Don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know.

Since I know you are curious, here is a little sneak peak:

Stay tuned and get ready for a big announcement by the end of the month!

No related posts.

© Julius Solaris for Event Manager Blog, 2012. | Follow Event Manager Blog on Twitter | Follow Event Manager Blog on Google+ | Add comment |
Post tags:

If you did not have the time to stop by we had a lot of action on the blog.

We also launched a Google+ Hangout where you can ask your questions and get answers!

Here are the most popular posts of last month.

The Best Posts in January 2012

1. Event Startups Are Getting Hot
Event startups are really taking off these days, here is a summary of the hot startups to watch in 2012

2. Check in Your Guests with CheckInEasy
CheckInEasy is a great guest check-in tool we reviewed. Have a look!

3. Plancast Dies
Very sad news. Plancast, a great service for social event attendance, declared it is going to shut down.

4. 10 Event Trends for 2012: The Webinar
The presentation 10 Event Trends for 2012 got over 47K views, here is a version with a voiceover.

5. Use Eventbrite Like a Pro: Beyond Social Media
A sponsored post by the great guys at Eventbrite, lear how to use their great affiliate and SEO functionalities.

Never Miss a Post again

If you are new around here, you can read the latest posts by subscribing to our RSS feed, via Email, on Twitter, Google+ or on Facebook.

Related posts:

1. The Best Posts in November
2. 10 Event Trends for 2012: Free Webinar
3. Plancast Dies

© Julius Solaris for Event Manager Blog, 2012. | Follow Event Manager Blog on Twitter | Follow Event Manager Blog on Google+ | Add comment |
Post tags: checkineasy, event startups, eventbrite, Plancast

Eventbrite just released an infographic outlining the most significant (and fun) stats of 2011.

There are a lot of interesting figures for the event industry.

Online event registration is changing the way we attend events and Eventbrite is leading the way.

Mobile Check-ins on the Rise

The most interesting figure on the report is the number of check-ins done through the Entry Manager app – a staggering 1,193,756!

This really gives you an idea of what is becoming important for our attendees.

Registration needs to be fast and smartphones are becoming a prime identification tool.

20 Million Ticket Sold

Yes, you read it right. More than 20M tickets were sold through Eventbrite.

This number is humongous.

Almost 500K events were published and $39M were raised for charity.

I must say I am am impressed by the latter.

Read more about UK sales figures and number of bacon related events here.

New York and London Lead the Way

NYC and London are the most social, techie and eventful cities.

San Francisco also raks very well.

Read more here.

In Conclusion

There are some staggering stats in this infographic that tell a story for the whole industry.

Bearing in mind we are looking at a less than 6 years old startup with less than 200 employees, these results are even more amazing.

Keep up with the good work!

Related posts:

1. Use Eventbrite like a Pro: Social Media Integration
2. Use Eventbrite Like a Pro: Beyond Social Media
3. Use Eventbrite Like A Pro: Facebook Integration

© Julius Solaris for Event Manager Blog, 2012. | Follow Event Manager Blog on Twitter | Follow Event Manager Blog on Google+ | Add comment |
Post tags: event startups, event ticketing, eventbrite, mobile check-in, mobile event registration, online event registration, online ticketing

A promise is a promise.

Back in November I gave you 3 good reasons to circle Event Manager Blog on Google+, one of the reasons was to have Google+ Hangouts.

I am really keen to know you better, dear readers, and answer your questions.

So here is how it’s going to work…

When is it Going to Happen?

Wednesday the 8th of February at 5pm GMT (10am PST/1pm EST).

I’ll allocate an hour time but it’s likely it will take around 30 minutes, depending on how many questions I’ll receive.

Who Can Participate?

Everyone, but we have limited space. In order to participate, please follow this procedure:

- Circle Event Manager Blog on Google+, you can do that here.
- Ask a question about event marketing and social media, event promotion, event registration, trends for the event planning industry by replying to this post.
- Check out the page 10 minutes before the scheduled time as you will be notified of the imminent start.
- There are 9 spots available. Only the first 9 readers who asked a question will be notified of the Hangout! Be quick, post your question here.

What do I Need to Participate?

- A Google+ Account
- Check out system requirements
- It’s highly likely that I’ll save a recording of the Hangout and show it on the blog. If you are not willing to show your face to thousands of people, do not sign up.
- Make sure to be there as space is very limited, if you do not show up I am afraid I will have to blacklist you from future Hangouts

I Wasn’t Fast Enough, Will You Do More Hangouts?

Yes, can’t say how often, but I’ll do my best. So be quick and post your question here.

Related posts:

1. 3 Reasons to Circle Event Manager Blog on Google+
2. Introducing @EventMB
3. Should you Embed Technology in Your Event?

