Tip Tuesday - 14 Ways to Boost Attendance at Your Events

You can have the best programs in the world, but if no one knows about them, your work will not be seen. Always focus first on whom you want to attend and how to get them to your event.

Here Are Some Helpful Tips:

• Talk up the event on social media and personally invite friends to it.
• Make personal presentations at other group meetings to encourage support for your program. This gives interested people the chance to ask questions and build enthusiasm. It helps if your group has supported their activities as well.
• Involve as many people in the planning of an event as possible. The more people involved, the more people have a vested interest in seeing the program succeed.
• Send personal invitations to people via campus mail.
• Ask professors to give class credit for attending educational events.
• Use door prizes as incentives for those who show up.
• Give incentives and rewards to those of your members who can bring five or more friends to your event or program.
• See if RAs can get programming credit for bringing their residents to your program.
• Build momentum for future events by talking about the event in the media after it has happened.
• Use table tents in all dining areas on campus to advertise the event. You can probably get a sponsor to pay for the table tents in exchange for the advertising they can get from it.
• Have another group co-sponsor the event.
• Check the campus calendar closely. Make sure there's not a major event already planned which will conflict with yours. Avoid religious holidays and times when classes are extremely demanding.
• Plan your programs as far in advance as possible, then circulate these dates among other campus organizations so (hopefully) they won't plan events that conflict with yours.
• Carefully consider the size of room you use for programs. If the room is too big, people will think the program fell short of your expectations.

This is part of a series of resources that peer education groups have found helpful. A PDF version can be found under ‘Resources’ in the BACCHUS Initiatives section of the website.