpace has held 80+ events, including WBUR programming and partner programming with organizations like The Wilbur (a local, independently-owned venue focused on live comedy) and The Moth (a non-profit holding theme-based storytelling events). The space can seat up to 270 people in a flexible space that includes an open lobby. Exterior glass walls invite curious pedestrians to watch the events and listen on the benches while live audio is streamed outside.

Potential Revenue Ideas

When I arrived at the beginning of June, CitySpace had launched its events and the team was looking for insights into making more revenue. Ticket sales were currently the only audience revenue stream, so the team wanted to explore options beyond ticket sales. I proposed several different areas for exploration this summer: asking for donations from the audience, adjusting ticket prices, membership options for CitySpace, and selling merchandise. 

Understanding the CitySpace audience

First, however, we needed to understand the CitySpace audience to help properly set up experiments. The team had ticket buyer data available for events through our ticketing system, OvationTix (this data doesn’t include any partner events where they handle their own ticketing). I also created a survey to capture more data than the ticket sales from OvationTix. Some of the survey data is shared below, but the next post will go into detail on our survey results! I analyzed these two sources of data to understand:

Is the audience loyal to WBUR or not? Are they donors? Listeners? Not aware of WBUR?

• If the audience already donates to WBUR, are they be willing to donate also to CitySpace?
• If the audience is made up of WBUR listeners who do not donate, will attending CitySpace events encourage them to donate to WBUR or CitySpace? 
• If the audience is unfamiliar with WBUR, could a separate CitySpace events membership make most sense for serving this unique audience.

Do people like CitySpace events? Are they returning to multiple events?

• Can we increase the number of repeat attendees with a paid events membership?
• How can we encourage people to buy tickets to future events with ticket packages and come back?

Are event attendees public radio donors?

On average, we found that 70% of ticket buyers are not WBUR donors. While some events attracted loyal WBUR listeners, many events were attracting outside audiences. With just qualitative observations to reflect on previously, this 70% number was surprising to the team. While they expected a large number of non-donors, they didn’t realize that almost three-quarters of ticket buyers were not “loyal” to WBUR.

WBUR has different membership levels for those who donate to the station: (1) Major donor, a one time gift more than $1,500, (2) Sustainer, a monthly donation of any amount, and (3) Member, a one time donor of any amount less than $1,500.

Although the average is 70%, this percentage varies depending on the type of event. Knowing which events attract which types of audiences can help set audience and attendance goals. For example, is your event for engaging and interacting with donors, or is it to attract new general public audiences? Ticket pricing and marketing should align to these goals. Events like our The Handmaid’s Aria attracted many WBUR donors than average because the team targeted marketing efforts at donors and the topic aligned to our listeners’ interest in the author Margaret Atwood. We knew the event would sell out quickly, so took this strong match of interest from our existing donors as an opportunity to charge a higher ticket price ($50). For the event Tackling Gun Violence, our goal was to attract a diverse, community-focused audience, so we kept ticket prices low ($10) and marketed broadly across the city, without specifically targeting donors in our marketing. The resulting audience reflects this with few donors in attendance. 

Are event attendees public radio listeners? 

In our post-event survey, we asked “Had you heard of WBUR before today?” and we found that 46% of the survey respondents are WBUR listeners, but not donors. This showed that although most attendees are not donors, many of them are still listeners (42% + 46% = 88%). The survey showed a slight difference in non-donor numbers: 58% of survey respondents were non-donors as opposed to 74% non-donors from the ticket data. 

Do event attendees come to multiple events?

To sense if people are enjoying the new WBUR event space, I used our OvationTix ticket buyer data to see how many people bought tickets to multiple, different events and then if they attended them.

Of all ticket buyers, 420 bought tickets to 2+ events, but only 215 of those ticket buyers attended 2+ events. This means that 11.3% of ticket buyers bought tickets to at least two event and 8.8% of ticket buyers have attended at least two events.

(This only counts ticket buyers and does not count their guests, since we don’t know who their guests are each time. If we add in ticket buyers’ guests, the 215 attendees would increase, but we can’t know for sure that ticket buyers bring the same guests every time.)

Now that CitySpace is reaching its sixth month of operation, the number of repeat attendees should begin to increase, and these percentages will be continued to be tracked. In the first few months, the low number of repeat attendees was promising in terms of new audience building. CitySpace was reaching new people with each event and building a large email list to increase awareness.

Summary

Overall, this analysis revealed several potential revenue opportunities to test for WBUR CitySpace: 

1. With 70% of event attendees being non-donors, CitySpace can explore ways to convince these audience members to donate to WBUR CitySpace programming, supporting future events.
2. For the 12% of event attendees who are not listeners or haven’t even heard of WBUR, there are fresh opportunities for increasing WBUR’s brand awareness, which can increase later ticket sales, listening audience, and donations to WBUR and CitySpace.
3. With few repeat attendees, CitySpace can test different membership models now to encourage buying more tickets, through ticket packages or topic-based memberships.
4. Collecting and tracking this data on a repeat basis can help set goals for CitySpace, for example raising repeat attendees to a certain percent, or setting a revenue goal.

Understanding your audience is an important step to identifying potential revenue streams. Factors that influence why people come to events affect how many people buy tickets, if they will come back and buy more tickets, or if they will consider donating. Are they coming because of your station? Do they care about supporting the station? Or are they coming for the topic or performer and wouldn’t care who hosted it? If you have information like audience data, donor data, emailing lists, or ticket sales, understanding your audience is the first step toward brainstorming potential revenue streams.

Date

Tuesday, July 23, 2019, 3-4pm EDT

Speakers

• Matt Aufiero, WBUR BizLab
• Brendan Glynn, WLRN
• Anne Galloway, VTDigger

Recording

http://https://youtu.be/tEyQMSo-AXo