© Julius Solaris for Event Manager Blog, 2012. | Follow Event Manager Blog on Twitter | Follow Event Manager Blog on Google+ | Add comment |
Post tags: event marketing and social media, event planning questions, event planning tips, event planning trends, google, Google+ Hangouts, social media for events, Webinar

Since last week, I became an investor in Eventasaurus. I’ve also taken up an advisory role with the company.

I am writing to let you know about it as I do believe in full disclosure and that you, dear reader, need to be aware of what I am up to.

Why Eventasaurus?

I got to meet Sam a few months ago and I was impressed by how he nailed a very common problem of the event industry, making sense of all social interaction.

I later decided to cover the launch of the private beta and the post got a lot of attention.

I tried the product and I could clearly see a simple, yet effective idea well implemented.

That is why I decided to get involved.

What about Impartiality?

I like to believe I have always been very biased. When I like something I blog about it, when I don’t like something I don’t blog about it. I am not a journalist and I don’t want to be one.

Impartiality is not fairness.

I’ve always tried to be fair with you readers and with the dozen of companies that try to get on this blog. I covered Eventbrite while I was working for amiando and just last week I covered a direct competitor of Eventasaurus.

I’ll try to do my best in keeping a fair approach and you will always get full disclosure in respect of all media publishing regulations. As always, get in touch if you have comments or feedback.

Going Forward

It’s the first time I invest in anything. I decided to pick an industry I love. We’ll see how it goes

Eventasaurus, I am assured, will take good care of you, my beloved readers, so if you are willing to join the private beta, you can do so here.

Related posts:

1. Eventasaurus: Promote your Event on Major Social Networks in One Click
2. Easily Submit Your Event to Online Listings with Getpromotd

© Julius Solaris for Event Manager Blog, 2012. | Follow Event Manager Blog on Twitter | Follow Event Manager Blog on Google+ | Add comment |
Post tags: eventasaurus, online event management, social media

Thanks to Chris Shipton of Livescribes, you can find him on Twitter @chrisshipton.

Social Media Overload

Related posts:

1. Event Fun #1: Bieber
2. Event Fun #2: The Goody Bag
3. The Rise of Visual Meetings

© Julius Solaris for Event Manager Blog, 2012. | Follow Event Manager Blog on Twitter | Follow Event Manager Blog on Google+ | Add comment |
Post tags: cartoon, comics, event planning comics, social media comics

RFP simplification is quite a hot event startup topic. Event marketplaces are popping everywhere. We all know of Cvent RFP engine and recently Eved got our attention for a massive round of funding.

I anticipated in my 10 event trends for 2012 presentation that 2012 is going to be the year of event dashboards. Here you go!

imbookin is a new player that offers a unique point of contact to manage event bookings.

How Does It Work?

Well, here is a nice video to explain it:

Pretty common situation, right? Usually that means that the startup idea is a winner.

Why Does It Matter?

You can’t really afford to lose any time these days. Anything that improves your time management is worth having a look.

imbookin gets down to details, you can select meal options like buffet or open bar. Details, details, details. We love details, don’t we?

I also like the fact it’s based on recommendations and it stimulates suppliers to use rich media, quite key when selecting a venue online.

If you are a supplier, this should be a no brainer for you.

Where Is It Available?

For the time being it’s only in the U.S. and specifically New York but they tell me they should roll out quickly in Washington D.C., Boston, Chicago, Miami, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.

Bit of a bummer for us in Europe but I guess it’s a great way to test the adoption of the service.

In Conclusion

imbookin is definitely worth your attention, give it a go and test it. Also bear in mind to send your feedback as they are the quintessential startup and will appreciate your opinion.

Disclaimer: Liz Mazzei, director of imbookin, manages our LinkedIn Group‘s NYC subgroup.

No related posts.

© Julius Solaris for Event Manager Blog, 2012. | Follow Event Manager Blog on Twitter | Follow Event Manager Blog on Google+ | 2 comments |
Post tags: book events online, event marketplace, event online booking, imbookin, request for proposla, rfp

Here is the third post in our featured series about optimising Eventbrite to sell more tickets and learn the nifty little features they’ve been able to pull together.

So we’ve looked at its powerful reporting and how it integrates with Facebook.

Today I’d like to focus on a few features that can improve your event marketing effort and for once not only focussed around social media.

Master SEO with proper Title and Description

I remember that when I started to use Eventbrite I immediately noticed the impact it has on SEO.

If you run your own event website, unless you don’t put a lot of work into it, it is going to be tough to achieve the same results on Google.

This is because Eventbrite’s team have optimised pages to show only the relevant information that Google is looking for.

Your event title and description are likely to show up quite high in search engines because event pages belong to the Eventbrite domain that has million of pages and links. Google likes that and you should like it as well.

