Adding Registration Fees to Reduce No-Shows: Does This Make Sense?

June 22nd, 2009 • 2009 Write-off, Communities, Toronto Social Media

This morning, Joe Thornley wrote a post discussing why they’ve decided to start charging a fee for Third Tuesday Toronto (TTT) and Third Tuesday Ottawa, and Justin Kozuch reflected on the topic at his Refresh Events blog. Both seem to concur with the idea that charging a nominal fee (TTT is now $10) will reduce the number of no-shows at the event. Is this the best approach to take? It’s an interesting question certainly; one which I think needs to be examined within the context of the purpose of the event.

I’ll be frank; this $10 fee that TTT is charging will ensure that unless the speaker is someone absolutely spectacular, I likely will not attend any future TTT events. This isn’t a bad thing; I’m not the direct target market for these events, so maybe by not attending I’ll help them get who they’d like.

However, if the purpose of your events are to bring a community together while helping to promote the individuals involved in it, I’m not sure that the nominal fee is the way to go. One of the commentors on Joe’s post said that the industry standard is to open it up to 2.5 times your capacity to account for no-shows. That seems pretty smart by me; opening up for just your level of capacity will never allow you to have a full venue, as something always comes up.

If you’re implementing a fee just to reduce no-shows, I’m not sure that fits with the community building aspect. There’s enough going on in town right now that I don’t need to pay to network with the current Refresh Events crowd, for example. (I still will, but that’s beside the point) Adding a fee to recurring events will certainly help distinguish you from the other events going on, but perhaps not in a good way. If you are planning on adding a fee, at the very least you need to do it at an event that can be perceived as having a higher value of the events in the past. That way, you reduce the shell-shock from having to pay for events which you previously attended for free, and can help ease your crowd into the new system. If you’re still developing your events, your target audience, or the logistics surrounding them, it may not be the best idea to charge a fee. (If, like Third Tuesday, you can’t get your event on the date it’s supposed to be on because that’s what you’re named after, you also might want to think about that – but that’s a personal quibble I have with the Third Tuesday events.)

Just my two cents. What do you think?

Trackback URI.

  • There's a ton of competing factors that make this a real minefield of an issue. My first impulse is to suggest that rather than charge a fee, have no-shows not be allowed to register for future events, while making an allowance for those who register but then alert organizers if they can't make it. However, you don't build a community by banishing people from it. As for paying to sign up, when an event that's been free and has funding lined up starts charging, it can appear as a cash-grab and it can rub people the wrong way.

    Justin, I think your idea works, but I'm not especially keen on refundability being mixed with charity. If a different charity was selected each month and a minimum $5 donation was required to register, I think that's the sweet spot. You would have to make it clear from the outset that it's a donation directly to a cause and not being paid to the event organizers, but that would be a way to do some good and reduce the no-shows by having people committed to showing up. A fee waiver option for current students in order to encourage them to get involved and participate (which far too few of us do) would need to be figured out in addition to this, but could work quite effectively.
  • I really like the idea about selecting a different charity each month. As much as I like to donate (ir)regularly to a select group of charities, I don't want to create a professional bias where it concerns Refresh Events. The problem lies though in using that money generated as a donation to a charity. What if people don't want to donate that money? We can give them that option when they register, but it creates additional work (that's not a cop-out!). We also lose a % of the fee to Eventbrite and Paypal, so we'll need to get in touch with Eventbrite and see what options we have when it comes to using their system.

    On a more positive note, I really like the idea of a fee waiver option for current students, as we are trying to target youth (ie, college/university students). Again, this introduces a new issue: checking for student ID's. We'd need a volunteer to help manage registration, but I feel that's something we can source quite easily.

    I've got a few blog posts to write today, so I think I will dedicate a blog post to this very topic. Thank you for your insight, it's been incredibly valuable. I will see if I can come up with a plan to implement this for future events (and of course, we'll give you props!).
  • One thing I hope groups of any size and industry take into consideration is the doors that the events open up to students. I couldn't be where I was today if Third Tuesday, Refresh, and Web Analytics Wednesday were not free. I probably would still be unemployed, would have made a lot fewer connections and friends, and they would not have been able to help my education.

    So for students I hope all events keep it free, at 3+ events a month, at $10 a pop potentially, then it just becomes unfeasible for students to participate.

    Should those with the ability to pay contribute? If there's more meaning to the money maybe. The idea of the money being donated then not only helps with the issue of no-shows, but it itself becomes a cultural ceremony of that community.

    (not pointing any fingers here) Are these sorts of fees a solution for a management problem? No. So as long as the fees are implemented as such (and not like a group effort for instance), then they'll get this sort of kickback.
  • Good points, Malcolm. Really, it's not just students this affects either; the proper way to run a start-up is to keep all costs at a minimal level, to give yourself time for success. That's not anything revelatory, but it does mean that our start-up community should be considering where its money goes. While there are certainly benefits to attending these events - for advice, or just plain old networking, for instance - more thought would be put into whether such an event is worth attending or not.

    In a way, introducing a fee places a significant burden on the event organizers. As soon as anything more than a quarter leaves my pocket as a registration fee, my expectations are significantly raised. If you're going to charge even a nominal fee, I'm fully expecting that each event you throw is going to have a takeaway for me - otherwise, I'll gravitate towards the multitude of free events offered to our community.
  • You know, that's true. Especially since many of the presentations I see at a few of these are events are 10% informative, and 90% promotion for their business.

    As soon as you give money to attend at event like that, it transforms, and you're basically paying to be sold to.
  • With any new initiative, we are concerned about shell shock, and how it may be perceived/received in the community. The old adage of "You can't make everyone happy" definitely applies here. There will always be folks who don't agree with our decisions, and we have to listen to them as well, and learn how to make them happy.

    I think opening up the events to a bigger, more diverse crowd is far more beneficial to us. Of course, with that comes the problem of sourcing a larger venue. It would be very difficult to put a positive PR spin on using the money to fund a larger venue when we have those other monetization models in play.
  • We have opened up previous events in the past to 2.5 times the capacity, which has ensured a full house. However the issue of no-shows is still just that; an issue.

    What we have been thinking about implementing is a refundable fee of $5. If people show up, they will be given their $5 back. If not, we can donate the fee to a charity of a Kiva member who may need it.

    In keeping with our trend of free events, I'd rather not keep the money (we have other monetization models in play), and instead donate it.
  • That's a really interesting approach - I'm not going to lie, I like it a lot. Are you concerned with the shock of introducing that cost to your community? On the flip-side, would having that cost enable you to use a larger venue and open your events up to a bigger, more diverse group? Which would be more beneficial?
blog comments powered by Disqus

Other Entries

About

Dan Hocking is a lifelong web designer, a social media addict, and a passionate community builder. Currently, Dan is employed by Espresso as their Production Manager. Please read more about Dan here.

All content on this blog is my opinion, not that of my employer or any clients I work with.

Contact

Dan can be reached using the following methods:
E-mail: dan [at] danhocking dot com
Phone:(647) 289-2301
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/D_Hock

Subscribe to RSS

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed here.

Recent Comments

Powered by Disqus