Event Promotion Tips

Key dates for ticket sales this festive season

By Ryan Moss
08 Nov 2023
6 min read

The festive season is nearly here.

That’s right. We’ve made it through another year.

Festival season has been and gone, with promoters’ attention turning toward Christmas and New Year.

Across the festive period, we’ve got Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Mad Friday and of course, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. That’s not to mention all of the dates in between when people will be looking to party.

So, to help you in your festive period planning, we’ve put together an article on the crucial dates, with a few ideas on how you can use our tools to promote your events.

Scroll down to get the lowdown.

Black Friday & Cyber Monday

First up? Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Black Friday falls on the 24th November, with Cyber Monday coming three days later on the 27th November.

Both dates can be extremely beneficial for promoters. According to Retail Gazette, online sales are expected to account for 63% of all Black Friday spending in 2023 and UK consumers are expected to spend an average of £189.59 each in Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in 2023. It’s unclear whether the latter accounts for the online and in-person sales, but it’s still a significant figure.

Gen Z lead the way in the sales estimations, with 79% of the people from this generation expected to spend 56% more than the national average.

These are the people who could be buying tickets to your event.

Want to discover what Skiddle are doing to help promoters on Black Friday? Click here and get involved.

Christmas Pay Dates

Paydays will happen as normal in November. So, people will likely be paid either at the end of the month or toward the end.

However, employers tend to change the pay date in December. This is so people have money to cover them over the festive period.

Christmas Day falls on a Monday this year, meaning that employers may move the payday to Friday 22nd. Some employers may have their payday on the 30th December, which could be an advantage for you, because potential attendees will have money in their account just before New Year’s Eve.

If you’re promoting a New Year’s Eve event this year, a wise move would be to promote your event on the weekend before Christmas and in the days leading up to New Year’s Eve.

That way, you’re putting your event in front of people at the times they have a full bank balance. People are more likely to start browsing events and make a choice when they know they can afford to.

Mad Friday

Mad Friday is the 22nd December, the last Friday before Christmas Eve.

It’s a date known for busy streets, lots of music and busy parties. So, Mad Friday could be a great time to organise or promote an event.

If you’re thinking about organising an event on Mad Friday, you’ve got a great chance of attracting attendees. People will be looking for an event to attend so they can let their hair down in preparation for the forthcoming festivities.

Skiddle’s features can help, too. As it’s Mad Friday, you could set up a special discount code for attendees to use. You could run a competition and give the code to the first twenty people who like an Instagram post about the event.

Student Loan Payments

Don’t forget students over this festive period.

Most will go home over Christmas and New Year, but some will stick around or come back in time for New Year’s Eve.

They’ll be looking for a knockout event to attend over NYE, so if you’re promoting an event, they should factor into your promotion.

Our Payment Plan feature can help you promote effectively to students.

Loan payments come in instalments, with the students getting their first payment between the end of September and the beginning of October.

The next payment comes in the following January, so you could set up a Payment Plan to help students spread the cost of their tickets.

There aren’t any limits on minimum and maximum payments, so all you need to do is set the deposit, work out the number of instalments and set up the plan in The Promotion Centre.

Got a question you need an answer to? Give us a call on 03333010301 or ask us a question over on the Skiddle Promoter Twitter account by clicking or tapping on the button below. Alternatively, you can also find a list of our most frequently asked questions over at https://help.promotioncentre.co.uk/