[Continuing with yesterday’s post which focused on how to proactively learn the artist’s minimum attendance expectation and gauge your Yes RSVPs in advance…..]
Commitment from Yes RSVPs to fill their seat or make a donation
Encourage (or even request) your Yes RSVP's to agree to make a donation to the artist in the event they can't show up. When they make this pledge and if they later discover they can’t attend, they will often find someone else to fill their seat. Or if they cancel and don’t fill the seat, you can open up their reserved seat for a free guest knowing that the absent RSVP guest has pledged to make a donation.
[Note: this idea is fleshed out in 8 Ways to Always Fill the Room.]
Let your invitation list choose your next artist
What if you have more than one compelling artist option for an upcoming concert date? Make it work in your favor. Give your invitation list an opportunity to put some emotional skin in the game.
Send to your invitation list each artist’s CIYH profile link or website link, along with the artist’s minimum attendance expectation. Then ask your list to choose the artist for you. And give them a specific period of time to do so.
So in this case, your invitation list selects the artist and pledges the minimum expected RSVPs, and you finalize the booking. There might be a good chance that your Yes RSVPs will be less likely to cancel knowing that the booking hinged on a minimum number of RSVPs and that they helped select the artist.
[Note: If you like the idea of asking your invitation list to help choose your next artist, would you find it cool to have CIYH create a login website page that presents each artists’ music/bio/recommendations and also allows you to present a running tally of interest in each artist option?]
Summing up
The whole point here is to
a) think of ways you might generate interest in your series
b) proactively avoid a thin guest turnout that you didn’t gauge before you finalized the booking
c) provide incentives for RSVPs to show up.
Initially you might have to be willing to not book an event that doesn't show adequate attendance numbers up front.
In which case, you might want to offer a handful of interim DinnerAndSong events to bolster future interest in your full house concerts.
Which would then allow you to offer a few consecutive well-attended house concerts.
Which might allow you to resume the frequency of house concert hosting you'd prefer, with attendance levels that will please both you and the artists instead of creating angst.
Back to the full list of How-To Blog posts
Next post: When someone cares enough
Recent posts:
May 9 - When an artist wows you and your audience
May 15 - Top Ten Reasons Why DinnerAndSong is Better than House Concerts
May 15 - Artist guarantee – debunking the myths
May 19 - Skyrocketing gas prices – hosts respond
May 23 - Adding BreakfastAndSong to the mini concert menu!!
Jun 12 - Not on our DNS host map yet?
Jun 13 - Another reminder about the essence of house concerts
Jun 14 - Why DNS is such an amazing option for you
Jun 20 - DNS groups (updated)
Jun 26 - How to quickly review artist inquiries for booking
Jun 30 – House concert attendance – get proactive and tame the angst (part 1)
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