Audience Building for Event Brands: Best Practices for Discounting and Comp Tickets
In cities like New York, Berlin, or Amsterdam, the scene is established. Venues have decades of history. Promoters have deep rosters of loyal attendees. When a show drops, people move fast. Tickets sell out in hours—sometimes minutes—for the right artist or the right venue, even for local talent and up-and-coming names.
In emerging markets like Toronto, it's different.
Unless you're bringing a class-A headliner—someone with global name recognition or serious hype—people don't kill themselves to buy tickets. They wait. They save the event. They check closer to the date to see who else is going. They decide the day-of based on what else is happening that night.
The scene is still niche. The population of people who care about underground electronic music is limited. You're competing with multiple events on the same weekend, often in the same genre. And even when people want to come, they're not conditioned to buy early or pay full price—because historically, they haven't had to.
Sure, there are exceptions—Electric Island, Veld, and a handful of major festivals still pull crowds. But even popular clubs in the city now struggle to consistently get people out the door.
This creates real challenges:
You can't afford an empty room as it will hurt future events and your reputation
You'll struggle to fill the venue before midnight when everyone knows the headliner doesn't go on until 1 AM
People prefer gathering at home, then heading to the event later
You don't yet have the brand equity to command urgency or premium pricing
This is the reality of building something in an emerging market.
And this is where strategic discounting and complimentary tickets come into play—not as a crutch, but as tactical tools to solve specific problems while you build your brand.
Let's be clear: discounting is a double-edged sword.
When your sales are weak, you compensate by discounting. Early bird pricing that's too aggressive, constant promo codes, desperate last-minute deals. This trains your audience to wait for discounts and devalues your events.
Strong marketing creates urgency and desire without needing to slash prices. It positions your events as experiences worth paying for, builds anticipation, and moves tickets at full value.
But if you're an emerging brand in an emerging market, you're not competing on the same playing field as established venues and promoters. You need different tactics—at least in the beginning.
The key is using discounting and comp tickets strategically, with discipline, so you're building value rather than destroying it.
Here's the key question: Do you truly believe in your show?
If you're confident that once people experience what you're building, they'll come back—if you know the music, the vibe, and the experience are strong enough to convert first-timers into regulars—then strategic comp tickets and discounting can accelerate your growth.
You're not discounting because your event isn't worth full price. You're using these tools to get people through the door so they can see for themselves what you're about. Once they experience it, they'll pay next time.
But if you don't believe in the quality of what you're putting on, or if your event is not resonating well with your audience, no amount of comp tickets will save you. You'll just attract people who show up once for free and never come back.
When Discounting Actually Works: Rewarding Loyalty
There's one scenario where discounting doesn't hurt your brand—when it's positioned as a reward for existing customers, not a desperate move to fill the room.
Early access pricing for your email list. Exclusive discounts for repeat attendees. Flash sales for people who've been to three or more of your shows. These work because they:
Reinforce loyalty rather than training people to wait
Feel like VIP treatment, not desperation
Are time-bound and capacity-limited—when they're gone, they're gone
The key is scarcity and exclusivity. You're not broadcasting "we can't sell tickets" to the world. You're saying "you've supported us before, here's something special."
How to Execute Loyalty Discounting
Make it exclusive. Send the offer via email only to people who've purchased tickets before. Don't blast it on social media where everyone—including people who were about to buy at full price—can see it.
Make it time-bound. 24-48 hours maximum. Set a clear deadline: "This offer expires Friday at midnight." No extensions. No "one more day because you asked."
Make it capacity-limited. "First 50 tickets only" or "Limited to 100 early supporters." Once it's gone, it's gone. This creates real urgency.
Make the messaging clear. Frame it as a reward: "You've been with us since the beginning—here's a special access" or "Loyal supporters get first dibs." Not "please buy our tickets."
This approach reinforces the relationship rather than devaluing your brand. People feel appreciated, not manipulated.
Best Practices for Comp Tickets
1. Use Email First (When Possible)
Ideally, comp tickets go through email only. Target people who haven't purchased a ticket yet or haven't bought in a long time. This keeps distribution controlled and doesn't broadcast to your entire audience that tickets are free.
