The 4 Ps of event advertising

We interupt your regular scheduled Guild based blogging to bring you the following rant helpful message.

Not often I post on real world topics but I thought I would on this particular issue as it is something I see missed a great deal, have professional experience with, and that is (as the title suggests) how to put information in the advertisement for your gaming event.  Now most of these are done consistently, except one which seems to be weirdly forgotten on a regular basis.

Yesterday I attended the excellent Useless Duplications run by Ben Harris and Claire Hearn, whilst I still maintain the event should've been called Bencon it was logistically very solid. Now I'm going to go into more depth later on in the week about my individual performance, what I've learned about McCabe in these games and how I intend to develop this Master going forward but for now I want to quickly touch on the 4 Ps as Useless Duplications made use of them and it showed by the full house of sweaty sweaty hot nerd flesh.

The 4 Ps are ostensibly:

• People
• Promotion
• Price
• Place

These are essentially the 4 minimum categories of information any event (be it a concert, festival, sporting event or yes indeed a Malifaux tournament) that the ticket buying public need to be aware of in order to make an informed decision as to whether or not they wish to attend.

People

Who is the event for? This bit is pretty much always done, because it's a Malifaux tournament for Malifaux players. We know this bit.  If Warmachine players turn up expecting a game it's because you've not done this bit.  If Magic players turn up to your tournament it's because somebody lifted up a rock and they are apparently everywhere.

Promotion

Again, on the whole, this bit is always done although I have seen it change in the lead up to events (but that was well communicated so all good) . In essence what is it you are promoting? If it is a 5 round, GG2016, fixed Faction, 50ss event on the 5th of May 2016 09:30 - 17:00, say it is a 5 round, GG2016, fixed Faction, 50ss event on the 5th of May 2015 09:30 - 17:00.  If it is a 30ss crew box, 3 round beginner event on October 12th 2017, say so. Equally if you're offering lunch or not offering lunch, tell people.  Tell people all the things!

Price

Tell people how much things cost. This bit is consistently done. Go you guys! 

Place

It was all going so well! and there for some reason this last P seems to get omitted over and over again. I don't know what it is about it,  but I frequently see advertisements for events with just the name of the venue. This is not enough. No it isn't, it really is not.  To misquote Stan Lee "Every Spiderman comic is somebodies first Spiderman comic, so tell them the origin story in every issue" and the same is true of your event advertisement.  Every event advert is the first time somebody has heard of your venue, you may have been going to Bobs house of critical hits for 15 years but I've never heard of it, so I don't know where it is or even what country it is in.  So tell me, put the whole address on there.  Or I won't know if I can come or not.

This was done perfectly for Useless Duplications, I knew everything I needed to which allowed me to make an informed decision about whether or not I could attend. Which I did.

Go look at any concert poster in your home town, spot the 4 Ps.  Now look at your forum post pushing your event and ask yourself if you can do the same thing.  Cheers ;)

TL;DR? Tell people where your goddam event is. Kthxbai.