Last week we wrote about Eventbrite as an inexpensive and easy-to-use event registration and ticketing service. Yesterday, they announced the beta launch of the Eventbrite Partner Affiliate Network, which enables affiliates to earn money by referring event publishers and promoters to use the Eventbrite service.

While ticketing affiliate programs have been around since about, oh, Day 2 of the Internet, Eventbrite’s program puts a new twist on the model - an affiliate receives a cut of the revenue on every ticket sold by an event publisher who signs up for the Eventbrite service through the affiliate’s web site

If you become an affiliate partner, here’s how it works:

1. Run Eventbrite ads on your site.

2. An event promoter or publisher sees the ad, is intrigued by its promise of easy and cheap event registration and ticketing, and goes to the Eventbrite site.

3. The same event promoter learns more, says “Hey! This makes my life easier and helps me sell more tickets to my event”, and signs up to manage one of their upcoming events through Eventbrite.

4. Let’s say the event is a music festival, and 3,000 tickets are sold at $50 each through Eventbrite. The service fee for each ticket is $1.25. As the referring affiliate partner, you receive 35% of all the service fees collected (3,000 x $1.25 x 0.35), so you earn $1,312.50.

Eventbrite also offers a traditional ticketing affiliate program: if you sell tickets to their events, you earn a commission for every ticket sold through your site.

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Let’s face it, promoting events can be a lot of fun, but managing the event registration, ticketing, and attendee lists can be a real pain without the right tools. Today, more and more event participants expect to be able to register online for events, which means you may need an easy and inexpensive way to facilitate registrations, collect payment information, and manage your attendee list.

If you host small, infrequent events or large events (where there are few types of attendees), all you may need is an event registration tool that allows you to:

• Collect credit card and registration information
• Process credit card charges
• Set up a basic registration form that you can link to from your Web site
• View/export a list of people who registered for your event

Two services to check out are Eventbrite and Brown Paper Tickets.

Eventbrite

With Eventbrite, there are no set up or monthly fees, or ticket fees for free tickets or events. All major credit cards are accepted, and final payment processing is done through Google Checkout or Paypal. Some nice functionality Eventbrite provides is the ability to send email invitations, customize and brand your event registration page, offer discount codes and group discounts, track affiliate/partner ticket sales, and track RSVPs from invites.

Eventbrite also goes a step further and offers to publish your event in search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and…Zvents!

Fees: 2.5% of the ticket price, with a minimum fee/ticket of $0.99 and maximum fee/ticket of $9.95.

Brown Paper Tickets

As the “fair-trade ticketing service”, Brown Paper Tickets is here to change the ticketing industry, as stated in their Bill of Rights. BPT offers similar functionality to Eventbrite, and also includes 24-hour phone orders, assigned seating, password-protected prices, comp ticket and media pool ticket distribution, festival-style ticketing, and the option to print paper tickets (for a nominal fee).

Unfortunately, Brown Paper Tickets does not publish their event information to any of the event sites or search engines (Hey BPT, we’d love to hear from you if you want to give your clients this option).

Fees: 2.5% of the ticket price, plus a fee per ticket of $0.99.

Event Registration Services For More Complicated Events
Planning a more complex event, such as a conference, trade show, or series of events? Idealware wrote a fantastic in-depth post about the features and benefits of several event registration and ticketing tools, including Acteva, 123SignUp, Cvent, and RegOnline.

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If you’re an event planner, you’re constantly looking for new ideas to make your events entertaining, different, unique - in a word - memorable.

Enter Adam Miller Geld, aka Atom, who bills himself as the “World’s Fastest Painter”. Atom paints futuristic space landscapes in front of live audiences, using only spray paint and a knife. Each painting takes about three minutes to complete. We came across Atom at the Special Event conference in Atlanta, where he put on a highly entertaining show for conference attendees:

Atom travels around the country with his unique show, performing at all types of events, including VIP parties, corporate events, concerts, conferences, and other special/promotional events. In a four-hour show, Atom creates about 40 paintings, which are given away to guests who correctly answer trivia questions.

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Graphical Waterfalls® provide the ultimate WOW factor with computer controlled falling water droplets and Milwaukee based Pevnick Design, Inc. is a leading provider. Add some pizzazz to your parties or hire Pevnick Design to make a splash with your logo at a corporate event.

Catch Pevnick Design to see the remarkable technology live at The International Builders’ Show (Orlando, Florida, February 13th - 16th), Euroshop (Messe Düsseldorf, February 23rd - 27th), Digital Signage Expo (Las Vegas Convention Center, Nevada February 26th - 28th), or the Geneva Auto Show (Palexpo, Geneva, March 4th - 16th).

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We had a chance to sit down with Local Biz Bits’ Larry Sullivan who specializes in and promotes local search marketing as a means to help small businesses build on-line visibility. Larry is an independent web marketer and designer in Augusta, GA where you can find him through LRSxpress Web Services. His interest?  Everything from our Facebook app to the Zvents Media Platform which is what our partners use to syndicate events and local search; most importantly, how to use events to promote your business.

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Every year, Special Events Magazine releases their survey “50 Top Event Companies” fairly billed as the list of the most significant providers of event resources.

“from Corporate bashes to fundraisers to high-style soirees”

Not surprisingly, George P Johnson Co. makes the top of the list. The company, who’s founder once cited, “Make no small plans,” continues that legacy through over 1,000 professionals who produce and promote more than 4,000 events each year throughout the world.

TSE Sport & Entertainment serves as one of the best choices for sports related events, with ESPN one of their closest partners, while EventQuest and Jack Morton (blog) leverage experiential marketing to deliver innovative, multi-sensual events.

The list is an invaluable resource for event planners and marketers looking for those experienced resources that can make your event.

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Octane’s Harry Hallman has been looking into social networks and suspects demand for such a service on behalf of event marketers. We whole heartedly agree and encourage you to take the survey they are soliciting in which they ask that very question.

<blockquote>”If you are an event professional please compete this survey. No names are required, but you can get a summary once it is done if you leave your email address.”</blockquote>

Octane, an Atlanta based interactive and analytics agency, leverages new media to deliver effective, efficient results. Hallman a partner with over 30 years marketing experience has, for the last 12, been devoted to interactive and internet marketing. With resources dedicated to platforms such as MySpace and social media, web design, and word of mouth marketing, Octane is worth your consideration set.

Give the survey a few minutes of your time.

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