Build a segment: "Engaged followers who haven't purchased in 6+ months" or "New email subscribers who've never attended." Send them a personal invite with a comp code.
This approach is surgical. You're selectively rewarding or incentivizing specific people, not announcing to the world that you're desperate.
2. When Email Isn't Enough: Strategic Comp Ads
If you're a new brand and your email list isn't big enough yet, strategic comp ads work—but only with strict rules.
Here's how to do it right:
Exclude your paying audience.
Don't show the comp ad to anyone who saw your regular ticketing ads. Use exclusion targeting so the platform continuously looks for new people, not the same ones who were already considering buying. You're expanding reach, not cannibalizing sales.
Exclude anyone who already bought a ticket.
Set up a pixel or custom audience so people who purchased don't see the comp offer. This is non-negotiable. You're not giving away free tickets to people who were already going to pay.
Target strategically.
If your goal is to reach more women, target women specifically. If you want students, target students. If you want to test a new neighborhood or demographic, be precise. Don't just blast comp offers to "everyone interested in electronic music"—that's lazy and wasteful.
Time-restrict the offer.
Want to fill the venue by 11 PM? Make comp entry valid until 11 PM only. After that, people pay. This creates urgency, rewards early arrivals, and solves the "empty room at 10:30" problem without undermining late ticket sales or door revenue.
Make this crystal clear in the ad: "Complimentary entry before 11 PM. Arrive early and experience the full night." After 11, it's regular pricing at the door.
Require registration.
Don't just say "mention this ad at the door." Require people to register with their email and phone number to claim the comp ticket. This builds your contact list and ensures you can follow up with these people for future events.
Use a landing page or Eventbrite with a promo code. Capture the data. That's the real value—not just filling the room once, but building a list you can market to again.
3. Set Realistic Expectations
Expect around 50% of comp ticket holders to actually show up. Plan accordingly.
If you need 100 people in the room by 11 PM, give out 200 comp tickets. Some will flake, some will arrive late and pay at the door instead, some will forget. That's normal.
Don't over-distribute and create a situation where your entire venue is filled with non-paying guests. You still need revenue.
4. Track and Measure
Set up tracking so you know:
How many comp tickets were claimed
How many actually showed up
If comp ticket holders aren't converting into engaged community members over time—if they only show up when it's free—you're not building an audience, you're attracting freeloaders.
The goal is to convert comp attendees into paying customers for future events. If that's not happening, reassess your strategy.
What NOT to Do
Let's be clear about what destroys your brand:
Don't publicly announce comp tickets on social media. "Free entry tonight if you share this post!" is a disaster. You've just told everyone—including people who already bought tickets—that your event has no value.
Don't make comp tickets available indefinitely. "DM us for guestlist" with no time limit or capacity cap trains people to never buy tickets. They'll just wait and ask for free entry every time.
Don't give comp tickets to the same people repeatedly. If someone has been to three of your events on comp and hasn't bought a ticket yet, they're not your audience. Stop giving them free entry.
Don't use comp tickets as a replacement for marketing. If you're relying on comp tickets to fill the room because you didn't run ads or build a list, you've failed before you started. Comp tickets are a supplement to strong marketing, not a substitute.
Don't broadcast desperation. If you're posting "still tickets available!" hours before doors, you're training people to wait. If you're offering last-minute comp just to avoid an empty room, you're signaling that your event has no value. Sometimes it's better to take the L on one night and do better marketing next time.
The Long Game: Building Value, Not Dependency
Here's what matters most: every decision you make trains your audience.
If you constantly discount, they learn to wait for discounts. That’s fine for nights where there are no major headliners. If you always offer comp tickets, they learn to never pay.
But if you're disciplined—if you use discounting and comp tickets strategically to solve specific problems, like filling the room early, reward loyalty, and building your list—you can accelerate growth.
The goal isn't to fill the room tonight. If you believe in your show, use comps to get people to experience it and want to come at full value.
Comp tickets and strategic discounting are tools to get there faster. But they only work if you have the discipline to use them correctly.
Ready to build a real audience for your events?
At AFTR DARK, we help artists, venues, and event brands grow sustainably—without relying on desperate discounting or eroding brand value. If you're ready to build a marketing strategy that actually works, let's talk.