The best part of planning and hosting a live event is that you’ll have so many opportunities to earn revenue.  You can make money on ticket sales, t-shirts and premium swag, books, advanced product sales, and even pre-sale tickets for future events. In addition, you can sell recordings of the event itself to attendees and non-attendees alike.

Hosting and guest speaking at live events allowed me to generate the revenue to pay off over $72,000 in student loan debt.

Making the most of your event’s earning power does take a bit of planning, though. Keep reading for some of my favorite ways to monetize my live events!

• Collect Leads – Be sure all your promotions are designed to collect leads. You can do so with online webinars, guest blog posts, free reports and other valuable information.
• Segment Leads – Separate those who bought tickets from those who did not. This way you can still market to the people who did not attend the event but who signed up for a free webinar or another resource. These people may be interested in many things leading up to the event as well as after, such as sponsorships, event recordings or other products and services.
• Seek Sponsorships – Believe it or not, small and large businesses alike are happy to sponsor a well-planned event. Even smaller events can attract great sponsors. The important thing is to show what you can offer in terms of return on investment. In other words, “what’s in it for them?”
• Event Recordings – Both those who attend the event as well as those who did not will enjoy the ability to purchase audio and/or video recordings. You can sell them less expensively to those who were present, or offer them as an incentive to purchase tickets early. Afterwards, market the recordings to those who weren’t able to attend live.
• Workshop Recordings – If your event has workshops with limited seating or which run simultaneously, people will miss some of the workshops in person. Selling mini recordings will solve the problem of some attendees not being able to go a particular workshop.
• Checklists, Tools & Premiums – Help attendees and others to get the most out of your event by offering checklists, tools, and other resource materials. Even items that just help them remember such as t-shirts, mugs and pictures will sell well.
• Follow Up – Don’t stop when the event is done, send follow-ups to everyone including those who did and did not attend. Everyone should be sent immediate notification of future events or products and services related to the event.

Events can keep earning long after the venue is cleaned up and the lights have been turned off. In fact, with event recordings, you can earn an income from the event years down the road by repurposing the recordings, products, and tools in a variety of ways.

These are my tried and tested method to monetizing my live events.  If you are interested in a complete roadmap on how to create, host and monetize your live event with action plans and checklist, check out my Create & Host Your Event course.