What’s up? My name is Tayleur. I’m an event producer and the founder of Gold Beams (website / Instagram / YouTube). Gold Beams is a production company. We produce events for Black creatives and the Black community at large. We’re also contracted to produce and project manage events for others.
Gold Beams’ internal events have grown from seven people around a dining room table to hosting close to 3,000 attendees annually in three years. I’m going to tell you my recipe for the secret sauce to growing the number of your event attendees.
Like any good recipe, feel free to add your own spice for some kick. Let’s get into the meat of things.
Tayleur’s Secret Sauce
- Unlock your inner scientist.
- Indulge in the obvious.
- Measure your metrics.
- Get a team.
Unlock your inner scientist
I didn’t plan to be an event producer. My background is in marketing. I moved to The Bay for a corporate job at Banana Republic. I didn’t know anyone. I started going to the legendary Speak On It open mic, made artist friends, and started inviting them to my house to perform art at my swanky waterfront apartment with a two-story living room. Remember, venue is key. Seven attendees turned into 15, which turned into 50 within five events.
Early on, I noticed that a chunk of guests would leave early. Upon further research, I noticed they all worked corporately compared to guests who made art their careers. My hypothesis was that the 9-to-5ers came straight from work and didn’t have time to eat dinner. My experiment included ordering pizza for my guests to enjoy for free.
Lo and behold, not only did the audience segment stay longer, but the amount of people that attended what is now our signature monthly open mic, Second Mondays, began to grow exponentially. We now host an average of 150 attendees monthly. I have another experiment to get that number to 300. See the next step in the recipe.
Before I go on, the moral of the story is, be attentive and test, Test, TEST.
Indulge in the obvious
So now Gold Beams has this signature open mic, and I want to double my monthly attendance goal from 150 to 300. How do I plan to do that, you ask? By indulging in the obvious, my friends. Tons of artists hit our stage to perform their art. What do they want? To make art their career, and to be paid lots of money.
Now, obvious doesn’t mean easy. The obvious in this scenario is money. My hypothesis is that cash prizes will make people happy and want to come to my event at a larger rate. I spent half a year fundraising $72,000 in grant awards.
The experiment: I’ll be awarding $2,000 in prizes over the course of several events. Ticket sales are going up!
The moral of the story is don’t be afraid to act on something your audience wants. Be smart. Be strategic.
Measure your metrics
Ever since our first Second Mondays open mic, I’ve been adding up the tickets sold each day during the week leading up to the event. I often include marketing notes like, “It rained,” “There was a Warriors game” or anything else important to note in The Bay.
After almost four years of tracking, I can look at my spreadsheet and forecast the number of attendees by looking at the number of tickets sold seven days before the event within a margin of 10 guests! That’s super-helpful because it helps me staff, alerts me if I need to switch up the marketing, and to mentally prepare because I’m often hosting.
Get a team
I’m a full-time entreprenuer. Gold Beams is my job, and I produce events for a living. Many events. Events that are often happening within the same time period. My inbox is stuffed. My task list is long. There are always new methods I need to explore to increase my production quality, scale, and to connect with my audience better.
The moral of the story is: You can’t do everything by yourself. At some point, you’ll hit a level of diminishing returns. Get a team of people who can help scale your work.
