The Attendance Problem

As one of the organizers of TEDxUniversityofTulsa, I often encounter interesting problems as a result of our unique relationships with the university, our speakers, sponsors, and attendees. One of the major problems we face, year after year, is attendance. But not in the usual way of having trouble selling tickets - we sold out in just over 24 hours for the 2016 event. More students, faculty, and employees want to come to our event than we can support. And we want to give as many of them the TEDx experience we possibly can! Remaining, of course, within the rules set out by TED and the university.

The Problem

TED restricts the number of attendees at a TEDx event such as ours to 100 individuals. Although we find this restricting at times, there are good reasons for this.¹ So that’s what we’re working with. Our ticketing process is quite simple: We advertise around campus, and open a TicketMaster event about a month before the event. Tickets are free, and 100 are available. First come, first serve. It’s fair, it’s easy, everyone’s happy. Except only about 70 people show up. No-shows certainly aren’t unique to TEDx, and 70% is a decent show for a free event. Still, I know there are students who would love to attend, but missed the initial ticketing - some of them approached me to ask if we could squeeze them in. It’s a challenging issue: How to we get as close to 100 people as possible to attend the event, without going over?

What We’ve Tried

The inaugural TEDxUniversityofTulsa was divided into two different sessions, delineated by our intermission. The idea being that if people could only make half of the event, they could get a ticket for just that half. We had 50 session 1 tickets, 50 session 2 tickets, and 50 all-day tickets. In reality, the all-day tickets sold out quickly, and people began registering for both session 1 and 2. That wasn’t necessarily a problem, but it told us not many people were interested in only staying for half the day. So for 2016 we dropped the idea of sessions, and just sold 100 tickets. It worked, but since not all 100 ticket-owners showed up, I can’t help but wonder if there’s a better way.

Potential Solutions

From discussions with other TEDx team members and attendees, we’ve come up with a couple potential solutions to this problem. None of them are without their faults, however, and we’re constantly looking for better ideas.

Charging for Tickets

We could, of course, charge for tickets. If people are paying to attend the event, they would be much less likely to skip out. TED doesn’t have a problem with charging attendees to “cover the cost of the event,” but Student Association requires that all money raised be donated to charity. We might need to look into the logistics of if a required charity donation counts as a cost of the event, but I don’t foresee a huge problem in the feasibility of this solution. The much bigger problem lies in the fact that I don’t want to charge attendees. TEDx is about the spread of ideas, and I would hate to restrict that process by charging for attendance, even if it’s a small amount that’s going to charity. It seems antithetical with TEDx’s mission, and plus, we don’t need the money. The university is generous enough to give us pretty much all the monetary support we could need. Charging just doesn’t seem like the right solution for our event.

Forfeiting Tickets / Having a Line at the Door

Although I think the concept of removing tickets entirely and just letting the first 100 people in is a crazy idea, I’ve talked to some team members about filling the remaining seats in with non-ticketed attendees after the few first talks, having those that didn’t show up forfeit their ticket. It gives everyone with a ticket an opportunity to show up, and let’s in those who would want to attend enough to show up, but didn’t have tickets. Still, I’m not too warm to the concept. If someone got a ticket and wanted to attend, but couldn’t make it for the first hour, they would end up losing their spot. We could of course have a field on the signup if they were going to show up late, but that adds to another major problem with this plan: It’s more work for the TEDx team on the day of the event. The day is frantic enough as it is, and I don’t want to add onto that workload if I can avoid it. Managing letting people in to fill the vacancies, filling out their nametags on the spot, and keeping track of those who plan on showing up late would just be more to do while the event is going on. Plus, those who we’re guaranteed a spot would have to wait outside in hopes that one opened up, and I don’t want to waste people’s time by having them wait in a line when they may not even be let in at all.

Having an Attendee Application

This is how big TED works, and is actually what they recommend on their organizer’s guide. However, I’m not convinced that having an application is right for TEDxUniversityofTulsa. For one, I know a good number of those who might attend the event, and can’t count on the fact that I’d be unbiased in my choice.² Plus, I don’t know how I would judge if one person is more entitled to attend our event than any other person. I think the event should be open to everyone! So where does that leave me? Raising the barrier of entry to the event (now you have to fill out an application, and may not even be accepted) only to give the TEDx team more work sorting through all the applications and making decisions about who gets to attend all for a possible slightly better attendance rate? It just doesn’t seem worth it.

Livestream the Event

TEDx guideline allow for us to apply for a livestreaming license, which would allow us to stream the event to another hundred people. At face value, this seems like the obvious choice to get more students involved. We can double the number of people watching the talk live! However, it doesn’t come without its costs. If I thought letting people in at the door added unneeded complexity to the day of the event, it looks like a piece of cake compared to setting up a livestream! We would have to secure a whole different venue, have a separate ticketing process (or just let the first 100 in) procure the technology to do an audio and video livestream, all for abiding by TED’s rules when there are hundreds of seats still available in our main venue. Something about that rubs me the wrong way.

Conclusion

As you may have been able to tell, I’ve put plenty of thought into this problem, but have yet to come up with a reasonable solution. Of course every solution will have its downsides, but I’m not sure I’ve encountered a solution good enough to outweigh its drawbacks. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts, though. Am I missing something obvious? Is one of these choices the best available? Should I just accept that turnout is what it is? I don’t know. If you have any ideas, let me know.