Should we charge for tickets?
At Ignite Sydney 4 we raised nearly $1300 for Oz Harvest, which showed that our audience is definitely willing to give back to the community.
We had a voluntary $5 donation at the door, which had drawbacks – namely that Oz Harvest had to walk down Oxford Street late at night with a grand in a bucket….
How would you feel if we sold $5 tickets to the next Ignite Sydney, with the money payable online when the tickets were ordered? As before we would give 100% of the money to a local charity.
With a small charge we could reduce the no-shows which are inevitable for a free event, and raise even more funds for a worthwhile cause. Everyone who works behind the scenes is a volunteer, and we have fantastic sponsors who cover our costs, so we can afford to pass all of the money on to charity.
Please let us know your comments below – do you love the idea, or hate it? Can you recommend ways we could collect the donations without losing money to credit card fees?
Yes you should charge $10. People appreciate an event when they have paid and will commit to go. $10 is the minimum for Moshtix which gives you another distribution channel. Also you can offer 2 for 1 and get the same money as before.
Do it! I’d pay 10 too
I would certainly pay it, and for most people $5 or $10 would not be a barrier. Make sure it continues to be clearly branded ‘not for profit’, i.e. charity is good!
Bring on more Ignites!!
For sure, nobody will qualm about paying $5, especially if it’s going to a good cause.
Not everyone is diligent and books ahead. Not everyone will show up even if they’ve paid a small amount ahead of time. And $1300 is not a particularly huge amount of money to carry around, just have the one of the sponsors offer to underwrite the donations in case of theft and insist on *only* taking notes so the money isn’t bulky.
Thanks everyone for the suggestions.
In the end it became too complicated to charge electronically, what with the tax implications etc, but we’ll look into this for a future event.
Definitely you guys should charge 5 or 10 dolares, people appreciate and give more credit to pay events. Besides, the money is ultimately going to charity…
Why not get a Square!
https://squareup.com/
I’d pay $5 and be even happier if it went to charity