Why Estimate Attendees Numbers And How Do We Calculate Them?

Estimating attendee numbers is crucial for several reasons when planning activities and events:  

• Space and Venue Planning: Knowing how many people to expect helps in selecting an appropriately sized venue and arranging seating or standing space effectively.  
• Budgeting: Estimating attendee numbers helps in budgeting for expenses such as catering, seating arrangements, promotional materials, and more.  
• Resource Allocation: It allows for proper allocation of resources such as staffing, equipment, and materials needed to accommodate the attendees.  
• Safety and Security: Ensuring that the venue can safely accommodate the expected number of attendees helps in maintaining a secure and comfortable environment. 
• Experience Optimisation: Knowing the approximate number of attendees enables organisers to plan activities, entertainment, and amenities that cater to the audience size, enhancing the overall attendee experience.  

To estimate guest numbers, it’s important to work within the parameters of your current membership and be realistic about how many you can reasonably expect to attend. Historical data might give you a good indication of guest numbers, but be aware that current social and economic climates can dramatically affect attendance. You could also join forces with another student group or an academic department if you’d like to run a larger-scale event than your current membership allows. 

To get the best ticket sales, you also need to be conscious of your ticket price, as well as the length of notice you are giving your members. Students are often members of multiple groups and they may have purchased tickets to other events if you’re planning things last minute. If your ticket price is too high, your members might not be able to afford the tickets.

DID YOU KNOW?
You could set up a small (e.g. 10%) deposit ticket to gauge member interest before committing to the contract. You can do this using our ticketing partner Native.fm to seamlessly enable those who have placed a deposit to pay the remaining balance. Find out more about Native.fm and how to gain access here [link coming soon].

Finally, knowing your audience is above all key to estimating your guest numbers. You will need to think about your promotion methods; have you had good engagement with them so far around the event? In previous events, was there a pattern between your promotion engagement and event turn out? If you don't have this data, running some kind of survey to gauge interest before booking may help you to adjust your projections accordingly.

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