When you are writing your event title and description make sure you carefully research the keywords you want to be indexed for.

Also pick the right categories as it helps to better segment your event.

Pull the Right Levers with Affiliates

I’ve been asked a lot of times how do you set up an affiliate network for your event?

There are a lot of standalone tools to create a bulletproof affiliate machine.

The problem is that they mostly work in sylos with little integration with your existing marketing and registration system.

With Eventbrite affiliates are part of your dashboard and perfectly integrated with ticketing.

Just click on the “Create Affiliate Link” tab on the bottom left hand side of your event dashboard (n.b. you need to first create an event to see the dashboard) and follow the super easy procedure.

2012 is the year of measurement, so make sure you create different affiliate tiers for different categories that can help promoting your event. You’ll then be able to measure who has helped the most in selling tickets.

Work Out Your Pricing

The early bird has been the most adopted pricing tactic of event marketers for a few decades.

Eventbrite has been built in a way that really captures the power of adapting what they call “cascading ticketing”.

Now please head to the Eventbrite blog and have a good read at this amazing article that takes you through the process of setting up cascading tickets.

Making sure you sell tickets as soon as possible should be your number one priority and Eventbrite is your loyal ally.

In Conclusion

Despite Social Media having the hype, SEO, Affiliates and Sales Management could really give you the edge in selling your event tickets.

Eventbrite is a no brainer solution for all of the above, so give it a go now.

Related posts:

1. Use Eventbrite like a Pro: Social Media Integration
2. Use Eventbrite Like A Pro: Facebook Integration
3. How to Boost Event Registration with Social Media

© Julius Solaris for Event Manager Blog, 2012. | Follow Event Manager Blog on Twitter | Follow Event Manager Blog on Google+ | Add comment |
Post tags: affiliates, cascading tickets, event registration, event ticketing, event website seo, eventbrite, facebook, google, social media

You can sign up here, it’s free.

You can read more about it here.

You can check the presentation here.

See you tomorrow.

Related posts:

1. 10 Event Trends for 2012: Free Webinar
2. 10 Event Trends for 2012
3. Free Webinar: Leverage The 2.0 World To Improve Your Events

© Julius Solaris for Event Manager Blog, 2012. | Follow Event Manager Blog on Twitter | Follow Event Manager Blog on Google+ | Add comment |
Post tags: event trends, event trends 2012, free webinar

I just finished reading this post at Techcrunch and I can’t really accept the news that Plancast is dying.

I’ve been a fan of Plancast. I think they really nailed an aspects of our industry that most event technology companies or startups missed, social event sharing.

Well, it looks like it’s a terrible wake up call for all of us event lovers. Running an event startup is not as easy as we may think.

Cool ideas alone are not enough.

How Does Plancast Make Money?

I don’t know.

Mark Hendrickson makes a very in depth analysis of the dynamics of the social event sharing environment. I don’t agree. It’s like saying that since MySpace failed at nailing social networking, then social networking is to blame.

I actually believe sharing events online is the event marketing of the future and Plancast was fulfilling that future.

What is under the eyes of every event startup lover is just a simple, yet tragic, fallacy: where is your business model?

How could Plancast not monetize on 100K registered users and 230K visits a month?

This is where I get really upset. Pretty much because it is a shame to see such great guys to shut down such a great startup.

If you read the comments to the above post you will notice how people like Robert Scoble make very easy to understand how making money was not really considered.

What should have been done differently?

It is for no one to say other than Plancast themselves.

I believe Plancast made a terrific effort in a very new space.

Failing is important for startups and we need to respect that.

One thing I did not like though was the lack of attention for event planning tools.

What about us event organizers?

Everyone that concentrates on attendees-only services misses a big portion of the pie. Just have a look at startups such as Eventbrite, Cvent and amiando. They are primarily organizers’ tools.

What Now?

I suggested back in the days that Google should have bought Plancast. I hope that some bigger tech companies could use their experience.

In the meanwhile I’ll keep an eye on Lanyrd to see how they perform now that they have their biggest competitor out of the way.

A small note from your editor in chief: social event sharing was just born so please don’t tell me the story it’s complicated and not profitable. I don’t buy it.

If you are thinking about starting up with events technology I have two pieces of advice for you:

- Think about how you are going to make money from day one
- Don’t ignore us event planners as attendees are OUR guests!

Related posts:

1. Will Google Buy Plancast?
2. Plancast vs. Lanyrd: A Comparison
3. Check-ins are About Events not Venues, Says Facebook.

© Julius Solaris for Event Manager Blog, 2012. | Follow Event Manager Blog on Twitter | Follow Event Manager Blog on Google+ | Add comment |
Post tags: announce, event marketing, event technology, google, online social networking, Plancast, shut, shuts, social events, social network service, social networking, startup, technology, wake up calls