Printing Event Tickets on a Budget

Event promotion is hard work, especially when you're constrained by a tight budget. You have to promote your event and sell tickets but you don't want them to come across looking like kiddie ride tickets. Fortunately, there are some unique and creative techniques you can employ to save money on event ticket printing no matter what your budget.

Cost analysis

The first thing you need to know is how much it will cost to produce high-quality event tickets that look good enough to frame. For economy, choose a standard size such as 1.75-inch by 5.5-inch in either a horizontal or vertical layout. Print on premium 12-point gloss cover paper stock with a glossy sheen on both sides. Make sure your printer offers ticket numbering in blue, red or white ink and perforated tear-off stubs if required.

Based on these specs (including numbering and perforation, as well as full-color printing on both sides) entered into PsPrint's instant printing price quote tool, it would cost just under $2,000 to print 10,000 event tickets (not including shipping to you). At face value, if you can sell all of your tickets a $2,000 investment is rather cheap - if tickets sold for $10 each, you would gross $100,000 from your investment. At $50 each, you would gross $500,000.

Print event tickets for free

If you can get event tickets so cheap, the next best thing would be to print them for free. All you have to do is find a sponsor for your event tickets. In return for covering the cost of printing your tickets, your sponsor (or sponsors) can include an advertisement or coupon on the back of your event tickets. Our working price quote of $2,000 includes full-color printing on both sides, so such a deal would require no more monetary investment.

Likely sponsors include fast food and other restaurants, gas stations, hotels and motels, tourist attractions, and other businesses that can take advantage of event traffic. Many fast food restaurants, for example, would relish the opportunity to market to 10,000 hungry event-goers for under $2,000 - especially if the return home takes them right past the restaurant. A coupon for a free sandwich or fries might be just the ticket!

If you can't find a single sponsor, see if two or three sponsors are willing to split the cost (and the bill). If you have the authority, you can additionally offer other incentives such as a free or reduced-price booth at your event. If all else fails, you might be able to split the bill directly with an advertiser - but again, it should not be difficult to find a business willing to market to 10,000 so cheap.

Event promotion is challenging yet fun, and you can increase your profit margin by finding ways to offset promotion costs. Even high-quality event tickets are economical to print, and even more cost efficient when you can strike deals with sponsors so that you get them for free. And when you're on a budget, there's no better price!

Since 1990, PsPrint has provided better printing and service to nearly 500,000 small business marketers and graphic designers. PsPrint combines state-of-the-art Internet capabilities and the industry's best printing equipment with experienced print professionals and color specialists to deliver convenient online ordering, consistent color matching and 99.7 percent on-time delivery. By offering a 100 percent customer satisfaction guarantee, PsPrint also stands behind every order, every time. More than 70 top-quality and eco-friendly printed products and related mailing services are available online at www.PsPrint.com.