Brushfire’s Guide to Christmas Events

Seasons greetings to all of our friends from the Brushfire family. Our goal for customers and attendees is to offer the best service possible for all. In this spirit, we created the Brushfire Guide to Christmas Events. Below, we cover the Six Christmas Season topics for all event organizers to consider.

1. Verify event details
2. Communicating with attendees
3. Reports
4. Capacity Management & The Histogram
5. Helping Attendees Locate Tickets
6. Additional Attendee Support

Verify Event Details

First and foremost, please make sure all details for your event are correct. This includes event dates & times, ticket sale ending times, total capacity, branding, special instructions for parking, entering the venue, childcare and what to do if an attendee can’t make the event. One last thing to consider, are you also offering a streaming option? If so don’t forget to connect your Brushfire event to Brushfire Online!

• Checking Event Details: Simply navigate to the event dashboard Main Details. Here, you can verify dates, times, email contact, capacity & donate back!
• Ticket Visibility (sale start & stop times) found under Ticket Types - Visibility.
• Two methods to communicate event details & special instructions with attendees are Emails and  Content section info.

Communicating With Attendees

Communicating with attendees is the single most important aspect of a successful event and often the one thing organizers tend to forget until they need to do it. You can access emails under the event manage page - Emails. 

***For detailed instructions check out the Sending Event Emails guide.***

Communicating with attendees is vital for a few reasons: 

1. 1. Helps alleviate strain on day-of staff & volunteers at the venue 
   2. Decreases attendee stress and confusion about your event. Uncertainty for attendees will in turn create issues leading up to and the the day of the event
   3. Decreases attendee emails. Organizers can become inundated with attendee emails. Provide the details in advance and multiple times to ensure everyone has the correct event information.

Reports

Brushfire offers incredible Reporting features. We have several Standard Reports to choose from. You also have the ability to create custom reports specific to your reporting needs. To view reports navigate to the event manage page - reports.

We know several organizers use Assigned Seat Ticketing (AST) for Christmas events. Two of the most useful standard reports for assigned seating are:

1. Assigned Seat List By Name
2. Assigned Seat List by Seat

***If you have more questions about Reports including creating custom reports check out the How To Create and View Your Events' Reports guide.***

Capacity Management & The Histogram

We all know the basics of capacity management: know how many tickets you can sell and don't go over. One aspect often overlooked is holding back tickets if you tend to sell out quickly. This is beneficial if you consistently have attendees show up without a ticket.

Pro Tip: Histogram - A subtle feature on all Brushfire events visible to admins. The histogram provides a snapshot of the event capacity.

Tickets 

This is a big one! Event Organizers receive 100's and sometimes thousands of emails about the event. This section focuses on how attendees can locate their tickets and have them ready the day of the event. The important part of helping attendees locate their tickets is understanding there are a few ways to locate tickets. Two of the most common attendee questions are:

1. "How do I find my tickets?"
2. "How do I present my tickets at the event?"

Those are great questions and below you'll find the resources to answer both questions efficiently. Hopefully, this will decrease your email count drastically! When communicating with attendees provide the options below.

IMPORTANT - Attendees need the email used to purchase/reserve tickets to locate tickets.

Access tickets - Attendees can locate tickets a few ways:

• 1. My Brushfire tickets found here
     • Locate My Tickets
  2. Confirmation Email
     • Attendees receive a confirmation email immediately after reserving their tickets. The confirmation email contains not only the event info but the order number, attendee number and QR code. 
  3. Logging into a brushfire account 
     • Creating a Brushfire account is not mandatory when purchasing tickets. However, there are some attendees who create accounts. You can provide the following link to attendees to login if this their preferred method - Attendee Sign In

***For detailed guide on Locating Attendee tickets click HERE***

Attendee Can't Locate Tickets - What To Do

If an attendee cannot locate their tickets using the options above the event organizer can locate tickets under the event manage page by searching the attendee name Orders and/or Attendees. 

Day Of Event / E-Tickets 

While accessing tickets is extremely helpful you’ll want to communicate to attendees how you are accepting tickets at the venue. If you are scanning please let them know they need to present a QR code found on the ticket. Attendees will need to print or add the ticket to a wallet. 

1. Add tickets to either the Apple wallet or Google 
2. Print tickets
3. Screenshot the QR code(s)

Pro Tip: Encourage attendees to access and download, save, add tickets prior to arrival as they may not have access to wifi and potentially may have poor cell service. The last thing you, the event organizer wants, is to mitigate 100’s of attendees trying to “find” their tickets at the door.

Will Call 

If your event offers will call make sure to communicate with attendees the location of will call and the process for retrieving tickets. For a detailed guide about Will Call reference the How do I print will call tickets and labels?

Pro Tip: Use the email and filter by will call attendees to send them a custom email with will call instructions.

Exchanging / Donating back tickets 

In an effort to prevent attendees from skipping the event we encourage all event organizers to communicate with attendees what to do if they can’t attend. If you have a no refunds/exchanges policy it’s crucial to not only have this listed on your Brushfire event details page but also send this via email with instructions on what to do if attendees can’t make it.

1. 1. Exchanging tickets - always great if there is availability
   2. Donate back - donate back is a great feature as attendees simply click a button and their tickets are transferred back to the ticket pool.

Additional Attendee Support

Brushfire offers event organizers the option to “add-on” attendee support. This is a great feature for a few reasons:

1. 1. Alleviates strain on your staff
   2. Allows you to focus on the event

If you are interested in adding Brushfire attendee support to your event please contact the Brushfire Support team at help@brushfire.com.