Black Friday: How to cash in as an event planner

We’re all aware of those viral Black Friday scenes involving swarms of people, heavily discounted white goods, and (frankly) terrified-looking security guards. But the biggest discount day of the year is still going strong – and it’s not just for people selling physical products. It provides a great promotional opportunity for event planners to sell more tickets and get their names out there, too. Here’s all you need to know 👇.

When is Black Friday 2022?

• Black Friday 2022 – Friday 25th November

Black Friday takes place on the last Friday of the month – or, the Friday after US Thanksgiving (same thing!). So this year it’s on Friday 25th November.

You don’t have to limit your Black Friday deals to just that day, though. Lots of retailers run their discounts for the whole weekend and into ‘Cyber Monday’ (that’s basically an online version of Black Friday – perfect for event planners who sell tickets online). Some even run deals into December. 

Black Friday deals for event planners

There are tons of different ways to offer customers a great deal on your tickets. But ultimately, it all boils down to pretty much the same thing – enabling them to get something for less than they usually would.

It’s worth bearing in mind that Black Friday discounts tend to be pretty generous – that’s kind of the whole point. So just offering, say, 5% off tickets is probably going to fall a bit flat. If you don’t want to (or can’t afford to) run crazy-big discounts on all of your tickets, it’s a good idea to run limited deals – so, on a set amount of tickets, or for a set amount of time.

Now we’ve got the basics out the way, here are some great ways to jump on the Black Friday bandwagon as an event planner: 

Run a simple percentage discount 

Running a simple percentage discount is one of the easiest and effective ways to run Black Friday deals. It works really well for event ticketing because most ticketing platforms let you run promotional discount codes easily online (see below to find out how to run discounts using Ticket Tailor).

As this is Black Friday, you’ll want your discount to be super attention-grabbing. Try combinations like these (you can adjust the numbers depending on the scale of your event):

• 75% off first 100 tickets 
• 50% off tickets for 24 hours 
• 40% off tickets from Black Friday to Cyber Monday

You can check out how to create discount codes with Ticket Tailor here.

Run a buy-one-get-one-free (BOGOF) offer

Running a BOGOF offer is a great way to encourage attendance at your events. Instead of offering a simple 50% discount, you’re selling tickets for half price but you’re also giving attendees a reason to spread the word about your event. Who knows, they might invite someone who’d never have heard of your event otherwise! All the better for promoting your brand, and securing more future attendees. Bingo.

Offer a gift with every purchase 

Offering free gifts with ticket purchases is another brilliant way to join in the Black Friday fun as an event planner. 

Try to get creative with your freebies and make sure they’re genuinely valuable, too. If you’re in the wellness space, why not offer a yoga subscription to ticket purchases, or a piece of fitness tech? For those in fashion or health and beauty, cosmetics and make-up always go down a treat. In the music scene? What about a vinyl album as a gift, or a subscription to a music magazine? 

You could do this by adding a free gift with our add-ons feature.

Create a sense of exclusivity with discounts for subscribers 

If you run regular emails as part of your event promo strategy, it can be a good idea to offer an exclusive discount for your subscribers. You can also use this as an incentive to get new subscribers – say, a 50% ticket discount for anyone who signs up across the Black Friday weekend.

Create group discounts with Ticket Bundles

Instead of offering a discount of individual tickets, why not try out offering discounted ticket bundles? The bigger the bundle, the better the discount should be. So, for four tickets, the discount per ticket could be 30%, while for six tickets, it could be 50%. 

You can check out how to set up ticket bundles with Ticket Tailor here.

Promoting your Black Friday deals

Now you’re all set to run your Black Friday deals, you’ll want to get the word out! Be sure to post about your Black Friday discounts across all your socials, and send out details in any email marketing you do, too.

For more top tips about promoting events, check out our beginner’s guide to promoting an event.

Good luck!